"SHE".
THE first care of Job and myself, after seeing to Leo, was to wash ourselves and put on clean clothing, for what we were wearing had not been changed since the loss of the dhow.Fortunately, as I think that I have said, by far the greater part of our personal baggage had been packed into the whaleboat, and was therefore savedand brought hither by the bearersalthough all the stores laid in by us for barter and presents to the natives were lost.Nearly all our clothing was made of a well-shrunk and very strong gray flannel, and excellent I found it for travelling in these places, because though a Norfolk jacket, shirt, and pair of trousers of it only weighed about four pounds, a great consideration in a tropical country, where every extra ounce tells on the wearer, it was warm, and offered a good resistance to the rays of the sun, and, best of all, to chills, which are so apt to result from sudden changes of temperature.
Never shall I forget the comfort of the "wash and brush-up," and of those clean flannels.The only thing that was wanting to complete my joy was a cake of soap, of which we had none.
Afterwards I discovered that the Amahagger, who do not reckon dirt among their many disagreeable qualities, use a kind of burned earth for washing purposes, which, though unpleasant to the touch till one gets accustomed to it, forms a very fair substitute for soap.
By the time that I was dressed, and had combed and trimmed my black beard, the previous condition of which was certainly sufficiently unkempt to give weight to Billali's appellation for me, the "Baboon,"I began to feel most uncommonly hungry.Therefore Iwas by no means sorry when, without the slightest preparatory sound or warning, the curtain over the entrance to my cave was flung aside, and another mute, a young girl this time, announced to me by signs that I could not misunderstandthat is, by opening her mouth and pointing down itthat there was something ready to eat.Accordingly I followed her into the next chamber, which we had not yet entered, where I found Job, who had also, to his great embarrassment, been conducted thither by a fair mute.Job had never got over the advances the former lady had made towards him, and suspected every girl who came near to him of similar designs.