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My hair, as I sit here writing, already hangs a black, oiled string down my back; my scented beard sweeps in two opening whisks to my ribs; I have on the izar, a pair of drawers of yomani cloth like cotton, but with yellow stripes; over this a soft shirt, or quamis, of white silk, reaching to my calves; over this a short vest of gold-embroidered crimson, the sudeyree; over this a khaftan of green-striped silk, reaching to the ankles, with wide, long sleeves divided at the wrist, and bound at the waist with a voluminous gaudy shawl of Cashmere for girdle; over this a warm wide-flowing torrent of white drapery, lined with ermine.
I say we arrived at Quamis, a small place on a river of that name, where Glanlepze had a neat dwelling, and left a wife and five children when he went out to the wars.
I shall not trouble you with a relation of the common accidents of our journey, which lasted two months and better, nor with the different methods we used to get subsistence, but shall at once conduct you to Quamis; only mentioning that we were sometimes obliged to go about, and were once stopped by a cut that my guide and companion received by a ragged stone in his foot, which growing very bad, almost deprived me of the hopes of his life; but by rest and constant sucking and licking it, which was the only remedy we had to apply, except green leaves chewed, that I laid to it by his direction, to supple and cool it, he soon began to be able to ride upon the muletto, and sometimes to walk a little.
On the divan I had heaped a number of selected garments, and having shewed her how to towel herself, I made her step into a pair of the trousers called shintiyan made of yellow-striped white-silk; this, by a running string, I tied loosely round the upper part of her hips; then, drawing up the bottoms to her knees, tied them there, so that their voluminous baggy folds, overhanging still to the ankles, have rather the look of a skirt; over this I put upon her a blue-striped chiffon chemise, or quamis, reaching a little below the hips; I then put on a short jacket or vest of scarlet satin, thickly embroidered in gold and precious stones, reaching somewhat below the waist, and pretty tight-fitting; and, making her lie on the couch, I put upon her little feet little yellow baboosh-slippers, then anklets, on her fingers rings, round her neck a necklace of sequins, finally dyeing her nails, which I cut, with henna.
At length, hearing of some European sailors who were under confinement for contraband trade at a Portuguese fort about two miles from Quamis, I resolved to go to see them; and if any of them should be English, at least to inquire after my native country.
I was late, seven being my hour: for on that day I had been engaged in the occasionally necessary, but always deferred, task of overhauling the ship, brushing here a rope with tar, there a board with paint, there a crank with oil, rubbing a door-handle, a brass-fitting, filling the three cabin-lamps, dusting mirrors and furniture, dashing the great neat-joinered plains of deck with bucketfulls, or, high in air, chopping loose with its rigging the mizzen top-mast, which since a month was sprained at the clamps, all this in cotton drawers under loose quamis, bare-footed, my beard knotted up, the sun a-blaze, the sea smooth and pale with the smooth pallor of strong currents, the ship still enough, no land in sight, yet great tracts of sea-weed making eastward I working from 11 A.M. till near 7, when sudden darkness interrupted: for I wished to have it all over in one obnoxious day.
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