Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 05
History
Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 05
Literature -- Collections
"Oh, what a strange town it was that I found myself in, full of people
who had once been Candoré, but had renegaded and become Corahai! There
were Sesé and Laloré, and men of other nations, and amongst them were
some of the Errate from my own country; all were now soldiers of the
Crallis of the Corahai, and followed him to his wars; and in that town I
remained with my _ro_ a long time, occasionally going out to him to the
wars; and I often asked him about the black men who had brought me
thither, and he told me that he had had dealings with them, and that he
believed them to be of the Errate. Well, brother, to be short, my _ro_
was killed in the wars, before a town to which the king of the Corahai
laid siege, and I became a _piuli_, and I returned to the village of the
renegades, as it was called, and supported myself as well as I could;
and one day, as I was sitting weeping, the black man, whom I had never
seen since the day he brought me to my _ro_, again stood before me, and
he said, 'Come with me, little sister, come with me; the _ro_ is at
hand;' and I went with him, and beyond the gate in the desert was the
same party of black men and women which I had seen before. 'Where is my
_ro_?' said I. 'Here he is, little sister,' said the black man, 'here he
is; from this day I am the _ro_ and you are the _romi_. Come, let us go,
for there is business to be done.'
"And I went with him, and he was my _ro_, and we lived amongst the
deserts, and _hokkawar'd_ and _choried_ and told _baji_; and I said to
myself, 'This is good; sure, I am amongst the Errate in a better _chim_
than my own.' And I often said that they were of the Errate, and then
they would laugh and say that it might be so, and that they were not
Corahai, but they could give no account of themselves.
"Well, things went on in this way for years, and I had three _chai_ by
the black man; two of them died, but the youngest, who is the Calli who
sits by the _brasero_, was spared. So we roamed about and _choried_ and
told _baji_; and it came to pass that once in the winter time our
company attempted to pass a wide and deep river, of which there are many
in the Chim del Corahai, and the boat overset with the rapidity of the
current, and all our people were drowned, all but myself and my _chabi_,
whom I bore in my bosom. I had no friends amongst the Corahai, and I
wandered about the _despoblados_ howling and lamenting till I became
half _lili_, and in this manner I found my way to the coast, where I
made friends with the captain of a ship, and returned to this land of
Spain. And now I am here, I often wish myself back again amongst
the Corahai."
Here she commenced laughing loud and long; and when she had ceased, her
daughter and grandchild took up the laugh, which they continued so long
that I concluded they were all lunatics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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