ABDULLAH THE COOK AND SOME INTERESTING GASTRONOMICAL EXPERIENCES.
THIRTEEN TRIBES REPRESENTED IN THE SAFARI. ABDI'S STORY OF HIS UNCLE AND
THE LIONS
Our cook was a dark-complexioned man between whom and the ace of spades
there was considerable rivalry. He was of that deadly night shade. He
was the darkest spot on the Dark Continent. After dark he blended in
with the night so that you couldn't tell which was cook and which was
night.
His name was Abdullah, his nature was mild and gentle, and his skill in
his own particular sphere of action was worthy of honorable mention by
all refined eaters. He was about fifty or sixty years of age, five feet
tall, with a smile varying from four to six inches from tip to tip. It
was a smile that came often, and when really unfurled to its greatest
width it gave the pleasing effect of a dark face ambushed behind a row
of white tombstones.
When Abdullah joined our _safari_ it was freely predicted that he would
do well for the first month or so, after which he would fade away to
rank mediocrity; but, strangely enough, he became better and better as
time went on, and during our last two weeks was springing culinary coups
that excited intense interest on our part. He had a way of assembling a
few odds and ends together that finally merged into a rice pudding par
excellence, while his hot cakes were so good that we spoke of them in
rapt, reverential whispers. There wasn't a twinge of indigestion in a
"three by six" stack of them, and when flooded with a crown of liquid
honey they made one think of paradise and angels' choruses.
Quite naturally, in my wanderings of nine months there were moments when
my thoughts dwelt upon such material things as "vittles," and it was
instructive to compare the various kinds of food served on a dozen
ships, a score of hotels, and a hundred camps. Some were good and some
were bad, but as viewed in calm retrospect I think that Abdullah
excelled all other chefs, taking him day in and day out.
Upon only three occasions was he vanquished, but these were memorable
ones. As food is a pleasant topic, perhaps I may be pardoned if I dwell
fondly upon these three red-letter days in my memory.
One was in Paris. The night that we started for Africa a merry little
company dined at Henry's. That distinguished master was given _carte
blanche_ to get up the best dinner known to culinary science, and he had
a day's start. Everything was delicious. The dinner was a symphony,
starting in a low key and gradually working up in a stirring crescendo
until the third course, where it reached supreme heights in climacteric
effect. That third course, if done in music, would have sent men
cheering to the cannon's mouth or galloping joyously in a desperate
cavalry charge.
[Photograph: One of Our Askaris]
[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. Hassan Mohammed]
The dish was called "poulet archduc," although I should have called it
at least poulet archangel. In this divine creation Henry reached the
Nirvana of good things to eat. I beseeched him for the recipe, which he
cheerfully wrote out, so now I am happy to pass it along that all may
try it. It really ought to be dramatized.
I transcribe it in M. Henry's own verbiage:
The chicken must be well cleaned inside. Next put in it some butter,
salt and pepper, a little paprika, and into full of sweet corn, then
close the chicken. Next put it in a saucepan with other more sweet
corn, against butter, salt, pepper, a little whisky; cook about half
of one hour.
The best sweet corn is the California sweet corn in can.
The sauce is done with white of chicken. Squeeze two yolks of eggs and
butter like for a sauce mousseline and finish it with a little whisky.
And there you are.
The second occasion came some months later. We had been on _safari_ for
several weeks and had returned to Nairobi for two or three days. It was
the "psychological moment" for something new in the way of food. The
stage was all set for it, and it came in the form of a pudding that
would have delighted all the gastronomes and epicures of history. We
called it the Newland-Tarlton pudding, because it was the joint creation
of Mrs. Newland and Mrs. Tarlton. One wrote the poetry in it and the
other set it to music. We ate it so thoroughly that the plates looked as
clean as new. Cuninghame was there, dressed up for the first time in
months, and the way that pudding disappeared behind his burly beard was
suggestive of the magic of Kellar or Herrmann.
The recipe of this pudding is worthy of export to the United States, so
here it is. It really is a combination of two puddings, served together
and eaten at the same time.
THE NEWLAND BANANA CUSTARD
Boil three large cupfuls of milk. Mix a tablespoonful of corn flour
with a little cold milk just to make it into a paste. Add four eggs
well beaten and mix together with three tablespoonfuls of sugar. Put
into the boiled milk and stir until it thickens, but don't let it
boil. When taken off add one teaspoonful of vanilla essence. Cut up
ten bananas and put in a dish. Pour custard on when cool.
PRUNE SHAPE (A LA TARLTON)
Stew one-half pound prunes until quite soft. Remove stones and cut
prunes small. Dissolve one-half ounce gelatin and add to one-quarter
pound sugar, prunes, and kernels. Pour into wetted mold to cool, first
adding one-half glass of sherry. Must be served with banana cream (the
Newland).
The third occasion made memorable by a delicious epoch-making dish I
shall not specify, as we have dined with many friends during the last
nine months. Let it be sufficient if I say that it was at one of these
dinners or luncheons.
In our varied gastronomical experiences we found that the cooking on the
English ships was usually bad, while that on the German ships was good,
excepting the ship that took us from Naples to Mombasa. The Dutch ships
were the best of all and the Dutch hotels in Java were the best we
struck outside of Paris and London. In comparison with the Hotel des
Indes, in Batavia, all the rest of the hotels of the Orient can be
mentioned only in a furtive way. It was a revelation of excellence, in
perfect keeping with the charm and beauty of Java as a whole.
But we were speaking of things to eat.
At the Hotel des Indes they served us a modest little dish called rice
tafel, or "rijs-tafel." You have to go to luncheon early in order to eat
it before dinner time. It was served by twenty-four waiters, marching in
single file, the line extending from the kitchen to the table and then
returning by a different line of march to the kitchen. It was fifteen
minutes passing a given point. Each waiter carried a dish containing one
of the fifty-seven ingredients of the grand total of the rice tafel. You
helped yourself with one arm until that got tired, then used the other.
When you were all ready to begin your plate looked like a rice-covered
bunker on a golf course.
[Drawing: _The Rice Tafel in Java_]
Rice tafel is a famous dish in Java. It is served at tiffin, and after
you have eaten it you waddle to your room in a congested state and sleep
it off. After my first rice tafel I dreamed I was a log jam and that
lumber jacks with cant hooks were trying to pry me apart.
As the recipe for rice tafel is not to be found in any cook book on
account of its length, we give it here even if you won't believe it. To
a large heap of rice add the following:
MEAT AND FISH
Spiced beef, deviled soup meat, both fried with cocoanut shreds.
Minced pork, baked.
Fried fish, soused fish, and baked fish.
Fried oysters and whitebait.
SPICES
Red fish.
Deviled shrimps, chutney.
Deviled pistachio nuts.
Deviled onions sliced with pimentos.
Deviled chicken giblets.
Deviled banana tuft.
Pickled cucumbers.
Cucumber plain (to cool the palate after hot ingredients).
FOWL, FRUIT, ETC.
Roast chicken, plain.
Steamed chicken with chilis.
Monkey nuts fried in paste.
Flour chips with fish lime (called grapak and kripak).
Fried brinjals without the seeds.
Fried bananas.
JUICES
Yellow--(One) of curry powder with chicken giblets and bouillon.
Brown--(Two) of celery, haricot beans, leeks and young cabbage.
One quart of American pale ale to drink during the "rice tafel."
Our cook Abdullah was not the only interesting type in our _safari_.
Among our dusky colleagues there were thirteen different tribes
represented. It was a congress of nations and a babel of tongues. Some
of the porters became conspicuous figures early in the march, while some
were so lacking in individuality that they seemed like new-comers even
after four months out.
[Drawing: _The "Chantecler" of Our Safari_]
Of this latter class Hassan Mohammed was not one.
Hassan was my chief gunbearer, and for pious devotion to the Mohammedan
faith he was second to none. He was the "Chantecler" of our outfit.
Every morning at four o'clock, regardless of the weather, he would crawl
out of his tent, drape himself in a white sheet, and cry out his prayers
to Mecca. It was his voice that woke the camp, and the immediate answer
to his prayers was sometimes quite irreverent, especially from the
Wakamba porters, who were accustomed to sit up nearly all night
gambling.
Hassan was a Somali, strictly honest and faithful. He had the Somali's
love of a rupee, and there was no danger or hardship that he would not
undergo in the hope of backsheesh. It is the African custom to
backsheesh everybody when a lion is killed, so consequently the Somalis
were always looking for lions. Perhaps he also prayed for them each
morning.
When we started we had four Somali gunbearers, each of whom rose at dawn
to pray. As we got up in the high altitudes, where the mornings were
bitter cold, the number of suppliants dwindled down to one, and Hassan
was the sole survivor. No cold or rain or early rising could cool the
fierce religious ardor that burned within him.
Long before daybreak we would hear his voice raised in a singsong prayer
full of strange runs and weird minors. The lions that roared and grunted
near the camp would pause in wonder and then steal away as the sound of
Hassan's devotions rang out through the chilly, dew-laden dawn. And as
if fifteen minutes of morning prayer was not enough to keep him even
with his religious obligations, he went through two more long recitals
in the afternoon and at night.
I sometimes thought that behind his fervent ardor there was a
considerable pride in his voice, for he introduced many interesting
by-products of harmony that sounded more or less extraneous to both
music and prayer. Nevertheless, Hassan was consistent. He never lied, he
never stole, and it was part of his personal creed of honor to stand by
his master in case of danger. Somali gunbearers are a good deal of a
nuisance about a camp, partly because they are the aristocrats of Africa
and demand large salaries, but chiefly because they require certain
kinds of food that their religion requires them to eat. This is often
difficult to secure when far from sources of supplies, and in
consequence the equilibrium of camp harmony is sorely disturbed.
They are avaricious and money loving to a deplorable degree, but there
is one thing that can be said for the Somali. He will never desert in
time of danger and will cheerfully sacrifice himself for his master. He
has the stamina of a higher type of civilization, and in comparison to
him the lately reclaimed savage is not nearly so dependable in a crisis.
I sometimes suspected that Hassan was not really a gunbearer, but was
merely a "camel man" who was tempted from his flocks by the high pay
that African gunbearers receive. Notwithstanding this, he was
courageous, faithful, willing, honest, good at skinning, and personally
an agreeable companion during the months that we were together. I got to
like him and often during our rests after long hours afield we would
talk of our travels and adventures.
[Photograph: Jumma, the Tent Boy]
[Photograph: Abdullah, the Cook]
One day we stopped at the edge of the Molo River. A little bridge
crossed the stream and I remembered that the equator is supposed to pass
directly across the middle of this bridge. It struck me as being quite
noteworthy, so I tried to tell Hassan all about it. I was hampered
somewhat because he didn't know that the world was round, but after some
time I got him to agree to that fact. Then by many illustrations I
endeavored to describe the equator and told him it crossed the bridge.
He got up and looked, but seemed unconvinced as well as unimpressed.
Then I told him that it was an imaginary line that ran around the world
right where it was fullest--half way between the north pole and the
south pole. He brightened up at this and hastened to tell me that he had
heard of the north pole from a man on a French ship. As I persevered in
my geographical lecture he gradually became detached from my point of
view, and when we finished I was talking equator and he was talking
about a friend of his who had once been to Rotterdam.
The lecture was a "draw." But I noticed with satisfaction that when we
walked across the bridge he looked furtively between each crack as if
expecting to see something.
It was rather a curious thing, speaking of Hassan, to observe the
respect with which the other natives treated his daily religious
devotions. He was the only one in camp who prayed--at least openly--and
as he knelt and bowed and went through the customary form of a
Mohammedan prayer there was never the slightest disposition to make fun
of him. In a camp of one hundred white men I feel sure that one of them
who prayed aloud three times a day would hardly have escaped a good deal
of irreverent ridicule from those about him. The natives in our camp
never dreamed of questioning Hassan's right to worship in any way he
pleased and the life and activities of the camp flowed along smoothly as
if unconscious of the white-robed figure whose voice sang out his
praises of Allah. The whole camp seemed to have a deep respect for
Hassan.
Abdi, our head-man, was also a Somali, but of a different tribe. He was
from Jubaland and had lived many years with white men. In all save color
he was more white than black. He was handsome, good-tempered, efficient,
and so kind to his men that sometimes the discipline of the camp
suffered because of it. It was Abdi's duty to direct the porters in
their work of moving camp, distributing loads, pitching camp, getting
wood for the big camp-fires, punishing delinquents and, in fact, to see
that the work of the _safari_ was done.
One night after we had been most successful in a big lion hunt during
the day Abdi came to the mess tent, where we were lingering over a
particularly good dinner. Abdi asked for his orders for the following
day and then, seeing that we were in a talkative mood, he stopped a
while to join in the stories of lion hunting.
After a time he told two of his own that he had brought from his boyhood
home in Jubaland. They were so remarkable that you don't have to believe
them unless you want to.
[Drawing: _Abdi's Uncle and the Man-Eaters_]
ABDI'S STORY ABOUT HIS UNCLE AND THE LIONS
"Once upon a time my uncle, who was a great runner, encountered six
man-eating lions sitting in the road. He took his spear and tried to
kill them, but they divided, three on each side of the road. So he
took to his heels. To the next town it was twelve hours' march, but he
ran it in ten hours, the lions in hot pursuit every minute of the
time. When he reached the town he jumped over the thorn bush zareba,
and the lions, close behind him, jumped over after him and were killed
by his spear, one after the other."
ABDI'S STORY ABOUT THE WILY SOMALI AND THE LION
"Once upon a time there was a Somali who was warned not to go down a
certain road on account of the man-eating lions. But he started out,
armed with knife and spear. For a week he marched, sleeping in the
trees at night and marching during the day. One day he suddenly came
upon a big lion sitting in the road. He stopped, sharpening a little
stick which he held in his left hand. Then he wrapped his 'tobe' or
blanket around his left hand and arm. He then advanced to the lion and
when it opened its mouth to bite him he thrust the sharp stick inside,
up and down, thus gagging the lion. Then with his two hands he held
the lion by its ears for three days. He couldn't let go because the
lion would maul him with its heavy paws. He was thus in quite a fix.
[Drawing: _He Hastily Cut a Stick_]
"Finally another Somali came along and he asked the new-comer to hold
the lion while he killed it with his spear. The other Somali consented
and seized the lion by the ears. Then the first Somali laughed long
and loud and said, 'I've held him three days, now you hold him three
days.' Then he strolled down the road and disappeared. For seven days
the second Somali held the lion and then by the same subterfuge turned
it over to a third Somali. By this time the lion was pretty tired, so
after one day the Somali shook the lion hard and then took out his
knife and stabbed it to death."
* * * * *
Sulimani was my second gunbearer. His name wasn't Sulimani, but some one
gave him that name because his own Kikuyu name was too hard to pronounce
and impossible to remember. Sulimani was quite a study. He had the
savage's love of snuff, and when not eating or sleeping he was taking
pinches of that narcotic from an old kodak tin. In consequence he had
the chronic appearance of being full of dope. He walked along as though
in a trance. He never seemed to be looking anywhere except at the
stretch of trail directly in front of him. His thoughts were far away,
or else there were no thoughts at all. I often watched him and wondered
what he was thinking about.
Sulimani was really one of the best natural hunters in the whole
_safari_. He had a native instinct for tracking that was wonderful; he
had courage that was fatalistic, and he seemed to know what an animal
would do and where it would go under certain conditions. Beneath that
dopy somnolence of manner his senses were alert and his eyes were
usually the first to see distant game.
He had originally been a porter when we started out, but I gave him a
new suit of khaki and promoted him to the position of second gunbearer.
As long as we were in touch with civilization he kept that khaki suit in
a condition of spotlessness, but when we got out in the wilds, away from
the girls, it soon became stiff with blood-stains and dirt. The natural
savage instinct became predominant; he reverted to type.
His jaunty red fez was replaced by a headgear made of the beautiful skin
of a Uganda cob. Ostrich and maribou feathers stuck out from the top,
while upon his feet were sandals made from the thick skin of a
waterbuck. A zebra tail was fashioned into a sheath for his
skinning-knife, so that, little by little, he resolved himself back into
a condition of savage splendor. He usually did most of my skinning, and
that being dirty work, I was disposed to be tolerant with the
disgraceful condition of his khaki suit.
Finally we approached civilization once more, and I told Sulimani that
he'd have to clean up, otherwise the girls wouldn't like him. I gave him
half a day off to wash his clothes, and he dutifully disappeared from
society for that period. When he once more turned up he was resplendent
in his clean clothes. As we marched along toward Nairobi he broke his
long silence by bursting into song. For a day or two it was the wonder
of the camp, but he was quite unconscious of it. Music was in his soul
and the germ of love was churning it up. And so he sang as he marched
along, and his thoughts were racing ahead of him to the "sing sing"
girls who wait in Nairobi for returning porters with rupees to spend.
The general average of health in the _safari_ was high. Only one porter
died in the four months or more that we were out. But in spite of the
low mortality there were many cases that came up for treatment. Akeley,
with his long experience as a hunter and explorer, acted as the health
department of the camp. His three or four remedies for all ills were
quinine, calomel, witch-hazel, and zinc oxide adhesive plaster. And it
was simply amazing what those four things could do when applied to the
naturally healthy constitutions of the blacks. He cured a bowed tendon
with witch-hazel and adhesive plaster in three or four days. A white man
would have gone to a hospital for weeks.
There were two common complaints. One was fever, but the fiercest fever
took to its heels when charged by General Quinine and General Calomel.
The other and more common complaint rose from abrasions and cuts. There
was always a string of porters lined up for treatment and each went away
happy with large pieces of adhesive plaster decorating his ebony skin. A
simple piece of this plaster cured the worst and most inflamed cut, and
it was seldom that a man came back for a second treatment. The plaster
remained on until, weeks afterward, it fell off from sheer weariness.
And once in a while there would be knife wounds, for whenever we killed
a zebra as meat for the porters there would be a frenzied fight over the
body. Each man, with knife out, was fighting for the choice pieces. It
was like a scrimmage of human vultures--fighting, clawing, slashing and
rending, with blood and meat flying about in a horrifying manner. I used
to marvel that many were not killed, because each one was armed with a
knife and each one was frenzied with savage greed. However, only once in
a while did we have to treat the injured from this cause. Two men could
fight for ten minutes over a piece of meat or a bone, but when finally
the ownership was settled the victor could toss his meat to the ground
with the certainty that no one else would take it.
Jumma was my tent boy--a Wakamba with filed teeth. Jumma is the Swahili
word for Friday and is about as common a name in East Africa as John is
in white communities. I suppose I ought to call him "my man Friday," but
he was so dignified that no one would dream of taking such a liberty
with him. Jumma's thoughts ran to clothes. He wore a neat khaki
suit--blouse and "shorts," a pair of blue puttees, a pair of stout
shoes, and a dazzling red fez, from which sprang a long waving ostrich
feather. My key ring hung at his belt, while around his wrist a neat
watch was fastened. The longest march, through mud and rain and wind and
sun, would find him as trim and clean at the finish as though he had
just stepped out of a bandbox. Jumma had the happy faculty of never
looking rumpled, a trick which I tried hard to learn, but all in vain.
He was as black as ebony, yet his features were like those of a
Caucasian; in fact, he strikingly resembled an old Chicago friend.
[Photograph: Sulimani--Second Gunbearer]
[Photograph: The Mess Tent]
[Photograph: Where the Equator Crosses the Molo]
Among our porters there were many types of features, and in a curious
way many of them resembled people we had known at home. One porter had
the eyes and expression of a young north-side girl; another had the walk
and features of a prominent young Chicago man; and so on.
Saa Sitaa was one of our brightest porters. His name means "Six O'clock"
in Swahili, six o'clock in the native reckoning being our noon and our
midnight. Just why he was given this significant name I never
discovered. Perhaps he was born at that hour. It always used to amuse me
to hear Abdi calling out, "_Enjani hapa, Saa Sitaa_"--"Come here, Six
O'clock."
Baa Baa was a porter who always used to sing a queer native chant in
which those words were predominant. He would sing it by the hour while
on the march, and before long his real name was replaced by the new one.
Henceforth he will, no doubt, continue to be Baa Baa. He was promoted
from porter to camera-bearer, but one day he could not be found when
most needed, and he was reduced back to the ranks. I never heard him
sing again. His heart was broken.