I went out on to the platform in front of the hut and kicked the old woman awake, demanding a bucket of water to be thrown over me. She looked at my person closely when pouring the water and tittered impudently, so I made her fetch another bucket.
When I went back into the giddah, Blanche seemed again asleep but was now on her back in a posture so abandoned that I felt constrained to pleasure her again, this time more thoroughly. Then, I must confess, I fell into a deep sleep, for, although I was young and vigorous, the night was hot and the climate enervating, you understand.
I was up betimes the next morning, adroitly avoiding Blanche’s questing hand. I was full of my great and visionary question, the key which would unlock the secret of the tribe’s whole way of thought. So soon as I had eaten I lurked by the matting of my door until all the old men of the village had taken their places under the mango-tree. Then I sauntered towards the circle and stood a little way off, gazing at the heavens and scratching myself at the groin. This was courteous, you see; whereas to scratch an armpit would be a shameful act in that village.
After a certain, civil interval I addressed them in the formal fashion which I had learned, speaking slowly because although I had mastered their tongue I knew that my Jewish accent made it difficult for them to understand me.
“Oh, great bulls!” I said to the withered old men. “Oh you with horns of buffaloes and testicles like ripe mangoes! Oh you whose ears still ring with the shrieks of the countless virgins you have deflowered! You whose wives are so fat with your plenty that they cannot stand upon their feet! You who permit the sun to rise and, at your pleasure, bid him hide his face! How sweet would be the inside of my belly if you could but see me!”
The eldest of the elders fumbled vainly in the tobacco-gourd which hung about his neck. I absently dropped four inches of black pigtail-twist on the ground and continued to gaze at the heavens. A pot-bellied child with a great umbilical hernia scampered up and took the tobacco to the chief, who looked at it curiously, then absently cut off a generous half and passed it to the next elder. When the youngest elder had glumly received the shaving which remained for him another silence fell, broken only by the sounds of groin-scratching and the picking of noses.
At last the second-eldest elder — for this was beneath the dignity of the chief — said “We see you, man with the red face, cousin to the son-in-law of a chief; you who service your woman a hundred times in the heat of the night. There is a stool for you here, why do you stand?”
I sat.
A few more civilities were exchanged, interspersed with as many silences. At last the chief looked at me. I cleared my throat, assembled my knowledge of the tongue.
“Father of penises,” I began diffidently, “you know that I love you so much that my bowels loosen each time I dare to look at your beauteous face.” He opened his mouth; this meant that I was to continue.
“A great thought came to me in the night,” I said.
A courteous titter was heard.
“Twice this great thought came to you in the night, the old woman tells me,” said the chief. The tittering became a guffaw. I remained composed.
“Oh Chief,” I said, “I do not speak of pushing babies into women’s bellies, I speak of things in a man’s mind. Hear me.”
The chief raised his hand and all laughter stopped.
“Great King,” I said in a dignified voice, “you whose power is felt from sea to sea, you who have long lost count of the children squirted from your wonderfully symmetrical loins, last night I had a thought. During the time that a woman would have two courses of the moon I have eaten your salt and drunk your beer. I have learned to love you and your subjects: the ways of your mighty nation have taught me much. Each day I have asked both hands and both feet” — this meant twenty — “of questions about your ways of life, of feeding, of religion, of marriage. You have taught me much, answering these many questions of mine. The thought that came to me last night was this: in all that time you have never asked me once about my land, my people’s customs. Are these of no matter to you?”
There fell a silence which seemed almost to be of embarrassment. At last the chief gestured to the second elder, who spoke.
“You are wrong, man with the face of a setting sun: our bellies are sour with longing to know these things. But amongst our people, if you must know the truth, it is thought a filth and shame for a man to ask questions after he has grown his first pubic hair.”
My face, I could feel, grew more than ever like a setting sun. No one spoke; they all gazed politely at the little fire of M’Gawa (bull-dung) smouldering in the centre of their circle. I scanned their faces, which were solemn — no hint of a smile. I pulled myself together.
“Why then,” I asked indignantly, “did not you, whose bellies burst with wisdom, tell me of this thing at the outset?”
“You did not ask,” he replied blandly.
This ended my excursion into the science of anthropology.
To restore my dignity I regaled them with many an account of Europe and its wonders; our customs and laws, our buildings, our new iron ships which were propelled with the smoke of boiling water, our wars and the blessings of gunpowder. They listened raptly, their mouths open in full politeness. When I drew to a close they clapped their cupped hands against the inside of their thighs, making a noise greater than a London opera audience. One or two of the younger ones allowed themselves to fall off their stools. This was the highest compliment, I knew, which could be paid to a truly gifted liar. Such a man was much prized by that tribe for few savages had mastered the art of lying. Now, as I write, they are surely more civilised in such matters, for their land will be full of traders and missionaries.
Foolishly, I allowed myself to become vexed, for I had spoken nothing but the truth: we Jews only lie in a ritual way when conducting business with our equals. I stalked back to the hut and unlocked the chest of arms. My battery was but a pair of percussion pistols, a heavy rifle, a light flint-lock fowling-piece and my beautiful revolving-pistol. I decided upon the heavy rifle — an old East Indian Company “tiger-gun” with two barrels. I loaded and primed it carefully, re-set the flints, wiped the frizzen dry and marched back to the circle of elders, who were still rocking back and forth, repeating phrases I had used, much as people leaving Gatti’s Music-hall bandy the inane jests of the latest Lion Comique.
They fell silent, eyeing the strange object cradled in my arms.
“If I have lied to the bull-elephant,” I said in an important voice, “then I could not kill the fat goat tethered outside my giddah without rising from this stool.”
“But there is no fat goat outside your giddah, O red-faced teller of stupendous lies!”