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Beguiled with such stories and diversions, the day of rest at Wady el Abid passed swiftly. Night brought beetles, bugs, and ants, and several men were stung by scorpions a most painful though not dangerous affair.
They will not speak a word in joke from which the wise cannot derive instruction; let them read a hundred chapters of wisdom to a fool, and they will all seem but a jest to him. They tell a story of an abid, who in the course of a night would eat ten mans, or pounds, of food, and in his devotions repeat the whole Koran before morning.
From time to time we were humming a tune and chanting a spiritual hymn, and an abid, who bore us company, kept disparaging the morals of the dervishes, and was callous to their sufferings, till we reached the palm plantation of the tribe of Hulal, when a boy of a tawny complexion issued from the Arab horde and sung such a plaintive melody as would arrest the bird in its flight through the air.
Our eyes were constantly directed towards unfortunate Tabora. It has been said that three tembes only have stood the brunt of the attack. Abid bin Suliman's house has been destroyed, and over two hundred tusks of ivory that belonged to him have become the property of the African Bonaparte. My tembe is in as efficient a state of defence as its style and means of defence will allow.
A person of distinction asked a parsa, or devout and holy man, saying, "What do you offer in justification of a certain abid, another species of Mohammedan monk, whose character others have been so ready to question?" He replied: "In his outward behavior I see nothing to blame, and with the secrets of his heart I claim no acquaintance.
Conspicuous among them was Mahomet ben Ismail ben Abid, the wali of Seville. While these petty rulers were determined to renounce allegiance to Cordova, it was resolved at that capital to elect a sovereign to subdue them and restore the ancient splendor of the empire.
The shaikh, or holy man, consented; for the acceptance of such an invitation accorded with the sunnat, or law and tradition of the prophet. Next day the king went to apologize for the trouble he had caused him. The abid rose from his place, took the king in his arms, showed him much kindness, and was full of his compliments.
The whole army broke camp at Royan on the 28th of August at four o'clock in the afternoon, and marched to Wady el Abid six miles further south. We now moved on a broad front, which could immediately be converted into a fighting formation. This was the first time that it had been possible to see the whole force infantry, cavalry, and guns on the march at once.
His son raigneth in his place, and hee is more hot agaynste the romish relligion then his ffather wass: for he hath forbidden thorough all his domynions, on paine of deth, none of his subjects to be romish christiane; which romish seckt to prevent eueri wayes that he maye, he hath forbidden that no stranger merchant shall abid in any of the great citties." ...
On 28th August, the army marched to Wadi el Abid, and on the following day proceeded to Sayal, from whence I despatched a letter to the Khalifa, warning him to remove his women and children, as I intended to bombard Omdurman unless he surrendered.
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