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—
IGHSAN'S EXPLANATIONS 255
had gradually adopted a sort of showman's manner,
tending to the glorification of us both. Though my
guide and servant, he was also in a sense the man
who led the bear ; and in this guest-room he found
an opportunity for displaying his office more fully.
He told of where we had been. Still more he had
to say of where we were going. There was credit
for him of a kind in making this long roundabout
journey, and he missed no point of the route. He
also explained the various articles of equipment
the stoves, the sleeping-bag, the folding-bed that at
a pull would grow from smallness to greatness. My
Browning, carefully unloaded, was passed round and
lectured upon as a weapon that would kill a man,
or even a horse, at eight hundred metros, and give
eight shots without reloading. He figured as one
most fortunate in having charge of an Englishman,
a name familiar in every part of the country, and
held in great respect.
Though it was well for Ighsan to be serving an
Englishman, yet an aspect of his master presently came
to view which had difficulties for a laudatory Moslem.
Cooking had progressed : tea was made, potatoes
boiled, soup heated, and I prepared to fry bacon, having
no other meat left. As the rashers came out of the
tin they were looked at with curiosity, and I heard
the whispered inquiry as to what they actually were.
Eyes and ears were strained to catch Ighsan's reply.
His glance went carelessly over the meat and rested
on one of the children. He patted its head as a
blind, and while so doing softly breathed the word
domuz (pig), thinking me out of hearing ; in further
explanation he said it was '^Ingleez domuz," perhaps
to convey the idea of a variety more permissible or
at least more excusable as meat. But being convicted
of eating pig, I fell in reputation, much like
a man of whom it is whispered that he is a good
fellow but has bouts of drinking.
After all had eaten and coffee was going round,
Ighsan told a story which held his listeners breath-