How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
I went with him back to the house, and as I got near I caught sight of a swarm of white-robed figures spread on the lawn, as if a flight of big white birds had settled round my house, or a company of angels swooped on to the farm. It will have been a whole Spiritual Court sent from India to keep up the flame of orthodoxy in Africa. (3.2.4)
The "white-robed figures" are first compared in a metaphor to a "swarm", which is usually a fairly sinister thing—bees and wasps and sharks come in swarms. Well, maybe not sharks, but you get the picture. Swarms are nightmare food. Then a simile to compare them to birds and angels, which gets a little bit closer to the heavenly realm. This "It will have been" is kind of a way of making a supposition, tongue in cheek, about the purpose of the large group of priests.
Quote #5
But while a Somali girl may marry into Arabia, an Arab girl cannot marry into Somaliland, for the Arabs are the superior race on account of their nearer relationship with the Prophet, and, amongst the Arabs themselves, a maiden belonging to the Prophet's family cannot marry a husband outside it. (3.3.6)
The Somalis who live on the farm are Muslims, and the Baroness gets a lesson on their beliefs about marriage, which she kindly passes along to us. Apparently women are supposed to marry up (onward and upwards!) and the more closely related a woman is to the Prophet (that's Muhammad, the founder of Islam) the fewer choices she has for moving up in society, because everybody's beneath her.
Quote #6
It seemed that I was to take the part of the High Priest who presents a goat alive to the Lord, and sends it into the wilderness. (3.5.6)
When the Baroness sends Emmanuelson (who already has a pretty biblical name: Emmanuel is a symbolic name meaning "God is with us" and symbolizing the Lord's protection) out into the desert, she uses a religious metaphor to compare herself to a priest, and Emmanuelson to a goat that is being sacrificed. That tells us that she's pretty sure he's going to die. He survives, so maybe the Lord is protecting him.