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Updated: June 9, 2025
"Nay, friend, I speak truly. May I never drink at the White Pond of the Prophet if I have not told thee even that which I have heard." Abdullah swallowed his wrath, listened to Mulai Hamed's story, and was convinced. Notwithstanding Mrs. Haxton's prohibition, it was now essential that he should see her without delay, so he accompanied the deputy assistant hall-porter in the direction of the hotel.
On the 7th the caravans apparently unanimous that the Kiti road was to be taken were led as usual by Hamed's kirangozi. We had barely gone a mile before I perceived that we had left the Simbo road, had taken the direction of Kiti, and, by a cunning detour, were now fast approaching the defile of the mountain ridge before us, which admitted access to the higher plateau of Kiwyeh.
Sheikh Hamed now mounted his camel, and ordering us to follow, moved on to the southward to look out for a spot suitable for encamping, as we supposed. We marched on as directed; but Antonio, who showed an evident inclination to be refractory, was handed over to the keeping of some of Sheikh Hamed's followers.
Probably the rarity which fell into Hamed's hands was the pearly presentment of a crustacean, for marine frogs are infinitely rarer than pearls. Several molluscs admit tenants, one particular species a rotund crab; but in the case in point the wrong mansion was entered and, so to speak, the obtruder was transformed.
We arrived at Ujiji by breakfast-time, when I disclosed to Captain Burton, then happily a little restored, the mortifying intelligence of my failing to procure the dhow. This appeared doubly distressing to him, for he had been led to expect it by Khamis, whom I passed at Kabizia, and who had delivered Hamed's letter, stating that the dhow was at his service.
He deceived no one in the end not even himself, for none of his fakes passed the final inspection of clear-sighted "Dorphy," with whom the moralities of the firm rested, but who in Hamed's eyes was a finicking precisian. For weeks after his partner's withdrawal from the business Hamed was perplexed. The swing of the seasons set the tides adversely. Hence his complaint "Water no much dry.
By the way, there is something to be said of his age which, according to his own account, varies. Sometimes he is 72, then 48, and again 64 and 35. Like the present-day almanacs of his race, his age is shifty and uncertain. Hamed's ride occurred "a long time ago" that hazy, half-obliterated mark on life's calendar. Pious Mohammedan that he is, he undertook a pilgrimage to Medina.
Hamed's manoeuvring with the dhow bears much the appearance of one anxious to obtain the credit of generosity without incurring the attendant inconvenience of its reality. Otherwise I cannot divine what good his procrastinations and the means he took for keeping me near him so long could have been to him; for he made no overtures to me whatever.
He cursed both of them in suitable terms, and started on the long walk to the hotel. Being a born gossip, he chose the livelier route of the main street, which might yield a meeting with another acquaintance. This divergence led him near the Elephant Mosque. Abdullah, wearied of the rendezvous arranged by Mrs. Haxton for von Kerber, detected Mulai Hamed's badge, and sought information.
The Ouadlim chief looked very much annoyed, as he had evidently expected to retain the articles; but a few menacing words made him hasten away, and return in a short time with the things, as well as my spy-glass, all of which we expected would be restored to us. Such, however, we found to be very far from Sheikh Hamed's intention.
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