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The doum tree of Wad Hamid 3
to show you, though I would like you to see the doum tree of
Wad ['amid.' tie didn't ask me what Wad Hamid's doum tree
was, but I presumed that he had heard of it, for who has not?
He raised his face which was like the lung of a slaughtered cow;
his eyes (as I said) were firmly closed; though I knew that
behind the lashes there lurked a certain bitterness.
'By God,' he said to me, 'if this were the doum tree of
Janda], and you the Moslems who fought with Ali and
Mu'awiya, and I the arbitrator between you, holding your fate
in these two hands of mine, I would not stir an inch!' and he
spat upon the ground as though to curse me and turned his
face away. After that we heard that the Sheikh had cabled to
those who had sent him, saying: 'The horse-flies have eaten into
my neck, malaria has burnt up my skin, and dysentery has
lodged itself in my bowels. Come to my rescue, may God bless
you—these arc people who are in no need of me or of any
other preacher.' And so the man departed and the government
sent us no preacher after him..
But, my son, our village actually witnessed many great men
of power and influence, people with names that rang through
the country like drums, whom we never even dreamed would
ever come here—they came, by God, in droves.
We have arrived. Have patience, my son; in a little while
there will be the noonday breeze to lighten the agony of this
pest upon your face.
Here it is: the doum tree of Wad Hamid. Look how it holds
its head aloft to the skies; look how its roots strike down into
the earth; look at its full, sturdy trunk, like the form of a
comely woman, at the branches on high resembling the mane of
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