“Wash him’s face!” cried Antonio, laughing, “him would as soon cut off him’s head. Manganja nevair wash. Ah me! You laugh if you hear de womans ask me yesterday— ‘Why you wash?’ dey say, ‘our men nevair do.’ Ho! ho! dey looks like it too.”
“I’m sure that cannot be said of Kambira or any of his chief men,” said Harold.
“Perhaps not,” retorted Antonio, “but some of ’um nevair wash. Once ’pon a time one man of dis tribe foller a party me was with. Not go way for all we tell ’um. We said we shoot ’um. No matter, hims foller still. At last we say, ‘You scoun’rel, we wash you!’ Ho! how hims run! Jist like zebra wid lion at ’um’s tail. Nevair see ’um after dat—nevair more!”
“Wot a most monstrous ugly feller that is sittin’ opposite Kambira, on the other side o’ the fire—the feller with the half-shaved head,” said Disco in an undertone to Harold during a temporary pause in eating.
“A well-made man, however,” replied Harold.—“I say, Disco,” he added, with a peculiar smile, “you think yourself rather a good-looking fellow, don’t you, now?”
The worthy seaman, who was indeed an exceptionally good-looking tar, modestly replied— “Well now, as you have put it so plump I don’t mind if I do confess that I’ve had some wild suspicions o’ that sort now and then.”
“Then you may dismiss your suspicions now, for I can assure you that you are regarded in this land as a very monster of ugliness,” said Harold, laughing.
“In the estimation of niggers your garments are hideous; your legs they think elephantine, your red beard frightful, and your blue eyes savage—savage! think of that.”
“Well, well,” retorted Disco, “your own eyes are as blue as mine, an’ I don’t suppose the niggers think more of a yaller beard than a red one.”
“Too true, Disco; we are both ill-favoured fellows here, whatever we may be elsewhere; however, as we don’t intend to take Manganja wives it won’t matter much. But what think you of our plan, now that Kambira is ready to fall in with it?”