26 JOURNEY IN CENTRAL AFRICA.

bridegroom's father, where twenty or thirty Arabs, seated on

the ground, were singing an epithalainium, to which they kept

time by clapping their hands.

Next morning, while our rais was getting his permit to pass

the locks (for which four official signatures and a fee of thirty

piastres are necessary), we visited the bazaar, and purchased

long tubes of jasmine-wood for our pipes, and vegetables for

our kitchen. On all such occasions we detailed Seyd, the tall

Nubian, whose ebony face shone resplendent under a snow-white

turban, to be our attendant. The stately gravity with which

he walked behind us, carrying bread and vegetables, was wor-

thy the pipe-bearer of a Sultan. By this time we had installed

the Asian as cook, and he very cheerfully undertook the service. We soon discovered that the skill of Ibrahim extended no fur-

ther than to the making of 2i pilaff and the preparation of coffee.

Moreover his habits and appearance were not calculated to make

us relish his handiwork. The naivete with which he took the

wash-basin to make soup in, and wiped our knives and forks on

his own baggy pantaloons, would have been very amusing if we

had not been interested parties. The Asian was one day

crumbling some loaf sugar with a hammer, when Ibrahim, who

had been watching him, suddenly exclaimed in a tone of min-

gled pity and contempt, " that's not the way

! " Thereupon he

took up some of the lumps, and wrapped them in one corner of

his long white shirt, which he thrust into his mouth, and after

srushing the sugar between his teeth, emptied it into the bowl

with an air of triumph.

A whole squadron of boats was waiting at the locks, but

with Frankish impudence, we pushed through them, and took

»up place in the front rank. The sun was intensely hot, and