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In this moral desert, where all humanized feelings were withered and parched like the sands of the Soudan, the guilelessness of the children had been welcomed like springs of water, as the only refreshing feature in a land of sin and darkness. "Where are you going?" cried poor little Abbai in the broken Arabic that we had taught him. "Take me with you, Sitty!"
He wore a large white turban, and a white cashmere abbai, or long robe, from the throat to the ankles. As a desert patriarch he was superb, the very perfection of all that the imagination could paint, if we would personify Abraham at the head of his people.
He was then a most charming pet savage, and his toilette completed, he invariably sat next to his mistress, drinking a gourd-shell of hot milk, while I smoked my early morning pipe beneath the tree. I made bows and arrows for my boys, and taught them to shoot at a mark, a large pumpkin being carved into a man's head to excite their aim. Poor little Abbai!
Abbai became very civilized; he was taught to make a Turkish "salaam" upon receiving a present, and to wash his hands both before and after his meals.
In this moral desert, where all humanized feelings were withered and parched like the sands of the Soudan, the guilelessness of the children had been welcomed like springs of water, as the only refreshing feature in a land of sin and darkness. "Where are you going?" cried poor little Abbai in the broken Arabic that we had taught him. "Take me with you, Sitty!"
He was of herculean stature, about six feet three inches high, with immensely broad shoulders and chest, a remarkably arched nose, eyes like an eagle's, beneath large, shaggy, but perfectly white eyebrows. A snow-white beard of great thickness descended below the middle of his breast. He wore a large white turban and a white cashmere abbai, or long robe, from the throat to the ankles.
So determined was her character, that she had run away five times with her child, but on every occasion she had been recaptured, after having suffered much by hunger and thirst in endeavouring to find her way back to Unyoro through the uninhabited wilderness between Shooa and Karuma. Little Abbai had always been a great pet of Mrs.
The boy Abbai was the greatest favourite, as, having neither father nor mother, he claimed the greatest care: he was well washed every morning, and then to his great delight smeared all over from head to toes with red ochre and grease, with a cock's feather stuck in his woolly pate.
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