------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER III. Reception in Tajourah.—Arrangements for our stay.—Occupation.—Amusements.—Geological character of the country.—Engaging camels for the journey.—Customs of the townspeople.—Public buildings.—Religious ceremonies, law, and justice. I JOINED Mr. Cruttenden at the house of the Sultaun, being directed on my way by a party of little slave children, who formed a rather troublesome train, as they kept importuning me for buttons and beads. The younger girls and infants, however, could not by any inducement be prevailed upon to come near me; and what with the shouting plaguing boys, who followed behind, and the screaming flying children before me, I began to think myself more of a curiosity than I had before believed myself to be. The Sultaun of Tajourah with considerable politeness placed us, immediately on our arrival, in possession of the elevated cabin before mentioned, and the room below, and then left us to hasten forward the preparation of a meal, consisting of boiled rice, which was soon after brought in. It was placed before us in a large saucer-like dish, with a quantity of milk in a curious kind of basket, made of the larger nerves of the doom palm leaf, sewed very closely together with a finer description of the same material; the inside was overlaid by some black vegetable matter, but of what character I could never properly understand. Having arranged our legs as decently as we could around the table, which was merely a large mat of the palm leaf, we had nearly satisfied ourselves before the arrival of some promised lumps of meat, which, strong and tough, challenged the integrity of our teeth, in the vain endeavours we made to do justice to this part of our host’s hospitality, for we might almost as well have attempted to devour the piece of round leather upon which it was brought. The latter piece of furniture, at all events, afforded some degree of pleasure, for I saw immediately an explanation of the obscure passage in Æneid, where the Harpy Celæno is made to say— ... “Ambesas subigat malis absumere mensas,” which has been by commentators considered improbable and absurd, from the difficulty of supposing how tables, according to our ideas of them, could be eaten. By the sailors in the Red Sea, and among the Arabs, these leathern interpositions between the ground and the food are very general indeed; and I do not see why, in the extremity of a castaway crew, or in a time of famine, these tables, which they certainly are, should not be devoured for want of other food; and parallel cases have frequently occurred in modern times, in the numerous recorded incidents where shoes and even the leathern peaks of soldiers’ caps have formed the only sustenance that could be obtained under similar distressing circumstances.