Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 62: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

48 Across the pagan belt he hoboed with his strange companion, hypnotized by the quest of sunrise-to-sunset domain, his simple head filled in wonder at the can- nibalistic flesh-pots of the Munchi, the wild Montoil who filed down the front teeth for fashion’s sake, the savage Yer- gum whose heads were shaved to tufty © centers and who wore long grass tails and suspiciously watched the travelers to see that they did not make “bad magic” against the country. They were mobbed, starved, bullied, made to dance to sulky-livered, nose- ringed, ebony kings, but mostly squeezed through on the prestige of Kanuri— called “big-bellied Kanuri’? among the barbarians of whom Issou spoke with Mo- hammedan scorn as “savage bushmen.” They waded the spongy marsh-lands of Lake Chad where the shy Buduma lived in huts perched high on stilts. They traveled in the cool of late afternoon, timing their arrival at the villages so that it would be after the supper hour, when the stomachs were comfortable and the Africans kindly disposed to Issou’s min- strelsy. Ever Issou sang the glories of the shehu of N’dele and of tribal heroes, and the adventurers lived off the food offerings that were dropped in the trouba- dour’s calabash. ~ Tim lost count of the “‘sleeps’—days —lost touch with all the life he had known and seemed almost to lose touch with himself. If sometimes the phantom of doubt crossed his vision of sunrise-to- sunset domain, it was banished by the crowding changes, surprizes and uncer- tainties of the trail. There was some- thing else, too—a real friendship that was growing up between him and the little, weazened old minstrel. Hunger, hardships and common dangers shared bridged the great chasm between the white giant and the ancient African; a partnership of strength and cunning was developed that got them through many | tight places. At times Tim caught Issou’s. small, black, sun-puckered eyes resting on “him with an expression that he could hardly define. If Tim had entertained the idea that the agent of the shehu was treacher- ously trapping him, he would have de- fined Issou’s expression .as_ resulting from a prick of conscience. Adventure Issou began to concern himself with Tim’s spiritual well-being. He would drop Koran texts.into the smith’s open mind with the earnestness of a proselyt- ing missionary, particularly when they left behind the naked savages and mud villages and the meandering, tortuous trails for trodden caravan-routes with hustling adobe towns and tall, stern- featured Mohammedans in turbans and burnooses. Before these Issou posed as a madhi—a holy man—and gave up his minstrelsy for the more profitable busi- ness of selling blessings and charms against evil magic. They shared the same supper pot, and the two negro carriers of the hoop-iron ate after them. Trudging parched plains and thirstier desert sands, plodding, plod- ding, plodding, his vacant face stung by the harmattans’ grit, the empty skies and wide horizons; his simple understanding of simple things swamped by the mys- tery of mirages and the fanaticism of the humped men throating “ Allah il Allah” ; hypnotized by Issou’s song of the glory and wisdom of the shehu and the shehu’s welcome to men learned in the crafts, Tim sought sunrise-to-sunset domain as elemental men will follow an idea, with- — out criticism. His faith in Issou ‘was not altogether naive. He felt the troubadour’s friend- ship. No two men could have hobnobbed as they had without arriving at a deep and true understanding of the feeling between them. Yet there was something wrong— something disturbing about that long, questioning look that Tim often felt Issou focusing upon him. As if Issou’s con- science was pricking: more and _ntore, the expression became more frequent as they _ approached N’dele. HE glamour of the adventure had not worn off as the smith passed through the arched gate in the clay walls of N’dele, else must he have been greatly disappointed in the shehu hero of Issou’s Iliad. There was a little of court splen- dor and Solomon glory about the patri- archal man with a dyed sheepskin for a throne, a spreading baobab tree for the palace where, cross-legged and calm, he received the elaborate salutations of his recruiting agent and laid large black, Gomichboo cS a Seek oe ae re... e. el” de ee | oa 4 Jat” a et. a ee (E@)