THE OLD WOMAN. 
279 
good-humour, because he is proceeding home- 
wards. In the course of their march they pass 
through the kingdom of Bibi£u§u, of the rajah 
of which it seems Matross is the son-in-law. 
Far from D illy, where he was in the bondage of 
debt, and relieved from the petty servitude of 
domestic life at the hut, he puts on all his airs 
as a member of a royal house. He forages and 
“ requisitions ” as perhaps no other could have 
done, so that his impudence has been on the 
whole serviceable, 
13 ^ April. 
My old woman is already proving rather dis- 
appointing. She is tiring of the restraint of 
staying by me, and last night did not come at 
all I begin to suspect that ‘she is not quite 
sane. She had a fit the other night. Groan- 
ing sounds awoke me, and I rose and looked 
into her apartment. She lay quite rigid, with 
foam upon her lips, and made no response to 
my efforts to rouse her. Next night about 3 
a , m . I heard music — of a sort, and saw a dim 
light through the spars. She was playing on a 
Jew's-harp, by the light of a curious taper of 
her own construction. 
Last evening's sunset was quite remarkable. 
The few clouds to be seen in the sky were 
