“My father! wilt thou come along with us, or shall I go away alone?”
“Neither the one nor the other. It is not convenient for me to go to Tunis, where I owe money. Besides, I have learned that thy mother has married again. As for thy departure, put it off; thou must be provided for that purpose with slaves, camels, gold, and merchandise.”
My father refused to remain any longer, saying: “I wish to become learned, and all the time I spend here is pure loss.”
Upon this they quarrelled, and my father went away in anger with the caravan, not possessing a single para. But three days afterwards, my grandfather came riding after him, and gave him three camels, four young slave-girls, two black slaves, provisions and water-skins, and a camel-load of gum. My father received the whole, and continued his journey with the caravan; but some time afterwards they strayed from the track and lost their way. Thirst made itself felt, the passage of the desert was prolonged, and the slave-girls and the camels which had been given to my father died, so that he became as poor as before. Well has a poet said, that when Fortune is willing to follow you can lead her with a hair, but when she wishes to turn away, she can break chains of iron.
Heaven, however, had not determined that my father should remain in an extremity of distress. The chief of the caravan became ill, and nobody knew a means of cure. His disease was a brain fever; but my father wrote a passage from the Koran on a piece of paper, and gave it to the sick man, who, with profound faith, placed it upon his head and was instantly cured. In gratitude, the chief of the caravan gave my father a camel to ride on, and placed his bales of gum upon another, so that he arrived in safety at Cairo, and sold his merchandise with a good profit. This done, he again entered the mosque of El-Azhar, and shortly afterwards married my mother. After two years of marriage, he had a son whom he called Ahmed, but who died when he was fifteen months old. He consoled himself by repeating the verses of the poet: “Dear child, star of the heaven, how short was thy time! thou wert like the stars of the last hour of the night!”
Soon afterwards my father started for Tunis, taking with him his wife and mother-in-law, and was received by his brother, Mohammed, who had become a tarboosh-manufacturer. Five months afterwards I was born. It was on a Friday, three hours after the setting of the sun, in the middle of the month of Zou-l-Kadeh, in the year 1204 (1789). Three years afterwards my father, having quarrelled with his brothers, returned to Egypt, and became a humble functionary in the mosque of El-Azhar. Four years afterwards he received a letter from his half-brother, in Sennaar, to this effect: “Our father has gone to the dwelling of pardon of the very high God. He left behind him a great number of books, which have been stolen from us by a certain Ahmed, of Benzareh in the States of Tunis, whom we had received into our house. We are in a condition that rejoices our enemies and afflicts our friends. On the receipt of this letter depart, we pray thee, immediately for this place, and take us with thee. We live as you live. Salutation.”
On reading this letter my father wept, and pitied the misery of his brother and his sister. He determined at once to go and fetch them. I was then seven years old. I had already read the whole of the Koran once, and was reading it a second time, having come to the end of the chapter on the family of Aaron. I had a brother four years old. My father left us sufficient to live on for six months; but we remained a whole year alone. My mother was obliged to sell a great portion of our copper utensils and of her ornaments. Then my uncle Tahir arrived at Cairo and took us under his protection. He came with the combined object of pilgrimage and trade. He had a boy as beautiful as the morning sun in a sky without clouds, named Mohammed. This boy studied with me for some time; but the plague came and he died; and was carried away to the tomb and to the delights of the Houris. My uncle, who had intended to remain some time in Cairo, was so saddened by the loss of his son, that he started immediately for the holy city, leaving me money sufficient for my expenses during four months.[3] But this time passed away, and I was left sometimes not knowing what to eat, and nearly naked. Meanwhile, however, I studied assiduously at the mosque of El-Azhar. One day I learned that a caravan was arriving from Soudan. It came from Darfur. I had learned a short time previously that my father had departed from Sennaar for that country with his brother. When, therefore, the caravan had entered the wakalah of the slave-merchants, I went about amongst them inquiring if any one knew whether my father was alive. After some time I chanced to fall in with one of the traders, who was a grave, respectable man, named Ahmed Bedawee. I kissed his hand and stood up before him.
“What dost thou desire, my friend?” said he to me, in a voice full of gentleness.
“I come to ask for news of some one whom you may happen to know.”
“Who is he, and what is his name?”