CHAP. VIII.
Conversation with the King—With Shekh Adelan—Interview with the King's Ladies, &c. &c.
We were conducted by Adelan's servant to a very spacious good house belonging to the Shekh himself, having two storeys, a long quarter of a mile from the king's palace. He left a message for us to repose ourselves, and in a day or two to wait upon the king, and that he should send to tell us when we were to come to him. This we resolved to have complied with most exactly; but the very next morning, the 30th of April, there came a servant from the palace to summon us to wait upon the king, which we immediately obeyed. I took with me three servants, black Soliman, Ismael the Turk, and my Greek servant Michael. The palace covers a prodigious deal of ground. It is all of one storey, built of clay, and the floors of earth. The chambers through which we passed were all unfurnished, and seemed as if a great many of them had formerly been destined as barracks for soldiers, of whom I did not see above fifty on guard. The king was in a small room, not twenty feet square, to which we ascended by two short flights of narrow steps. The floor of the room was covered with broad square tiles; over it was laid a Persian carpet, and the walls hung with tapestry of the same country; the whole very well kept, and in good order.
The king was sitting upon a matress, laid on the ground, which was likewise covered with a Persian carpet, and round him was a number of cushions of Venetian cloth of gold. His dress did not correspond with this magnificence, for it was nothing but a large, loose shirt of Surat blue cotton cloth, which seemed not to differ from the same worn by his servants, except that, all round the edges of it, the seams were double-stitched with white silk, and likewise round the neck. His head was uncovered; he wore his own short black hair, and was as white in colour as an Arab. He seemed to be a man about thirty-four, his feet were bare, but covered by his shirt. He had a very plebeian countenance, on which was stamped no decided character; I should rather guess him to be a soft, timid, irresolute man. At my coming forward and kissing his hand, he looked at me for a minute as if undetermined what to say. He then asked for an Abyssinian interpreter, as there are many of these about the palace. I said to him in Arabic, "That I apprehended I understood as much of that language as would enable me to answer any question he had to put to me." Upon which he turned to the people that were with him, "Downright Arabic, indeed! You did not learn that language in Habesh?" said he to me. I answered, "No; I have been in Egypt, Turkey, and Arabia, where I learned it; but I have likewise often spoken it in Abyssinia, where Greek, Turkish, and several other languages, were used." He said, "Impossible! he did not think they knew any thing of languages, excepting their own, in Abyssinia."
There were sitting in the side of the room, opposite to him, four men dressed in white cotton shirts, with a white shaul covering their heads and part of their face, by which it was known they were religious men, or men of learning, or of the law. One of these answered the king's doubt of the Abyssinians knowledge in languages. "They have languages enough; and you know that Habesh is called the paradise of asses." During this conversation, I took the sherriffe of Mecca's letter, also one from the king of Abyssinia; I gave him the king's first, and then the sherriffe's. He took them both as I gave them, but laid aside the king's upon a cushion, till he had read the sherriffe's. After this he read the king's, and called immediately again for an Abyssinian interpreter; upon which I said nothing, supposing, perhaps, he might chuse to make him deliver some message to me in private, which he would not have his people hear. But it was pure confusion and absence of mind, for he never spoke a word to him when he came. "You are a physician and a soldier," says the king. "Both, in time of need," said I. "But the sherriffe's letter tells me also, that you are a nobleman in the service of a great king that they call Englise-man, who is master of all the Indies, and who has Mahometan as well as Christian subjects, and allows them all to be governed by their own laws."—"Though I never said so to the sherriffe, replied I, yet it is true; I am as noble as any individual in my nation, and am also servant to the greatest king now reigning upon earth, of whose dominions, it is likewise truly said, these Indies are but a small part."—"The greatest king! says he that spoke about the asses, you should not say that: You forgot the grand signior; there are four, Otman, Fersee, Bornow, and Habesh."—"I neither forgot the grand signior, nor do him wrong, replied I. What I have said, I have said."—"Kafrs and slaves! all of them, says Ismael; there is the Turk, the king of England, and the king of France; what kings are Bornow and the rest?—Kafrs."—"How comes it, says the king, you that are so noble and learned, that you know all things, all languages, and so brave that you fear no danger, but pass, with two or three old men, into such countries as this and Habesh, where Baady my father perished with an army? how comes it that you do not stay at home and enjoy yourself, eat, drink, take pleasure and rest, and not wander like a poor man, a prey to every danger?"—"You, Sir, I replied, may know some of this sort of men; certainly you do know them; for there are in your religion, as well as mine, men of learning, and those too of great rank and nobility, who, on account of sins they have committed, or vows they have made, renounce the world, its riches and pleasures: They lay down their nobility, and become humble and poor, so as often to be insulted by wicked and low men, not having the fear of God before their eyes."—"True, these are Dervish," said the other three men. "I am then one of these Dervish, said I, content with the bread that is given me, and bound for some years to travel in hardships and danger, doing all the good I can to poor and rich, serving every man, and hurting none." "Tybe! that is well," says the king. "And how long have you been travelling about?" adds one of the others. "Near twenty years," said I.—"You must be very young, says the king, to have committed so many sins, and so early; they must all have been with women?"—"Part of them, I suppose, were, replied I; but I did not say that I was one of those who travelled on account of their sins, but that there were some Dervishes that did so on account of their vows, and some to learn wisdom." He now made a sign, and a slave brought a cushion, which I would have refused, but he forced me to sit down upon it.
I found afterwards who the three men were who had joined in our conversation; the first was Ali Mogrebi, a native of Morocco, who was Cadi, or chief judge at Sennaar, and was then fallen into disgrace with the two brothers, Mahomet Abou Kalec, governor of Kordofan, and Shekh Adelan, prime minister at Sennaar, then encamped at Aira at the head of the horse and Nuba, levying the tax upon the Arabs as they went down, out of the limits of the rains, into the sandy countries below Atbara to protect their cattle from the fly. Another of these three was Cadi of Kordofan, in the interest of Mahomet Abou Kalec, and spy upon the king. The third was a saint in the neighbourhood, conservator of a large extent of ground, where great crops of dora not only grow, but when threshed out are likewise kept in large excavations called Matamores; the place they call Shaddly. This man was esteemed another Joseph among the Funge, who accumulated grain in years of plenty, that he might distribute it at small prices among the poor when scarcity came. He was held in very great reverence in the neighbourhood of Sennaar.
The cadi then asked me, "If I knew when Hagiuge Magiuge was to come?" Remembering my old learned friend at Teawa, I scarce could forbear laughing. "I have no wish to know any thing about him, said I; I hope those days are far off, and will not happen in my time." "What do your books say concerning him? (says he, affecting a great look of wisdom) Do they agree with ours?" "I don't know that, said I, till I hear what is written in your books." "Hagiuge Magiuge, says he, are little people, not so big as bees, or like the zimb, or fly of Sennaar, that come in great swarms out of the earth, aye, in multitudes that cannot be counted; two of their chiefs are to ride upon an ass, and every hair of that ass is to be a pipe, and every pipe is to play a different kind of music, and all that hear and follow them are carried to hell." "I know them not, said I, and, in the name of the Lord, I fear them not, were they twice as little as you say they are, and twice as numerous. I trust in God I shall never be so fond of music as to go to hell after an ass for all the tunes that he or they can play." The king laughed violently. I rose to go away, for I was heartily tired of the conversation. I whispered the Abyssinian servant in Amharic, to ask when I should bring a trifle I had to offer the king. He said, Not that night, as I should be tired, but desired that I should now go home, and he would send me notice when to come. I accordingly went away, and found a number of people in the street, all having some taunt or affronting matter to say. I passed through the great square before the palace, and could not help shuddering, upon reflection, at what had happened in that spot to the unfortunate M. du Roule and his companions, though under a protection which should have secured them from all danger, every part of which I was then unprovided with.
The drum beat a little after six o'clock in the evening. We then had a very comfortable dinner sent us, camels flesh stewed with an herb of a viscous slimy substance, called Bammia. After having dined, and finished the journal of the day, I fell to unpacking my instruments, the barometer and thermometer first, and, after having hung them up, was conversing with Adelan's servant when I should pay my visit to his master. About eight o'clock came a servant from the palace, telling me now was the time to bring the present to the king. I sorted the separate articles with all the speed I could, and we went directly to the palace. The king was then sitting in a large apartment, as far as I could guess, at some distance from the former. He was naked, but had several clothes lying upon his knee, and about him, and a servant was rubbing him over with very stinking butter or grease, with which his hair was dropping as if wet with water. Large as the room was, it could be smelled through the whole of it. The king asked me, If ever I greased myself as he did? I said, Very seldom, but fancied it would be very expensive. He then told me, That it was elephants grease, which made people strong, and preserved the skin very smooth. I said, I thought it very proper, but could not bear the smell of it, though my skin should turn as rough as an elephant's for the want of it. He said, "If I had used it, my hair would not have turned so red as it was, and that it would all become white presently when that redness came off. You may see the Arabs driven in here by the Daveina, and all their cattle taken from them, because they have no longer any grease for their hair. The sun first turns it red and then perfectly white; and you'll know them in the street by their hair being the colour of yours. As for the smell, you will see that cured presently."
After having rubbed him abundantly with grease, they brought a pretty large horn, and in it something scented, about as liquid as honey. It was plain that civet was a great part of the composition. The king went out at the door, I suppose into another room, and there two men deluged him over with pitchers of cold water, whilst, as I imagine, he was stark-naked. He then returned, and a slave anointed him with this sweet ointment; after which he sat down, as completely dressed, being just going to his women's apartment where he was to sup. I told him I wondered why he did not use rose-water as in Abyssinia, Arabia, and Cairo. He said, he had it often from Cairo, when the merchants arrived; but as it was now long since any came, his people could not make more, for the rose would not grow in his country, though the women made something like it of lemon-flower.