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The people had collected in considerable numbers to receive us, and we were presented with a fat ox for the troops, thirteen large jars of merissa, and a very plump sheep for ourselves. The soldiers were delighted, poor fellows; and we likewise looked forward with no small pleasure to a good stew.
The Greek took Abou Fatma aside, and with a promise of much merissa, wherewith to intoxicate himself, induced him to tell it a fourth time and very slowly. "Could you find the house again?" asked the Greek. Abou Fatma had no doubts upon that score.
There were jars containing about twenty gallons; these I filled with the pulp mashed with water, to which I added yeast from a brewing of merissa. While this mixture was fermenting I constructed my still, by fixing a jar of about twelve gallons on a neat furnace of clay, and inserting the mouth of a smaller jar upon the top; the smaller jar thus inverted became the dome of the still.
"A couple of years!" cried another; "we couldn't eat this corn in ten years!" "We might drink merissa every day in this country," exclaimed others of the soldiers. Sailors who have been in danger of shipwreck, with a rocky shore close on the lea in a heavy gale, may understand the relief offered by a sudden shift of wind in the moment of extremity.
Pushing through the narrow wicket gateway, I formed some thirty or forty men in line and led them at full speed with fixed bayonets against the enemy. Although the slave-hunters had primed themselves well with araki and merissa before they had screwed up courage to attack the troops, they were not quite up to standing before a bayonet charge.
Just at this instant I perceived, in the distance, the English flag leading the caravan of camels and donkeys from the hillside into the valley, and my people and baggage shortly arrived. The chief now brought me a large pumpkin-shell containing about a gallon of merissa, or native beer, which was most refreshing.
He illustrated the general intoxication by saying, that "after 3 P.M. no one was sober, throughout the country, and from that hour the cows, goats, and fowls WERE ALL DRUNK, as they drank the merissa left in the jars by their owners, who were all asleep." He knew all about England, having been a servant, on a Turkish frigate that was sent to Gravesend.
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