Rashid had spoken of the virtues of a certain shrub; but Suleyman declared the best specific was a new-born baby.

This, if laid within a room for a short while, attracted every insect.

The babe should then be carried out and dusted.

The missionary did not even smile.
'The brutes!' he murmured.

'How can you, an Englishman, and apparently a man of education, bear their intimacy ?' They had their good points, I asserted--though, I fear, but lamely; for the robustness of his attitude impressed me, he being a man, presumably, of wide experience, and, what is more, a clergyman--the kind of man I had been taught to treat with some respect.
He said no more till we had finished supper, which consisted of sardines and corned beef and sliced pineapple, tomatoes and half-liquid butter out of tins, and some very stale European bread which he had brought with him.