A few days after this I had a message from the palace. I found the king sitting alone, apparently much chagrined, and in ill-humour. He asked me, in a very peevish manner, "If I was not yet gone?" To which I answered, "Your Majesty knows that it is impossible for me to go a step from Sennaar without assistance from you." He again asked me, in the same tone as before, "How I could think of coming that way?" I said, "nobody imagined in Abyssinia but that he was able to give a stranger safe conduct through his own dominions." He made no reply, but nodded a sign for me to depart, which I immediately did, and so finished this short, but disagreeable interview.
About four o'clock that same afternoon I was again sent for to the palace, when the king told me that several of his wives were ill, and desired that I would give them my advice, which I promised to do without difficulty, as all acquaintance with the fair sex had hitherto been much to my advantage. I must confess, however, that calling these the fair sex is not preserving a precision in terms. I was admitted into a large square apartment very ill lighted, in which were about fifty women, all perfectly black, without any covering but a very narrow piece of cotton rag about their waists. While I was musing whether or not these all might be queens, or whether there was any queen among them, one of them took me by the hand and led me rudely enough into another apartment. This was much better lighted than the first. Upon a large bench, or sofa, covered with blue Surat cloth, sat three persons cloathed from the neck to the feet with blue cotton shirts.
One of these, who found was the favourite, was about six feet high, and corpulent beyond all proportion. She seemed to me, next to the elephant and rhinoceros, to be the largest living creature I had met with. Her features were perfectly like those of a Negro; a ring of gold passed through her under lip, and weighed it down, till, like a flap, it covered her chin, and left her teeth bare, which were very small and fine. The inside of her lip she had made black with antimony. Her ears reached down to her shoulders, and had the appearance of wings; she had in each of them a large ring of gold, somewhat smaller than a man's little finger, and about five inches diameter. The weight of these had drawn down the hole where her ear was pierced so much that three fingers might easily pass above the ring. She had a gold necklace, like what we used to call Esclavage, of several rows, one below another, to which were hung rows of sequins pierced. She had on her ancles two manacles of gold, larger than any I had ever seen upon the feet of felons, with which I could not conceive it was possible for her to walk, but afterwards I found they were hollow. The others were dressed pretty much in the same manner; only there was one that had chains which came from her ears to the outside of each nostril, where they were fastened. There was also a ring put thro' the gristle of her nose, and which hung down to the opening of her mouth. I think she must have breathed with great difficulty. It had altogether something of the appearance of a horse's bridle. Upon my coming near them, the eldest put her hand to her mouth and kissed it, saying, at the same time, in very vulgar Arabic, "Kifhalek howaja?" (how do you do, merchant). I never in my life was more pleased with distant salutations than at this time. I answered, "Peace be among you! I am a physician, and not a merchant."
I shall not entertain the reader with the multitude of their complaints; being a lady's physician, discretion and silence are my first duties. It is sufficient to say, that there was not one part of their whole bodies, inside and outside, in which some of them had not ailments. The three queens insisted upon being blooded, which desire I complied with, as it was an operation that required short attendance; but, upon producing the lancets, their hearts failed them. They then all cried out for the Tabange, which, in Arabic, means a pistol; but what they meant by this word was, the cupping instrument, which goes off with a spring like the snap of a pistol. I had two of these with me, but not at that time in my pocket. I sent my servant home, however, to bring one, and, that same evening, performed the operation upon the three queens with great success. The room was overflowed with an effusion of royal blood, and the whole ended with their insisting upon my giving them the instrument itself, which I was obliged to do, after cupping two of their slaves before them, who had no complaints, merely to shew them how the operation was to be performed.
Another night I was obliged to attend them, and gave the queens, and two or three of the great ladies, vomits. I will spare my reader the recital of so nauseous a scene. The ipecacuanha had great effect, and warm water was drunk very copiously. The patients were numerous, and the floor of the room received all the evacuations. It was most prodigiously hot, and the horrid, black figures, moaning and groaning with sickness all around me, gave me, I think, some slight idea of the punishment in the world below. My mortifications, however, did not stop here. I observed that, in coming into their presence, the queens were all covered with cotton shirts; but no sooner did their complaints make part of our conversation, than, to my utmost surprise, each of them, in her turn, stript herself entirely naked, laying her cotton shirt loosely on her lap as she sat cross-legged like a tailor. The custom of going naked in these warm countries abolishes all delicacy concerning it. I could not but observe that the breasts of each of them reached the length of their knees.
This exceeding confidence on their part, they thought merited some consideration on mine; and it was not without great astonishment that I heard the queen desire to see me in the like dishabille in which she had spontaneously put herself. The whole court of female attendants flocked to the spectacle. Refusal, or resistance, were in vain. I was surrounded with fifty or sixty women, all equal in stature and strength to myself. The whole of my cloathing was, like theirs, a long loose shirt of blue Surat cotton cloth, reaching from the neck down to the feet. The only terms I could possibly, and that with great difficulty, make for myself were, that they should be contented to strip me no farther than the shoulders and breast. Upon seeing the whiteness of my skin, they gave all a loud cry in token of dislike, and shuddered, seeming to consider it rather the effects of disease than natural. I think in my life I never felt so disagreeably. I have been in more than one battle, but surely I would joyfully have taken my chance again in any of them to have been freed from that examination. I could not help likewise reflecting, that, if the king had come in during this exhibition, the consequence would either have been impaling, or stripping off that skin whose colour they were so curious about; tho' I can solemnly declare there was not an idea in my breast, since ever I had the honour of seeing these royal beauties, that could have given his majesty of Sennaar the smallest reason for jealousy; and I believe the same may be said of the sentiments of the ladies in what regarded me. Ours was a mutual passion, but dangerous to no one concerned. I returned home with very different sensations from those I had felt after an interview with the beautiful Aiscach of Teawa. Indeed, it was impossible to be more chagrined at, or more disgusted with, my present situation than I was, and the more so, that my delivery from it appeared to be very distant, and the circumstances were more and more unfavourable every day.
An event happened which added to my distress. Going one evening to wait upon the king, and being already within the palace, passing through a number of rooms that are now totally deserted, where the court of guard used to be kept, I met Mahomet, the king's servant, who accompanied us from Teawa. Such people, though in reality often enough drunk, yet if they happen to be sober at the time of their committing a crime, counterfeit drunkenness, in order to avail themselves of it as an excuse. This fellow, seeing me alone, came staggering up to me, saying, "Damn you, Yagoube, I have met you now, pay me for the trouble of going for you to Teawa;" and with that he put his arm to lay hold of me by the breast. I said to him, "Off hands, you ruffian;" and, taking him by the arm, I gave him such a push that he had very near fallen backward; on which he cried out, in great fury, "Give me fifty patakas (about twelve guineas) or I'll ham-string you this instant." I had always pistols in my pocket for an extremity; but I could not consider this drunkard, though armed, to have reduced me to that situation; I therefore immediately closed upon him, and, catching him by the throat, gave him a violent wrench backward, which threw him upon the ground. I then took his sword out of his hand; and in the instant my black servant Soliman appeared, who had staid behind conversing with some acquaintance in the street. Several other black companions of this rascal likewise appeared; part seemed to defend, and part to intercede for him, but none to condemn him. Soliman, however, insisted upon carrying him before the king with his drawn sword in his hand. But how were we surprised, when the king's answer to our complaint was, "That the man was drunk, and that the people in that country were not used to see franks, like me, walking in the street." He then gave Soliman a sharp reproof for having the presumption, as he called it, to disarm one of his servants in his palace, and immediately ordered his sword to be restored him.
We were retiring full of thoughts what might be the occasion of this reception, when we were met by Kittou, Adelan's brother, who was left with the care of the town. I told the whole affair. He heard me very attentively, and with apparent concern. "It is all the king's fault; every slave does what he pleases, said he. If I mention this to Adelan, he will order the drunkard's head to be struck off before the palace-gate. But it is better for you that nothing of this kind happen while you are here. Mahomet Abou Kalec is daily expected, and all these things will be put upon another footing. In the mean time, keep at home as much as possible, and never go out without two or three black people along with you, servants, or others. While you are in my brother's house, as you now are, and we alive, there is no body dares molest you, and you are perfectly at liberty to refuse or admit any person you please, whether they come from the king or not, by only saying, Adelan forbids you. I will answer for the rest. The less you come here the better, and never venture into the street at night."
At this instant a message from the king called him in. I went away, better satisfied than before, because I now had learned there was a place in that town where I could remain in safety, and I was resolved there to await the arrival of Abou Kalec, to whom I looked up as to the means Providence was to use to free me from the designs the king was apparently meditating against me. I was more confirmed in the belief of these bad intentions, by a conversation he had with Hagi Belal, to whom he said, That he was very credibly informed I had along with me above 2000 ounces of gold, besides a quantity of silver, and rich embroideries from India, from which last place, and not from Cairo, I was come as a merchant, and not a physician. I resolved, therefore, to keep close at home, and to put into some form the observations that I had made upon this extraordinary government; a monarchy that had started up, as it were, in our days, and of which no traveller has as yet given the smallest account.
