Note 437 — KING MOHAMMED BIN SABAIK AND THE MERCHANT HASAN. (continued 2)

Lane translates, “by reason of the exhilaration produced by intoxication.” But the Arabic here has no assonance. The passage also alludes to the drunken habits of those blameless Ethiopians, the races of Central Africa where, after midday a chief is rarely if ever found sober. We hear much about drink in England but Englishmen are mere babes compared with these stalwart Negroes. In Unyamwezi I found all the standing bedsteads of pole-sleepers and bark-slabs disposed at an angle of about 20 degrees for the purpose of draining off the huge pottle-fulls of Pombe (Osirian beer) drained by the occupants; and, comminxit lectum potus might be said of the whole male population.