My hunting in
the Base country formed his theme, and for at least an hour he
sang of my deeds, in an extremely loud and disagreeable voice,
while he accompanied himself upon his fiddle, which he held
downwards like a violoncello: during the whole of his song he
continued in movement, marching with a sliding step to the front,
and gliding to the right and left in a manner that, if intended
to be graceful, was extremely comic. The substance of this
minstrelsy was explained to me by Taher Noor, who listened
eagerly to the words, which he translated with evident
satisfaction. Of course, like all minstrels, he was an absurd
flatterer, and, having gathered a few facts for his theme, he
wandered slightly from the truth in his poetical description of
my deeds.
He sang of me as though I had been Richard Coeur de Lion, and
recounted, before an admiring throng of listeners, how "I had
wandered with a young wife from my own distant country to fight
the terrible Base; how I had slain them in single combat; and how
elephants and lions were struck down like lambs and kids by my
hands; that during my absence in the hunt, my wife had been
carried off by the Base; that I had, on my return to my pillaged
camp, galloped off in chase, and, overtaking the enemy, hundreds
had fallen by my rifle and sword, and I had liberated and
recovered the lady, who now had arrived safe with her lord in the
country of the great Mek Nimmur," &c.
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