Negro insolence was dealt with as summarily. The Arabs had persuaded the Wasawahili, and even the Creoles, that a white man is a being below contempt, and the ‘poor African’ eagerly carried out the theory. Only 17 years have elapsed (1857) since a certain trading-consul, Mr W—, in consular hat and sword, was horsed upon a servile back, and was solemnly ‘bakur’d,’ in his own consular house, under his own consular flag. This occurrence was afterwards denied by the best of all authorities, the gentleman who told the tale: I have, however, every reason to believe it. A Msawahili would at any time enter the merchant’s office, dispose his sandaled or bare feet upon the table or the bureau, call for cognac, and, if refused, draw his dagger. Impudent fishermen would anchor their craft below the windows of the British Consulate, and, clinging to the mast-top, enjoy with derision the spectacle of feeding Kafirs. The Arabs jostled strangers in the streets, drove them from the centre, and compelled them to pass by the wall. At night no one dared to carry a lantern, which would inevitably have been knocked out of his hand; and a promenade in the dark usually caused insults, sometimes a bastinado. To such a pitch rose contempt for the ‘Faranj,’ that even the ‘mild Hindus,’—our ‘fellow-subjects’ from Cutch and other parts of Western India,—could not preserve with a European the semblance of civility.
Time was required to uproot an evil made inveterate, as in Japan, by mercantile tameness, and by the precept quocunque modo rem. Patience, the Sayyid’s increasing good-will, and at times a rough measure which brought the negro man to a ‘sense of his duty,’ were at last successful, and the result now is that the Englishman is better received here than at any of our Presidencies. The change is wholly the work of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, who, in the strenuous and unremitting discharge of his duties, has lost youth, strength, and health. The iron constitution of this valuable public servant—I have quoted merely one specimen of his worth—has been undermined by the terrible fever, and at fifty his head bears the ‘blossoms of the grave,’ as though it had seen its seventieth summer.
Before we could set out a guide, a Mahmandar a Cafilah-báshí or Kirangozi, was requisite, and this necessary was soon provided by the ‘Sea of Milk.’ Saíd bin Sálim el Lamki, the companion of our way for many a weary league, must not depart this life unsketched. He is a half-caste Arab, as is shown by the wiry, woolly hair, which he generally, however, removes with care; by his dead yellow skin; by scanty mustachios, and by a heard which no pulling will lengthen. Short, thin, and delicate; a kind of man for the pocket; with weak and prominent eyes, the long protruding beak of a young bird, loose lips, and regular teeth dyed by betel to the crimson of chess-men, he owns to 40, and he shows 45. Of noble family on the father’s side, the Benu Lamk of the Hináwi, he was born when his progenitor governed Kilwa, hence his African blood; and he has himself commanded at the little port Sa’adani. Yet has not dignity invested him with the outer show of authority. He says ‘Karrib,’—draw near!—to all, simple and gentle. He cannot beat his naughty bondsmen, though he perpetually quotes Ali the Khalifeh—
‘Buy not the slave but with staff and sword;
Or the lord will slave, and the slave will lord.’
I have heard, him address, with ‘rotund mouth,’ his small boy Faraj, a demon of impudence; yet he is mostly ashamed to scold. This results from his extreme timidity and nervousness. He never appears abroad without the longest of daggers and a two-handed blade fit for Richard of England. He will sleep in an oven rather than open the door when a leopard has been talked of: on board ship he groans like a colicky patient at every ‘lop,’ and a shipped sea brings from his lips the involuntary squeak of mortal agony. In the hour of perfect safety he has a certain quietness of manner and mildly valorous talk which are exceedingly likely to impose. He cannot bear hunger or thirst, fatigue or want of sleep, and until Fate threw him in our way he probably never walked a single consecutive mile. Though owner of a wife, and of three quasi wives, he had been refused by Allah the gift of issue and increase. Possibly the glad tidings that a slave girl was likely to make him a father—he swore that, if a boy, Abdullah should be his name—suddenly communicated to him on his return from our first cruise, caused him to judge my companionship canny, and once more to link his destiny with ours.
Saíd bin Sálim is a Bayázi of the Kháriji schism. He prays regularly; fasts uncompromisingly; he chews but will not smoke tobacco; he never casts away a date-stone; and he ‘sips water’ but ‘swills milk’ as the Moslem saying directs. His mother tongue is the Kisawahili: he speaks, however, the grotesque Arabic of Oman, and sometimes, to display his mastery of the humanities, he mixes hashed Koran and terminating vowels with Maskat ‘baragouinage,’ Paradise Lost and Thieves’ Latin. He has read syntax; he writes a pretty hand; he is great at epistles, and he loves to garnish discourse with saw and song. When in the ‘doldrums’ he will exclaim—
‘The grave’s the gate all flesh must pass—
Ah! would I knew what lies behind.’
I have heard him crooning for long hours—