480 



SAID BIN SALIM. 



' 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 month/ 

 his small boy Faraj, a demon of impudence ; 

 yet he is mostly ashamed to scold. This resnlts 

 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 Eate threw him in 

 our way he probably never walked a single con- 

 secutive 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 



