Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3.: The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth CenturyVerne, Jules
History
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3.: The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century
Verne, Jules
Discoveries in geography; Explorers; Voyages and travels
arms and waist cloth; their long Danish muskets had broad rims of gold
at small distances, and the stocks were ornamented with shells.
Finely-grown girls stood behind the chairs of some, with silver basins.
Their stools (of the most laborious carved work, and generally with two
large bells attached to them) were conspicuously placed on the heads of
favourites; and crowds of small boys were seated around, flourishing
elephants' tails curiously mounted. The warriors sat on the ground
close to these, and so thickly as not to admit of our passing without
treading on their feet, to which they were perfectly indifferent; their
caps were of the skin of the pangolin and leopard, the tails hanging
down behind; their cartouch-belts (composed of small gourds which hold
the charges, and covered with leopard's or pig's skin) were embossed
with red shells, and small brass bells thickly hung to them; on their
hips and shoulders was a cluster of knives; iron chains and collars
dignified the most daring, who were prouder of them than of gold; their
muskets had rests affixed of leopard's skin, and the locks a covering
of the same; the sides of their faces were curiously painted in long
white streaks, and their arms also striped, having the appearance of
armour.
"We were suddenly surprised by the sight of Moors, who afforded the
first general diversity of dress. There were seventeen superiors,
arrayed in large cloaks of white satin, richly trimmed with spangled
embroidery; their shirts and trousers were of silk; and a very large
turban of white muslin was studded with a border of different coloured
stones; their attendants wore red caps and turbans, and long white
shirts, which hung over their trousers; those of the inferiors were of
dark blue cloth. They slowly raised their eyes from the ground as we
passed, and with a most malignant scowl.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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