Unlike my twin brother, that went straight from college, then to university, and into a good job, my younger years were spent as a wandering musician, a hobo. The only reason I survived fifteen years of living outside was because I had spent six years in the army. Well, not the army army, but the ACF. Our regiment had two inscriptions on it. Beneath, it read, in Latin primus in Indis which is fairly straight forward, "First [regiment] in India", which it was. Yet the other inscription (marabout), I was unaware of its meaning, and have been for a very long time, up until just a moment ago when I read in the bath (a habit I should perhaps lose, but at least I have confined myself to only reading novels or other comparatively unimportant books - such as marked copies of primary sources - because I do not wish any of my books to sustain water damage).
Anyway, while reading Potocki's Manuscript I happened upon this sentence (I do not own a copy of the French, but would translate it myself if I had one), which as translated by Maclean reads as follows, "They [imbeciles] possess, as it were, the first degree of holiness. We give imbeciles the name "marabout", which we [Arabs] also give to saints." So there we have it, or at least one source for the meaning of this elusive inscription of the once formerly Dorset and Devonshire Regiment (before that, the Dorsetshire Regiment), otherwise known as the "armoured farmers" by other servicemen.
Today I must endure those... marabouts, at that... place (my 'learned' colleagues). Yet this is not Elizabethan England, it's Dark Age Britain. Age, experience, education, these things mean nothing here. This is not Renaissance Italy, evidently.
Max.
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