306 



SAYYID SAID. 



paper to the doorway of Lieut. -Colonel Ham- 

 erton's sick-room, thereby excluding evil spirits 

 and the ghost of Mr Napier, who had died at 

 the Consulate. He refused to sit for his por- 

 trait — even Colonel Smyth's History of Knight- 

 errantry and Chivalrous Characters failed to 

 tempt him, for the European peasants' reason, 

 — it would take away part of his life. When 

 ' chivalry ' was explained to him, he pithily re- 

 marked that only the ' Siflah ' (low fellows) in- 

 terfere between man and wife, master and man. 

 His pet axiom — a fair test of mental bias — was 

 c Mullahs, women, and horses never can be 

 called good till death,' in this resembling Pulci — 



Cascan le rose, e restan poi le spine ; 

 Non giudicate nulla innanzi al fine. 



The Societe* Royale des Antiquaires du Nord 

 sent him their diploma : he declared that he would 

 not belong to a body of grave-robbers and corpse- 

 snatchers. The census of Zanzibar having been 

 proposed to him, unlike Xing David, he took re- 

 fuge with Allah from the sin of numbering his 

 people. When tide-gauges were supplied by the 

 Geographical Society of Bombay, he observed 

 that the Creator had bidden the ocean to ebb and 

 to flow — e what else did man want to know about 

 it ? ' Such was his incapacity for understanding 



