The source of the Blue Nile : $b a record of a journey through the Soudan to Lake Tsana in western Abyssinia, and of the return to Egypt by the valley of the Atbara, with a note on the religion, customs, etc. of AbyssiniaHayes, Arthur J.
Religion
The source of the Blue Nile : $b a record of a journey through the Soudan to Lake Tsana in western Abyssinia, and of the return to Egypt by the valley of the Atbara, with a note on the religion, customs, etc. of Abyssinia
Hayes, Arthur J.
Ethiopia -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- Religion; Sudan -- Description and travel
“At night I ordered the people to close the door of the hut, and
lie across it, some inside and some out. These precautions, however,
did not satisfy them; and they insisted on having the young woman
bound hand and foot, as the only means of preventing her escape. She
lay pretty still, merely moaning, and occasionally starting up when
the hyena called. I was lying on a couch, she and the other people
on the floor. Determined to see the issue of the affair, I watched
her narrowly, and when the guard dropped off to sleep, one by one,
I pretended to do so likewise. She also was perfectly still for near
an hour, and I fancied that she too had fallen asleep, when suddenly,
the hyena calling close by, she, to my astonishment, rose without her
bonds, which I had seen, as I imagined, securely fastened. She then
crept on all-fours towards the door, which she succeeded in partly
opening. I was just going to spring on her when one of the heavily
sleeping guards made a noise, which sounded something like a grunt or
a snore, and it appeared to me that she stifled a laugh. This led me
to believe more and more that she was shamming; but I said nothing,
and she returned of her own accord to her place. Although she did
not sleep during the whole night, yet she remained still as long as
the people were quiet, only moaning a little whenever any one, by
yawning or otherwise, showed signs of waking. Next day she appeared
a little better, and talked more rationally, but still very wildly,
and would neither eat nor drink. Once we allowed her to leave the hut
for a moment, on pretence of necessity, and she went quietly enough;
but on her return being delayed longer than we considered right,
parties were sent out in quest of her, and after a long search she
was discovered more than a mile from the hut, and making for the
thickest of the jungle.
“The second night was passed much as the former one; but the
following day we prevailed on her to take a little bread. On
swallowing a piece about the size of a nut she became very sick;
and a draught of water produced a similar result. A better night
seemed to do her good, for on the following day she managed to eat
a little, and by slow degrees recovered her health.
“Since this occurrence I have witnessed many hoaxes easy to
discover, but also many which I could never see through, although
I tried every method that my small stock of ingenuity could invent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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