of proceeding at once to work, hinted he should like to have the
presents I had brought from Aden for him, as the best method of
showing our feelings to one another. This was not so easily concluded.
I portioned out the things that were intended for him, and wished he
would take them at once away and clear the room, thinking, in my
inexperience of savages, I had only to give, and it would be received
with a hearty Bism-illah; but I was soon undeceived: the things were
taken with a grunt of discontentment; all looked over one by one. If a
cloth was soiled, it must be changed; and then the measurements began
by cubits = 18 inches, or from the point of the elbow to the tip of
the middle finger, just as Noah must have done when he built the ark.
But as all forearms are not of equal length, much delay was occasioned
by the sultan trying the length of his forearm against everybody's in
the room, and then by measuring every cloth by turn, and remeasuring
them again for fear of mistake; then they were divided into lots, to
be disposed of to his wives, and children and Akils and servants, and,
of course, found insufficient to meet everybody's expectations, and I
must give more.

Tedious hours passed in this way; as a final petition, the sultan said
I must give him for himself a gun and my silk turban, as I had given
up wearing anything on my head, and did not require it: these were,
after a certain amount of haggling, surrendered, on condition that the
sultan would exert himself a little more energetically on my account.
The way he handled the musket was very amusing: he had never had one
in his hands before, and could not get it to sit against his shoulder;
and when his people placed it for him, he persisted in always cocking
the wrong eye, which tickled Farhan's fancy so much, that he burst
into loud roars of laughter. Nevertheless, the sultan took things
quietly, and would not allow himself to be discomposed, but coolly