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This work which was sufficiently known and made use of in the early Moslem period has not come down to us in the original Pahlavi. In view of the importance attached to this and the following risalas by the author of the Fihrist, it would be interesting to have their editions and translations. The essay probably referred to is called Rasalat fi al Khamis lil Mamun.
To his great astonishment he saw the plain around Tabora filled with approaching savages, and about two miles off, near Kazima, a tent pitched, which he knew to belong to Mirambo, from its having been presented to that chief by the Arabs of Tabora when they were on good terms with him. Khamis bin Abdullah descended to his house saying, "Let us go to meet him.
But he did want to back up J.W.'s belief that what Phil Khamis had said was true of everybody we are all debtors. "Look at this young J.W. here, will you," he said to the father and mother, for once letting himself go, "with a name he's proud of, and a home life that many a Fifth Avenue and Lake Shore Drive family would be glad to pay a million for, if such goods were on sale in the stores.
Certainly Khamis bin Abdullah proved to me that if he had a warlike soul in him, he could also attend to the cultivated tastes acquired under the shade of the mangoes on his father's estates in Zanzibar the island. After gorging ourselves on these uncommon dainties some of the chief Arabs escorted me to other tembes of Tabora.
The Doctor calmly asked what was the matter, and was answered by the Wajiji guides that the people wished us to leave, as they were on hostile terms with the Arabs, because the eldest son of the Sultan of Muzimu, the large island nearly opposite, had been beaten to death by a Baluch, named Khamis, at Ujiji, because the young fellow had dared look into his harem, and ever since peace had been broken between the Wasansi and Arabs.
After, despatching Bombay with this message, I fell asleep, but about 1.30 P.M. I was awakened by Selim saying, "Master, get up, they are all running away, and Khamis bin Abdullah is himself going." With the aid of Selim I dressed myself, and staggered towards the door.
Khamis bin Abdullah, a bold and brave man, ever ready to stand up for the privileges of the Arabs, and their rights to pass through any countries for legitimate trade, is the man who, in Speke's `Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, is reported to have shot Maula, an old chief who sided with Manwa Sera during the wars of 1860; and who subsequently, after chasing his relentless enemy for five years through Ugogo and Unyamwezi as far as Ukonongo, had the satisfaction of beheading him, was now urging the Arabs to assert their rights against a chief called Mirambo of Uyoweh, in a crisis which was advancing.
The 7th was a day of distrust, sorrow, and retreat; the Arabs accused one another for urging war without expending all peaceful means first. There were stormy councils of war held, wherein were some who proposed to return at once to Unyanyembe, and keep within their own houses; and Khamis bin Abdullah raved, like an insulted monarch, against the abject cowardice of his compatriots.
Then Phil Khamis stepped on the platform, incarnating in his own proper person the poet's apostrophised Greek boy: "Stay, are we doing you wrong, Young fellow from Socrates' land? You, like a Hermes so lissome and strong, Fresh from the master Praxiteles' hand? So you're of Spartan birth?
From these people we heard the sad information that the noble Khamis bin Abdullah, his little protege, Khamis, Mohammed bin Abdullah, Ibrahim bin Rashid, and Sayf, the son of Ali, the son of Sheikh, the son of Nasib, had been slain.
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