The Departure of a Caravan in the Far South
The Departure of a Caravan in the Far South
The Departure of a Caravan in the Far South
Market Looking toward Trajan’s Arch, Timgad
Market Looking toward Trajan’s Arch, Timgad
Market Looking toward Trajan’s Arch, Timgad
Praetorium. Lambèse
Praetorium. Lambèse
Praetorium. Lambèse
The men are poorly dressed, and one never sees the prosperous white robes of the Mzabite nor the costly burnous of the Arab chief, but in spite of their rags they stalk along the road, stick in hand, the head high, and a look of defiance in their clear eyes. The women, on the other hand, wear brilliant colors—red and yellow and green; their heads are wrapped in high turban-like head-dresses consisting of many scarfs wound one above the other. Their faces, unveiled, are handsome and, contradictorily to their status, have usually an expression of great gaiety. Like most people who have never known anything better, their lot seems to them normal, and they have no other ambition.
They are all very superstitious—childishly so, and they carry countless antidotes against spells and the Evil Eye. Their courage is proverbial, and they callously bear pain. A man who had been stabbed in the abdomen was seen to push back his intestines into the gaping wound, mount his mule and ride off to the nearest French authorities to make his complaint. A doctor once said that if he saw a Kabyle cut in half he would not give a death certificate until he was sure that the heart had stopped beating!
Unfortunately space forbids my recounting countless anecdotes and stories about them. Like the Mzab, this is a country where one can linger quietly for some weeks and never have a dull day.
The road from Bougie to Michelet runs first of all along the foot of the Kabyle Mountains, giving one an excellent idea of the isolation of this district from the rest of Algeria. Great barren peaks rise up and the red earth of the slopes contrasts brilliantly with the olive-yards and fig plantations.
Shortly after Akbou we meet the road from Sétif to Algiers via Boaria, which can be taken if the suggestion to run straight through to Algiers from Timgad has been followed, or if one is making straight from Bougie to Algiers via Palestro. Our own course is to the north and, turning sharply to the right, the road begins to climb steeply up into the mountains. It is a magnificent drive, and the panorama from the Col de Tirourda is one of the most superb in North Africa. The whole of this great system of mountains is around us, chain succeeds chain, with the quaint little villages perched on the top of every point of vantage. It is as new a scenery as the Mzab, and one is hardly able to realize that barely a week ago one was staring across those desolate plains of stone and rock. The road winds on along the edge of precipitous slopes to Michelet.
Here there is an excellent Transatlantic hotel which, unlike most of its sisters, is open summer and winter, Michelet being a holiday resort for the overheated business men of Constantine and Algiers.
If one has time, there are many delightful excursions to be made from here, but to carry out the program we must leave the following morning. The road continues circling along the side of the mountain; little villages appear on the hilltops and give place to other villages until the fortified town of Fort National is reached. From here the gradient is very steep down to Tizi Ouzou, where lunch can be taken if the more preferable picnic has not been consumed under a group of fig-trees.
From Tizi Ouzou the road runs dully back to Algiers through tobacco plantations.
And so the journey is over, and though at first the mind will be unable to grasp all that has been seen and that feeling of a long evening at the cinema will holdit for some time, little by little the ever-changing scenes will detach themselves in order and remain photographed on the brain as an undying memory.
The vine-clad Mitidja, the Atlas, the rolling plain of the Sersou and the Hauts Plateaux, the rocky desolation of the Mzab, the golden sands of Touggourt contrasting suddenly with the cosmopolitan crowd at Biskra, the silent ruins of Timgad and the business town of Constantine, the first view of the hills and the sea, the blue and scarlet of thecornicheroad to Bougie, and the towering peaks of the Kabyle peopled by a strange race of the past, until the white city of Algiers is reached, with its palaces and its gardens and its damp atmosphere.
All these things will gradually unwind themselves from the recesses of the brain, to form one vast panorama, and as one sits at home a few weeks later one will say to one’s self incredulously:
“Did I really see all this in a fortnight, and all in the same country?”
Havingnow followed in the paths of the tourist and the official tours of the Compagnie Transatlantique, it will perhaps be interesting to cast a glance at the less-frequented routes. There is no doubt that once one leaves the beaten track in Algeria one travels in comparative discomfort, and that the accommodation is, to say the least of it, primitive. Neither is it necessary to go far from the main center to find these discomforts.
On the other hand, unless one has these experiences one does not get to know the real people of the country whether they be Arabs or Frenchmen. The true Algerian colonist is there in all his roughness, talking vaguely about France as a paradise, which he may never have seen, in spite of the little distance which separates Europe from North Africa; treating the natives with a curious mixture of comradeship and harshness, little interested in affairs not affecting his actual district, and as unlike an Englishman in the same situation as it is possible to imagine.
The common Arab, poor, ill-fed, lazy, working just as long as it is necessary, dishonest when it is worth while, and quite unscrupulous in matters of life and death, exists there with little ambition, while the Arab chiefs whom one has perhaps met in magnificent clothes at some official function live in these lost districts without any ostentation. The only method ofcommunication between the villages, and they are usually some sixty or eighty miles apart, is by road. Some of the richer cultivators andcaïdshave motor-cars; the well-to-do Arab rides, but it is usual to travel by the motordiligencewhich carries the mails. Thediligenceusually starts early in the morning, as, though it travels a good twenty miles an hour, there is always the danger of a breakdown with no question of outside help, and as they are under government contract it is essential that they should have plenty of time to spare.
The bus is almost full at the start, but it expands its accommodation in a most astonishing way as it picks up travelers who sit by the roadside, and when it arrives at its destination the roof and the running-boards are crowded with Arabs. People who have correspondence for the post also wait at appointed places with their letters, which are collected by the driver and taken along. And in the same way the mail for the districts where there are no roads is picked up by the postman as thediligencedashes by.
Occasionally in years of famine there are holdups, and though the driver is always armed, it is of little avail. The road is barred at some convenient spot where there is cover, thediligencestops, and before any one realizes what has occurred the track is seething with Arabs armed with blunder-busses and bludgeons, who take all there is, puncture the tires and disappear as mysteriously as they came.
Another form of delay is often created in summer by locusts, which drift in great clouds across the road and in an inconceivably short space of time clog up all the wheels with the fat of their crushed bodies. And it is extremely difficult to clear them out and go on if they are in any numbers.
The arrival of thediligencein a small center is agreat event. The postmaster, who is also the telegrapher and postman and bookkeeper, comes out with much dignity to receive the mail; Arabs crowd round and gossip with the occupants of the second-class compartment or with those on the roof; the tall gendarme walks up and down with a look of imminent arrest on his mustached countenance. At the terminus there is the same sensation while the European traveler, stiff and dusty, wends his way to the only inn. It is always a “Grand” Hotel “Something” with from twelve to twenty rooms. There are many which are simply comfortable, where one gets a goodcuisine bourgeoise; these are among the smaller and more remote and kept by a family of French people, the father looking after the café, the mother cooking, the children doing all the rest of the work. Meals are served at a common table with the family. The rooms are sparsely furnished, but they are clean. But there are many hotels where hygiene is unknown, where the food is cooked by an Arab and is foully oily, and the rooms! . . . Too much or too little can not be said about them, and the traveler is advised to cast the well-used sheets into the farthest corner of the chamber, place the mattress on the floor, put on his longest pair of trousers and his stoutest boots and wrap himself up in his cloak. If he is fortunate he will rise next morning immune from the night attack of the denizens of the bedstead, but that is all.
Market-day is the time to see these little towns at their best. It usually takes place on a Friday, the Mohammedan Sunday, and from midday Thursday long caravans of Arabs with their flocks begin appearing on the horizon and move slowly across the wide plain toward the market town. Camels pad disdainfully along while the humble donkey trots beside, great flocks of white sheep with their advance guard of goatsthrowing up clouds of dust. The roads too have their complement of travelers, and carriages and carts jolt along bearing Arabs and French farmers; there are also horsemen and pedestrians, while the motor-car and thediligencebring buyers from Algiers.
It is a marvelous sight to see the streets of the little town thronged with every type of Arab. Clear-eyed men from the nomad tribes of the Larbas, and the Chambas in the far south; tall men with haughty looks from the mountains, thin, wiry men from the rolling plains of the Sersou, stout little Mzabites, pale and bearded, selling their wares to the credulous Arabs as their Phœnician ancestors did in the same land two thousand years ago. Here and there an Arab chief— anaghaor acaïd—in a brilliant cloth burnous, moves in stately manner, greeting friends with the brotherly embrace and receiving the kiss of submission on the shoulder from the members of his tribe with as much dignity as a king of old accepting homage from his vassals.
When night falls the little hotel is full of bronzed-faced colonists and wool merchants and sheep breeders, discussing the prospects of the harvest and the probable price of wool and livestock over glasses of anisette and water. The scene in the café is really a most entertaining spectacle of all classes and races mingling in friendly chat.
Sometimes there is an Arab flutist from the far south earning his dinner, sometimes there is a Spanish sheep-farmer with his guitar, sometimes there is a row among Arabs and one sees the glint of the steel dagger, which alone the children of the Faithful know how to wield with dexterous rapidity.
In the Arab coffee-houses too the animation is great, and the guests flow out into the streets and squat by the wall holding their cups of coffee or minttea in their hands. Inside some one is singing a ballad, accompanied by a flute or a mandolin, while up the road one can hear the rhythmical beat of thetam-tamand strident squeal of theraïtaof some rival establishment. Away in the dancing girls’ quarter the gaiety continues until the Arab policeman, blowing on his trumpet, sends all the Faithful to bed, for the most part under the bright stars.
At dawn the city is astir, the coffee-houses are again open, and the shepherds are gathering about thefondouks, where they have lodged their animals for the night. The more thrifty, who have preferred to sleep out on the plains with their flocks rather than pay lodging to thefondoukkeeper, are already on the market-place, a broad open area clear of the city.
There are twenty thousand ewes and as many lambs to be sold to-day. It is an amazing sight to see hundreds of flocks herded together, with here and there a black patch where stand the goats. A little apart from the sheep is the donkey market—poor little beasts blinking patiently in the sun, while a little farther on the camels groan and gurgle as if they resented being vulgarly disposed of in a sheep-market.
All the Arab chiefs and the Frenchmen from the hotel are there moving about the flocks, looking at teeth, examining fleeces, feeling backs. Prices which during the early hours have been unstable, settle down toward seven, and the serious buying begins. The sun rises up in the heavens and blazes down on the great concourse of white-robed shepherds. Then gradually as the purchases are completed, the various buyers separate their lots from the general herd and drive them into different groups away from the main market.
And now there is a flow of people in the opposite direction, the sellers are being paid, the cafés arefilling up again, the more thrifty are investing their money in barley or clothes, the generous are purchasing scarfs for their women. As the afternoon draws on, the caravans begin reforming and moving off across the great plain, little groups of sheep and camels can be seen following the long straight tracks. By sunset the town has once more dwindled to its normal population, the coffee-sellers and the Mzabite grocers are counting their profits, and flute players and dancing girls have retired to rest, and quiet reigns till the next market-day.
But though all this is picturesque and interesting and unusual, the European used to average comfort is glad to see the last of the graydiligenceas he is deposited at the nearest railway station, and he sinks back with a sigh of relief on the soft cushions of the first-class railway carriage.
Havingnow endeavored to give the reader a general idea of Algeria from all points of view, I propose to close this book with a few sketches of my life among the Arabs.
There is nothing particularly striking about these experiences, but I feel they will lift a further veil on the inner life of these people whose privacy it is so difficult to penetrate. Only years of contact have opened the innermost doors of their homes, only the word of some intimate friend telling of the fellowship between the lone Englishman and the people of Algeria has removed all suspicious constraint, only the reputation of simplicity and the instinct of caste has brought them to me with all their ideas laid bare.
However, before describing these scenes I would like the reader to catch a glimpse of the country in a clothing different from that thrown on the screen by the Circuits Transatlantiques. The average traveler will have fled the shores of North Africa before the first months of summer, when the big hotels in Algiers have closed their shutters and the syncopated saxophonists have packed up their greasy dinner-jackets and crossed to cooler climes. The hot weather in Algiers itself is singularly unpleasant, not so much from the point of view of temperature, which never rises very high, but because of the damp. It is like living in a steam bath all day, and correspondingly tiring.
Once in the plains of the Mitidja, however, or up in the hills, the heat is greater but the air is dry, and provided one keeps quiet in the middle of the day one can quite well bear the summer months. The temperature of the Sahara is high, but the heat, being very dry, is not too unpleasant, and though it is not recommended to pass July and August in an oasis it is no real hardship for the young and healthy once in a while.
In the first place houses are built to protect one from the sun; very thick mud walls plastered over, which do not attract the heat, outside verandahs or inner courts open to the sky, and heavy shutters, make it possible to keep the house comparatively cool during the middle hours of the day. Life too is organized to meet the requirements of the weather. All business is contracted between six and ten. At eleven everything closes, including the post-office, and remains shut until three. During these hours lunch is eaten, followed by the siesta, and it is not until four that those who are not forced to, appear. By five the main street presents an animated aspect of Arabs strolling up and down in their white robes, while the cafés begin to fill up. Those who have gardens in the oasis repair to them and work until friends arrive to pay calls and discuss the produce of the rich soil over cups of mint tea, while in a secluded corner the women squat with the children and gossip in whispers.
Sometimes an Arab of importance will give a dinner in his garden. A carpet is spread out on the ground, a brass tray is placed in the middle, while near-by the sheep is being roasted whole on a brushwood fire. A flutist or a guitarist will play under the orange-trees by the light of the summer moon. The diners will often remain on the carpet the whole night and return direct to their business in the morning.
These gardens are worthy of note. They are not usually anywhere near the residence of the owner, who lives in the town; they vary in size from three acres to half an acre, and are planted with fruit-trees and vegetables, which grow in astonishing abundance. In fact, with the exception of the dates, the oranges and the apricots, all the fruit can not be disposed of. It is a wonderful sight to see gardens full of pears and apricots and figs and strawberries and pomegranates, while vines heavy with grapes climb up the walls and the tall date-palms nod in the warm breeze, protecting the garden from the fiercest rays of the midday sun.
In the terrible months of July and August one wonders why the leaves of the trees do not shrivel up under the fiery rays of the summer sun. But on the other hand it must be remembered that all is a matter of contrast and that during the midwinter months, when the temperature is that of April in England, it is cold for the Sahara vegetation, and trees are as leafless as those at home in the same period. In fact, vegetation on the Riviera in winter is infinitely more abundant than on the edge of the Sahara at the same season.
The desert too, like the gardens of the oasis, presents a totally different aspect in summer from that which might be supposed. Whereas this heat transferred to England would burn up every blade of grass, here it brings to the surface all kinds of scrub vegetation, and standing on an eminence looking over the northern tracts of the Sahara, the view presents a greener impression than to the tourist in winter. The nights too are comparatively cool, and a blanket is sometimes required after midnight when the stony land has cooled and when the house is storing up all the fresh air before the hermetic closing of all windows at sunrise.
If, therefore, those who stay all the summer will mind the precepts of all hot countries, a reverential respect for the sun, a light diet and abstinence from alcohol, they will not suffer too much, provided the experience is not repeated too often.
The flies are tiresome, but there is little disease, and except during famine years the typhus does not appear. The sun is a marvelous disinfectant, and the mortality in these southern cities is very low.
But when the sirocco starts blowing it is a very different story. It always comes in series of three, six, nine days, and it usually rises at dawn. There is no mistaking it. Peacefully asleep, one suddenly awakes to the rattle of shutters and a sensation that one’s hair is being scorched on one’s head. Every one is up immediately, closing every window to keep in a little freshness. The day is terrible; standing in front of a furnace in a glass factory is the only comparison possible, intensified by great clouds of whirling sand which come sweeping across the desert and which drive on for miles, shrouding the sun in a kind of yellow cloak and creeping even into one’s innermost chamber as one tries in vain to keep out of the heat.
But apart from the ordeal of sirocco days a man sensibly dressed and living a reasonable life in an oasis of the Sahara, with an average shade temperature of one hundred degrees is better off than the tall-hatted Londoner devouring his copious British lunch and not resting in the middle of the day, and the tourist who will venture south in June will return home with a marvelous impression of real summer.
Staying in an Arab country house is as different from staying in a country house in Europe as it is possibleto imagine. (I am speaking, of course, from the point of view of intimate friends who are treated as the Arabs.)
In the first place there is no specific invitation; one is asked to come and stay, say in the summer, and when one feels inclined, one arrives. If one is polite one wires beforehand, but it is not expected. Secondly, one goes always with some specific object—to shoot, to visit flocks, to contract some business in the neighborhood, but rarely just to stay.
When one arrives the host may or may not be there; if he is not he will have delegated some near relation to do the honors in his place, and he may appear during the course of the visit. In the same way he may suddenly go away when one has only been there a few days, but it does not in the least suggest a hint for the guest to leave; a deputy host will take his place and things will go on in exactly the same way.
Another thing in an Arab home, which is quite peculiar to the country, is the fact that the guests not of the actual family neither eat nor sleep in the house in which the people live, that is to say that there is a kind of guest annex which is only opened on these occasions. This custom is chiefly due to the presence of the women, who might be difficult to conceal from strangers if they had access to the main building.
The particular country house I am going to describe belongs to abash aghaand is situated in the Tellian Atlas near to the village of Bourbaki. The country is mountainous and produces cereals.
I arrived two days late for my visit, but not at all through my fault, as I had arranged to go by train to Boghari, where my host would send me a car. I arrived at the specified time, but the conveyance did not come for forty-eight hours. I naturally expressed astonishment and some annoyance, but it seemed tosurprise the driver, to whom a day or so before or after meant so little.
When I arrived, dinner awaited me, and I was pleased to see that I was being treated really as one of the family, and that there were no tables or chairs, no knives and forks. The party was assembled in a pillared courtyard open to the sky, with jasmine and rose bushes growing around. Two lemon-trees stood at either end, and above us a July moon shed a gentle radiance.
We sat down in three circles. In the first group was thebash agha, myself, mycaïdpartner of the sheep farm, an old schoolmaster and a very agedimam. In the second group were thebash agha’ssons, his nephews, and his chief clerk. In the third group were my head shepherd, the chauffeur, and the rest of the retainers.
The food was first of all placed in the center of our circle, and we all dipped into the common bowl: when we had had enough it was passed to the second circle, who did likewise, until it was finished by the third party. While the third group was eating we began our next course, and the servant was able to join the last group.
“Servant” is not exactly the right word, as“khedime,”which is literally translated by “servant,” is almost a term of insult. The people who wait and look after the house of an Arab chief are not considered in the same way as those who minister to us. In the first place they are not paid, but are merely clothed and lodged—they and their families, and when they get too old they are kept on and their sons take their places for the actual work.
When dinner was over and we had washed our faces and hands and tea and coffee had been brought, we stretched out our legs on the carpet. While we inour little circle began to smoke, the other groups broke up and moved silently out of the court, for in the presence of their elders they could not light a cigarette; in fact, during the whole of the meal they had conducted their conversation in respectful whispers.
For an hour or so we sat and conversed on all kinds of subjects, then one by one the Arabs dropped off into a doze, no constraint, no endeavoring to keep awake when sleep dominated. For a while they slumbered, then, coming to again, said good night and went off to the other part of the house to rest, while I settled myself in the vast guest-chamber in a large brass bed.
In the middle of the night there was an earthquake. It did not last very long, but for a moment the house shook violently. The household rose in commotion, and thebash aghacame rushing into my room fully dressed, which proved to me again that these men sleep in their clothes. He looked at me in surprise.
“How is this,” he cried, “an earthquake and you remain in bed without moving?”
I laughed.
“It is I who should be surprised,” I replied, “for with your belief in themektoubyou shouldn’t worry about such trifles as earthquakes.”
His eyes twinkled in spite of his emotion.
“You are right,” he said, “what is written is written, and none but Allah can interfere. Good rest!”
He left me and I heard him outside admonishing the others for making such a noise.
The next day we motored up to see some of thebash agha’scattle in the cedar forest near Teniet el Haad. This is one of the finest excursions in Algeria, but it is unfortunately off the tourist track, and practically no one goes there.
It is, however, quite a simple journey, and if the traveler wishes to see real forest he has but to motorfrom Algiers, either via Tipaza and Miliana, which is in itself a gorgeous drive, and continue to the south by Boghari, or else he can return to Algiers by Goghari and Medea. If he does not have a car he can take the train to Affreville, where an excellent motor-bus will land him at Teniet el Haad. Here there is quite a good hotel of the unluxurious type.
The cedar forest is in the mountains some fourteen kilometers along a quite passable mountain road. It winds steeply up through pine-trees, then little by little the cedars begin to appear standing erect, their long arms stretched out forming roofs of that delicate blue-green. As one progresses the cedar alone remains, increasing in size until one comes upon giant trees a hundred feet high and with a circumference of seven or eight yards. The view over the valleys below is superb.
We stopped at a clearing where thebash aghakept a small house, and we went in search of the cows. It took some time to find them, but during our walk we passed some really magnificent trees—giants, centuries old. On our return to the house I was surprised to find, instead of the cold chicken and beef associated with picnics in the mountains, a five-course hot lunch with the best wine of Algeria.
Thebash aghaexplained that he always kept all material ready in his chalet, and that it only needed the bringing of the food to have it prepared. As a matter of fact I have always noticed with Arabs that in the question of meals there are no half-measures. One either spends the whole day out with nothing except perhaps a piece of bread, or else one sits down to a feast in the most out-of-the-way place.
The meal was excellent, too excellent, with the result that we all went to sleep after. When we woke up it was late afternoon and the sun was glinting throughthe blue branches of the cedars and lighting up the forest in a fairy fashion. One expected to see gnomes and elves appear from out of the vast trunks. We drove back in the sunset, the softest light imaginable, but quite unlike the golden radiance of the Sahara.
The following day was market-day at Burdeau, some thirty kilometers away, so that every one was astir at dawn, and before sunrise every male member of the household had piled into the cars and we were speeding across the cereal plain which overlooks the Sersou. All theaghasandcaïdsof the district as well as those from the south were there, and there was much kissing and shaking of hands.
I saw here another curious example of the respect of the younger generation for the older. I wanted my breakfast, so I went into a café with thecaïd; my partner and I ordered our coffee. It was just being brought when up jumped thecaïdand went off into the street. I followed anxiously, and to my surprise he went into the café opposite, where he ordered the same collation. This time it was actually brought and set on the table, when like a flash my companion was up again and outside before I could speak.
I caught him up and saw that he was making for the original café.
“Hi!” I cried, “what’s all this about? Is it a game? Why can’t we eat in peace? I’m hungry.”
“Didn’t you notice?” he asked calmly.
“Notice what?” I asked.
“My uncle, thebash aghaof the Larbas.”
“No, I can’t say I did,” I replied, “but what of it?”
“He came into the first café when I was sitting there, and I couldn’t remain; and then just as I had settled in the next, he came in there too.”
“And I suppose we shall go on chasing round Burdeau till the old gentleman settles or until we dieof hunger,” I laughed back. “No,mon vieux, I’m hungry, and I won’t starve for any one.”
So saying I took my coffee and roll and carried it across to thebash agha’stable, where I sat down and explained my action. He smiled, but I realized that he was smiling to please me, and that he saw nothing in the inconvenience caused to his nephew, who might wait all day for his coffee if necessary.
On the way back we called on variouscaïdsand rich farmers, who gave us quantities of sweet mint tea. At one house the oldbash agha, who had accompanied us, found an agedkadiwho played chess, so he insisted on having a game while we all had to wait, regardless of the fact that it was getting near dinner-time.
How different from the customs of Europe, where age is, if anything, jeered at. Fancy giving a lift to some one’s grandfather after a day in the country and having to wait while he played a silly game with a local judge whom he met in some one else’s house!
And so the pleasant visit wore on. Each day we did something different, each day we had enormous meals until finally I was obliged to leave. Looking back on the visit the thing which strikes me the most is the complete lack of fuss during the whole of my stay. Everything was done quite haphazardly and yet without a hitch. I suppose it is the effect of centuries of such existence which remains as a background and which is carried on generation after generation. A few modern inventions have appeared which facilitate things a bit, but otherwise the same life is led with exactly the same ideas as it was twelve hundred years ago, and it seems difficult to see any radical change ever taking place. In this mode life runs smoothly for the Arabs; complications do not trouble them, so why change?
The Marabout of Kourdane asked me to spend a week-end with him to discuss the possibilities of organizing a moufflon shoot in the Djbel Amour. I was interested in the prospects of getting a moufflon, but still more interested to see Kourdane.
Situated in the Sahara some fifty kilometers from Laghouat, at the foot of the Djebel Amour Range, this country home ofmaraboutswas created by a Frenchwoman known as Madame Aurélie, whose maiden name was Aurélie Picard, the daughter of a gendarme. She had met the Marabout of Aïn Mahdi at Bordeaux when he had been exiled during the insurrection of 1870. She married him in France, and when he was allowed to return to Algeria she came too, and became a great personage in the country. At his death she married his brother, and continued as lady of this desolate area, loved and respected by all. Finally the second husband died too, and she remained on alone for a while in the wonderful house she had built. She is still alive, but she rarely returns to the scenes of her greatness for two reasons; in the first place, the presentmaraboutsare not quite the saints they should be, and secondly, they are all a little jealous of her reputation.
As I had never seen this desert castle I accepted with alacrity, and left with a friend one Saturday morning in a car. The road on leaving Laghouat is to the north, but soon it turns southwest across a desolate land of sand and rocks. I had decided to lunch with an old friend of mine, the Caïd of Tadgemout. I reached theksarat noon: a sad, desolate little village partly in ruins, perched on the top of a rocky eminence overlooking a small oasis, very green in the midst of the desert. The road climbed up behind the rock and emerged before thecaïd’shouse, which dominates theoasis. The view from his terrace is one of the most impressive in these parts. In the immediate foreground, the oasis, then a silver thread of water running down the river-bed and away, away, the desert. But unlike most of the Saharan views the horizon is cut all of a sudden by a group of rugged hills standing up grim and bare. Again, looking to the northwest the scene is not at all expected, as one’s eyes rest on the great range of the Djebel Amour, deep blue against the brilliant sky.
Storks Nesting on the Roofs at Constantine
Storks Nesting on the Roofs at Constantine
Storks Nesting on the Roofs at Constantine
Bonfarik, Religious Print Seller
Bonfarik, Religious Print Seller
Bonfarik, Religious Print Seller
Vegetable Market
Vegetable Market
Vegetable Market
Tadgemout is said to mean the “Crown of Death,” and was the capital of a desert queen whose every punishment even for the smallest crime was death. It is a place which grows upon one, and one is loath to leave its lonely site.
Thecaïdhimself is a charming person, far superior to most of his kind, both in intelligence and manners. This is partly due to his own efforts and also to the fact that during the war he was made prisoner and, being eventually exchanged as an invalid, spent a long time in Switzerland, where he attended lectures at Geneva University and came in contact with all kinds of people. He received us before his door and led us into the guest-house where one of those interminable repasts was prepared. We discussed all manners of extraordinary subjects, or rather I was subjected to a series of endless questions, as thecaïdis of an inquisitive turn of mind. One remark is worthy of note as showing the curious working of an Oriental brain.
He suddenly said:
“Why don’t Protestant clergymen wear vestments like the Catholics?”
I began with a dissertation on the Reformation, but he knew all about that.
After lunch he accompanied us on our journey. The road dipped down into a dried river-bed, wherethe car stuck; we all had to climb out and push; no comment was made, as this is one of the most usual occurrences when motoring across the Sahara. The road continued desolate as we drew near to the blue mountains.
Suddenly a great block of buildings stood out of the wasted land; a garden covering at least a square mile surrounded it, making a wonderful contrast of green.
“Kourdane,” replied my companion to my inquiry; “the house built by Madame Aurélie; the garden created by her with water from many wells; everything done on the most lavish scale and now hardly appreciated by her descendants.”
Indeed, as we approached the wide portal of the outer wall, I noticed that the building had not been whitewashed for years and that the plaster was peeling off. Fissures had appeared, and though the mass of the edifice struck one forcibly after the usual one-storied Arab houses, I realized that we were in a splendor of the past.
Themarabouthurried out to greet us. Small of stature, with decidedly negro features, his general appearance on first contact was not impressive. And yet as one watched him one realized a kind of superiority engrained by many generations of domination. Mycaïdkissed his hand, the chauffeur kissed his hand and his head; the young man took it all as calmly as the hand-shake I gave him. He led us along the side of the house to the front and here, of a sudden, one was transported out of any sort of Arab setting. Instead of the usual small doorway leading to some dim ante-chamber or narrow staircase, we came upon a great flagged space interspersed with flower-beds and fountains and rivulets, while tall cypresses grew about, protecting the garden from the desert winds.
A broad staircase built of rosy stone led up to a terrace pillared and tiled in delicate shades, giving an impression of majesty, of far-away power, of magnificence. We mounted the stairway and were led into a dining-room quite simple in spite of its size, and then into a drawing-room. An array of superb Arab furniture filled the room, not the tawdry tables and chairs bought in Algiers, but the real work of the country: chests of drawers, cupboards, brackets inlaid with mother-of-pearl, priceless carpets on the floor, and lovely hangings over the doors; swords and daggers of all periods festooned the walls. We passed out of the drawing-room on to a gallery running all the length of the building, and on to which opened the guestrooms. As we entered the first, I was struck by the richness of the setting, by the real Arab bed hung about with brocaded curtains, then I realized that I was not in one room but in a series. I turned in surprise to thecaïd. He smiled at my astonishment and explained that at Kourdane every guest had his private suite—bedroom, sitting-room, dining-room—and that in the old days of the Great Marabout meals were sent separately to each person who spent the night there. The importance of the repast varied according to the standing of the guest, but great or small, he was waited on in his own apartment. Afterward every one met in the drawing-room for coffee.
“Even now,” he added, “we shall dine in the dining-room without our host, who will be served apart.”
I could find nothing to say; the old baronial hall of the Middle Ages with the high table seemed eclipsed.
We returned to the garden and were led with reverence to the tomb of themarabout. It was built round an ancient tree under which he was wont to take his afternoon sleep. A light burned perpetually there.
We visited the domain, and the richness of the vast garden in the middle of the desolate land was almost as impressive as the pomp of the house.
At seven-thirty we dined, and as thecaïdhad predicted, our meal was partaken without the host. There was a sheep roasted whole, with one of the best Bordeaux wines I had tasted for a long time. Afterward the littlemaraboutcame in and took his coffee with us in the gorgeous drawing-room. We talked for a while about shooting and then, turning toward a battered piano, contrasting sadly with the rest of the furnishings, he asked if any one could play. My English companion was persuaded to approach the keyboard. The holy atmosphere inspired him to play Nazareth, but the sounds evoked from the yellow notes were so unexpected that he swiftly changed into a Waldteufel waltz, though it did not sound at all like the tune I knew. However, this did not in the least matter, and the Arabs sat spellbound as the unspeakable discords burst from the instrument which had not been tuned for fifty years.
Finally the party broke up and we retired to our respective apartments in an atmosphere of decadent grandeur. During the night I was awakened by the casements rattling, and though I tried to turn over and sleep again, I knew instinctively what it meant. As soon as I was called I walked out on to the terrace and at once realized that my intuition was right. A fierce wind was blowing up from the southeast and clouds of sand and dust were whirling across the desert. As the day increased the wind rose and the sand which had merely been coming in gusts became a cloud which swept across the land, enveloping all.
The sun tried to pierce the pall of dust, but little by little it was obliterated and the atmosphere became that of a sea mist mixed up with a London fog. Dust,sand, grit filtered its way in everywhere while the wind roared through the cypress trees and about the house. By lunch-time the sand-storm was at its height and the light of day was no brighter than at dusk. We had, however, promised to go over to Aïn Mahdi, a few miles farther on, and visit the headmarabout. We rolled ourselves in burnouses, wrapped our heads inchechs, and started off in the car. The Djebel Amour was quite obscured, and the whirling sand stung our faces, while above, miles above it seemed, the great yellow cloud swept on.
Aïn Mahdi is a holy city, walled and fortified, which lies at the western end of the Djebel Amour. Built about the eleventh century it used to be a university town and a city of great learning, where some of the most valuable manuscripts were produced. During the middle of the last century the holy order of the Tidjanis was founded and took up its headquarters here. The Tidjanis have branches all over the Moslem world, which explains the riches of Kourdane, as well as the great fortune of the old gentleman we were going to see. All the members of these branches send their yearly offering to the seat of their order, and the annual revenue of themarabout’sfamily probably exceeds any income in the world.
We passed in through a square archway and stopped in front of two fine old doors standing at right angles to one another in the corner of a small square. The first was the mosque, the second thezaouia. Taking off our shoes we entered the mosque. Built on old foundations, the present structure is only some hundred years old, but it is exceedingly picturesque. A courtyard with tall trees growing in the middle first meets the eye; at the foot of the opposite wall is an old bronze cannon captured from Abd-el-Kader, who besieged the holy city in 1838.
Turning to the left, we entered the shrine, small and dim, but which nevertheless disclosed some lovely green tiles lining the walls. On the floor were beautiful carpets, while banners of the saints hung from the graceful arches. On the far side a dark mass, suggesting a catafalque, with glints of gold and silver and precious stones, draped about with costly stuffs, could be seen, and under it the tomb of the Great Marabout, founder of the order.
On leaving the mosque we went to themarabout’shouse and were received by his son, a very strong negroid type, but always with that look of self-assurance, that almost regal presence. He could not have been more than twenty, but he held out his hand to be kissed as if he ruled the world.
His house was clean but modern, and after eating cakes and drinking sweet tea we took a walk through the town. Unlike most of the oasis villages it is built entirely of stone, and though the houses might be in a better state of repair, it gives a more solid impression than the usual mud streets. Another most striking thing is that the women not ofmarabouticblood all go about unveiled, and the marriages are not arranged as in ordinary Mohammedan centers—by the parents— but the young men are allowed to court the ladies of their choice, who are at liberty to refuse their suitors. The female descendants of themaraboutsare, on the contrary, veiled at the age of eight, and never unveil until they die.
My companion of Tadgemout took us to visit his uncle, the Caïd of Aïn Mahdi, who again plied us with tea; from there we progressed to the house of anothermarabout, and so on until we were so saturated in mint and tea and coffee that we could hardly walk, and we had practically no time to visit the looms where they weave the famous blue and red carpets ofthe Djebel Amour. However, the day was drawing on, and we had to think of returning to Kourdane, so, accompanied by a host ofmaraboutsof all ages we reached our car, where the accolades and hugs rebegan. One felt as if one had stepped right back hundreds and hundreds of years into some scene of the past, and indeed it might have been so, for the life of these people has not changed in the least degree since the days of the foundation of the city, when King Harold sat on the throne of Britain and William the Conqueror cast longing glances across the channel.
Armor, trunk-hose, laces, curls, ruffles, knee-breeches, pantaloons, tall hats, have come into fashion and disappeared in England since those days, but to the children of Aïn Mahdi it has never occurred to dress otherwise than in agandourahand burnous, and I don’t suppose that it ever will.
When we left the gates of the city the wind had dropped, but the sand still hung like a great pall over the land, just as when a dust is raised in a room it hangs in the air for some time before settling. Our visit was almost over, and next morning we took leave of our hospitable little host, and returned to Laghouat, realizing that we had had an experience which would last long in our minds.
Jelloul ben Lahkdar,bash aghaof the Larba tribe about the oasis of Laghouat, is a man with the presence of an emperor, and when I meet him I feel that I ought to kneel down and kiss his hand.
I do not do this, however, partly because it would be misconstrued, and partly because thebash aghais a charming old gentleman with a sense of humor, and one whose soul is simplicity itself. He is rather atyrant with the younger members of his family, and I know that they are very frightened of him, and that they are like young schoolboys when he is with them.
However, this does not prevent his being a very entertaining companion, and though he rarely maintains a lengthy conversation, what he says is wise and to the point. When I met him, therefore, in Chellala, a little market-town nestling among the hills some two hundred miles north of the Sahara, I was delighted.
“Why, what are you doing here,bash agha?” I exclaimed, after we had passed through the lengthy Arab greeting which is very poetical but rather tedious in the long run.
“I have taken up my summer quarters with the Caïd Ali, my cousin,” he replied. “And you, my friend?”
“Oh, I’ve just come up for the sheep-market.”
“You dine with us to-night,” he went on, “you will taste some fish.”
“Thank you,” I replied, “it will be a pleasure to dine at your hospitable table and a luxury to eat fish from the sea.”
“They do not come from the sea,” he replied. “They are fish from the river at Taguine, forty kilometers from here.”
“Freshwater fish,” I exclaimed. “I have lived in this country long, but I did not know such things existed in Algeria!”
He smiled.
“Come and see,” he went on, and, patting my arm, continued his stately promenade down the road.
I went and found a party of Arab chiefs I knew. More solemn greetings. At the beginning of the long meal the fish was served. There was no doubt about it, they were good-sized river-fish, a kind of carp or perch or gudgeon with little taste.
Thebash aghasmiled at my surprise.
“Would you care to fish them yourself?” he enquired.
“Most certainly,” I replied, “but I have no rod or line with me.”
“I am going to Taguine to-morrow,” he went on, “and if you come here at eight I will give you a lift, and you can lunch there with me. I’ll see that you are supplied with rods and lines.”
I thanked him warmly, wondering in myself what the fishing could be like.
The next morning acavalieror Arab retainer came round and, entering my room, roused me from my slumbers by telling me that thebash aghaawaited me.
I bounded from my bed and looked out of the window at the clock on the Administrateur’s office, but it said only seven. I pointed this out to thecavalierand explained that I had been warned for eight. He did not seem in the least impressed, and only repeated the information that thebash aghaawaited me. I gathered that he expected me to run down in my pajamas. Arabs rarely undress, and wash only at the Turkish bath and at meals, and they can not understand that a European can’t walk straight out of his bed to his daily duties.
I failed to convey any of this to thecavalier, and he left me, repeating that thebash aghaawaited me.
At seven-thirty the Caïd Madani came into my room and, after passing through the ritual of early morning salutations, informed me that thebash aghaawaited me.
I said, “But he warned me for eight, and it is only seven-thirty.”
He said, “But thebash aghais ready.”
I said, “Well, he ought to have told me to come earlier.”
Thecaïddid not seem to understand my point of view, and only replied, “Well, perhaps you will hurry; I will wait down-stairs.”
I hurried, and eventually dashed out, followed by my companion, to where the car waited. Thebash aghasat in a chair and smoked a meerschaum pipe. He was surrounded by a group of Arab chiefs.
“What respect,” I said to myself. “The old man goes out for the day and all the chiefs come to see him off.”
Thebash aghasaluted me and made no reference to the hour of our departure. I felt relieved.
His chauffeur got into the car, the old gentleman got in beside him. The Caïd Madani motioned me to get in behind, the Caïd Madani got in after me, the Caïd Aïssa got in after the Caïd Madani, the Sheik Marhoun got in after the Caïd Aïssa, thekadigot in after the Sheik Marhoun. The Caïd Ali said, “I don’t think I shall come, there isn’t much room left.”
All the others protested, so he got in too.
The Caïd Mohamed categorically refused to make a ninth.
Thebash aghaturned round and said, “Well, I think we are all here. Let us start.”
The car moved off. At the entrance of the town the Sheik Marhoun said, “Do you think that we’ve got enough petrol to get there and back?”
“Inch Allah,”replied the chauffeur.
Thekadi, who is a practical man, and who likes his comforts, interposed, “I think you had better make certain.”
The chauffeur made certain and found there was enough to do about one mile down hill.
We therefore returned to the town to get some. No one seemed to mind, though; my seven Arabs made no comment and remained as placid as if the filling ofthe petrol tank was merely a childish whim of thekadi. I felt certain that they were saying to themselves, “If the car lacks fuel, Allah will surely provide.”
I said to thekadi, “Lucky you thought of asking.”
He smiled benignly. I love thekadi. He is a charming person. He is the Mohammedan Judge of Chellala, and he looks like an early Victorian Englishman: fair beard, very white skin, a slightly rubicund nose, clear blue eyes, and long white hands. If he wore a pair of nankeen pantaloons and a choker instead of a burnous and a turban, he would be the image of what Alfred de Musset must have been in his prime. Thekadihas, moreover, a great sense of humor.
When we had filled up, we rolled off first of all through the mountains of Chellala and then on to the great open plains which run down to the Sahara, forming some of the finest pasture-land of Algeria.
My companions all chatted away to each other about their sheep-raising, their crops, their horses, their falcons, their shooting—all those things so dear to these country gentlemen.
Occasionally they poked fun at thekadi, who is not a warrior nor a sportsman, but he always had a sharp retort which sent them into helpless laughter.
Finally we arrived at Taguine and stopped for a moment at the monument which marks the place where the Duc d’Aumale’s flying column captured the whole of the Emir-el-Kader’ssmalain 1843 and thus broke his long resistance.
This was an occasion to rain more jokes on thekadi’shead, as he is a direct descendant of the greatemir, and it was the great-uncle of the Caïd Aïssa, the loyal General Yusuf, who was in command of the native cavalry on this occasion.
As soon as we alighted, the various chiefs had business to attend to, and I was despatched to fish.I was furnished with a long pole, on the end of which was a piece of thin rope to which was further riveted a hook. There was also a box of worms.
My guide was an ex-soldier dressed in a tattered burnous on which was proudly pinned the Croix de Guerre, and under which he wore a seedy frock coat with satin facings. He had no socks, but a pair of very battered slippers.
After trudging through the fields of standing barley for about half an hour we came to a kind of brown ditch with a rivulet one yard broad trickling sadly down the middle.
“Here is the river,” said the guide proudly.
I said nothing, but looked anxiously into the trickle, but all I could see were five or six tortoises paddling about. Eton days when I kept these beasts in a biscuit box in the wash-stand, hidden from the eagle eyes of m’tutor, returned to me, but I somehow did not connect them with rods and hooks.
My companion seemed to read my thoughts. “The fish are further on,” he said simply; “come!”
I followed him along the bank and eventually we came to a deep, muddy pool about twenty feet square. The Arab squatted down, knotted a cork into the middle of the rope, baited my hook and handed me the pole. I took it and felt inclined to laugh. It reminded me of that stupid Christmas game where one fishes for useless presents out of a tub. However, I lowered the worm into the opaque water and waited. Two minutes had hardly passed when down went the cork. Instinctively I struck. Memories of sudden thrills by tumbling streams, the hiss of a line running out, the bend of the rod, flashed before me. But they were only visions, for I had struck so violently, and the string or cable at the end of my pole was so strong, that I jerked the fish right out of the pool and on to the bank.
My fisherman instantly rescued it from the hook and I took it up to examine it. I expected to find the mud-fish which I had often come across in certain Indian rivers; but not at all. In shape it resembled a perch, but though the fins were red, there were none of the sharp points on the back, and the color was more that of a carp. Its weight was about two ounces.
I continued fishing. We visited some three or four pools, and in two hours I caught nearly one hundred of these fish. The majority were like the first, but there were a dozen or so of over a quarter of a pound, and two must have weighed a good twelve ounces.
Finally surfeited with this somewhat crane-like occupation, I trudged back.
Clouds were banking up over there toward the north, and the Arab watched them with interest.
“Two days, rain now,sidi,” he exclaimed, “will double our crops and afford pasturage for the flocks for the rest of the summer.”
I reached the house of the Caïd Aïssa to find my friends all sitting in a circle on a priceless Djebel Amour carpet, and looking hungrily out of the door where four Arabs turned a sheep spitted on a long pole before a brushwood fire. The sheep was becoming a glorious golden color as the chief turnspit poured fat on its roasting sides. After my long walk the smell of this cooking meat roused my appetite.
I slipped off my shoes and went and sat down on a cushion beside thebash agha. I told him all about my fishing exploits, but he didn’t seem to take the least interest in my tale. He merely turned to me and said: “These foolish young men have brought you out to lunch here and they have forgotten to bring knives or forks or plates, so you will have to eat like us.”
“Oh,” I replied, rather nervously, “I consider that eating with one’s hands is much more cleanlythan using knives and forks which may not have been washed.”
Thebash aghagrunted and the others looked anxiously about. I realized that the old man was in one of his tyrannical moods.
At last one of the cooks came in and demanded if he should serve.
“Of course,” said thebash agha, “but where is the Caïd Madani?”
“He is saying his prayers,” ventured the Sheik Marhoun.
Thebash aghasaid,“Alham dullah!”(“May Allah be praised”), but his eyes expressed, “Why the deuce must this idiot say his prayers at lunchtime?”
I was seized with an uncontrollable desire to laugh, so I went to the door and I saw, out on the plain, the tall figure of Madani, his burnous spread out before him, bowing and prostrating himself with that complete lack of self-consciousness so remarkable in all Mohammedan devotions.
However, he finished and, after remaining for a moment in meditation gazing out toward Mecca, he took up his burnous and returned to us.
A low table and tray were brought and placed before thebash agha. He motioned me to seat myself beside him, he called thekadi, and he called an agedaghawho seemed to have suddenly grown out of the earth at the smell of food. The others went and squatted at a respectful distance from the old man and spoke in whispers.
A man passed round with a brass basin and jug and we all washed our hands in silence.
A large bowl ofschorba, highly spiced soup, was placed on the table, some loaves of barley bread and some wooden spoons. We all dipped into the bowl and commenced the meal. When thebash aghahadfinished we all put down our spoons, which were carried away with the bowl and placed before the others.
The long Arab midday meal began: thebourak, or sausage roll; themechoui, which we clawed at with our fingers; theleham lalou, stewed mutton with prunes; thekous-kous; and finally the honey cakes.
As we finished each dish the remains were taken to the others, who by this time had been joined by thebash agha’schauffeur.
A large jug of skimmed milk was passed round and we all took a sip.
“Alham dullah,”said thebash agha.
“Alham dullah,”repeated thekadiwith the agedaghaand the youngcaïds.
The man passed round with the brass tray and jug and the water, and thebash aghawent through a lengthy toilet which commenced with his beard and ended with his fingers.
Coffee appeared.
We all sighed contentedly, the tension of before lunch had disappeared. Thebash aghalighted his pipe. I did the same, while the others looked at us with envy, as they themselves could not smoke in the old chief’s presence. Gradually they slipped toward the door to get at their cigarettes.
“I wish to play cards,” suddenly said thebash agha.
Thecaïdspaused at the door.
“Go on, Madani,” said the Caïd Aïssa.
“No, no, it’s not my turn,” he replied.
“And it isn’t mine,” said Marhoun.
“Thekadimust play,” said the Caïd Ali.
“Yes, send along thekadi,” they all said.
“But I am always made to do this,” protested the man of peace, “and I always lose.”
“It’s about all you’re fit for,” laughed Marhoun.
This was considered a great joke, and they hustled him back into the presence of thebash agha, smiling at his woebegone expression.
He squatted down opposite the old gentleman, the chauffeur brought in some stones and placed them between the two players for counters. That mysterious Hispano-Mauresque game began, a game which came from the Peninsula when the Christian kings retook the Alhambra and drove out the Arabs. Thekadilooked more and more like an early Victorian dandy than ever.
I sat and watched while the others poked fun at the victim, discreetly, from the corner of the room.
But this time luck seemed to favor the judge and he began to win; thebash aghagot cross again; then he got sleepy; his head began to nod, and finally he dropped off. Thekaditurned to me and winked knowingly while he gathered up his winnings.
I dozed off too. Arab lunches are conducive to slumber, and I understand why the Orientals recline at their repasts. . . .
Suddenly I was roused by Madani. “We ought to be getting away,” he said, “but thebash aghais still asleep.”
“Well, wake him,” I replied.
“Oh, I can’t. None of us can; we’d never hear the end of it,” broke in Madani. “But you can.”
“But I certainly won’t,” I retorted. “I’m sleepy enough myself. Make thekadido it!”
This seemed to amuse Madani, and he returned to the other chiefs and I saw that my suggestion was causing them joy. But not to thekadi, who, as usual, protested, and I realized that he was the sort of joke-man of the district. At last, however, he was bustled into the room.
He looked anxiously about and, finally, seeing the large brass tray on which themechouihad been served, he took it up and dropped it with a crash on the part of the floor which was uncarpeted. Then he fled out on to the plain.
Thebash aghaopened one eye, then the other, then seemed about to sleep again. However, at that moment a diversion was caused by the entry of the agedaghawith the statement that there was a man with a petition to make.
Thebash aghacame to and, sitting up, settled his turban and became at once the “Emperor.”
Thecaïdsbecame “princes,” and squatted down in a semi-circle on the carpet; the chauffeur ventured back and started mending a tire. The petitioner marched in and, after kissing the old man’s shoulder, went and sat at a distance. For ten minutes he said “How-do-you-do” in different poses and accents. For a moment there was a lull, and then all of a sudden the storm burst, as in a torrent of words he poured out his story.
He talked so rapidly that I only understood vaguely, but I gathered that his flock had been stolen by nomads of thebash aghawho had come up from the south. Thebash aghawas silent for a time, then he too burst into a flood of verbiage.
It was a most extraordinary group. Thebash aghaat one end of the room, sitting on a heap of cushions, his whole attention riveted on the man before him who squatted, speaking rapidly, but with practically no gestures.
Occasionally one of thecaïdswould throw in a remark, but otherwise one would have supposed that the matter was quite indifferent to them. And yet it was a question which to these Arabs was one of the greatest importance.
The complaint was of the tribe of the district whoaccused one of the nomad tribes of the Larba, now pasturing near-by, of stealing sheep. The sheep had disappeared ten days ago and had been tracked with that mysterious instinct across those limitless wastes of desert to Ghardaia, three hundred miles to the south. The man wanted their return as well as the punishment of the thieves.
Thebash aghaturned to thekadi, who for the moment ceased being the joke-man, and spoke a few words to him.
Thekadinodded.
Thebash aghaaddressed the Caïd Madani.
“This affects your tribe. You will send a mounted man to Ghardaïa forthwith. He will apprehend the robbers and have them drive the flocks back here. You will bring them before me at Chellala.”
“Inch Allah,”acquiesced Madani.
Justice was done. A horseman was to ride over the desert to Ghardaïa and back, and I pictured a Lord-Lieutenant of Sussex saying to the sheriff: “You will tell a constable to bicycle to Edinburgh and fetch back a couple of hundred sheep,” just as one might say, “Go and post this letter.” It was a marvelous example of the simplicity of primitive justice.
Thebash agharose. The complainant kissed his turban, and we all followed the old man out.
During lunch the sky had become gray and the wind was coming from the north in cold gusts, bringing clouds of sand and grit.
We all piled into the car again and started on our return journey.
The sky grew darker and in a few minutes the rain began. Rain in Algeria is quite common on the coast in winter or spring, but rain in the neighborhood of the desert rarely comes after March, and when it does it is good for the cultivator but it is not amusing forthose who travel. The first dried river-bed we came to was far from dry, the second was running with water, the dry track before the third had become a morass, the third was gurgling gaily down, and the road was an inch or so under water.
At this point we punctured. We all got out and looked at the flat tire, but no one did anything.
I said, “Suppose we change the wheel.”
The chauffeur said, “The spare wheel is punctured too. We must change the inner tube, but I don’t think it will last long.”
We got out the inner tube; it looked rather wretched, and a preliminary pump-up revealed that it held little air. Another one was found which appeared to be air-tight. The rain swept icily across the great plain. The kadi shivered and drew his burnous about him. Marhoun took off the wheel; thebash aghasmoked his pipe as he sat on the running-board. Thecaïdstalked and laughed at the miserablekadi. There was none of that fever and excitement and cursing of the chauffeur which one would have seen among Europeans on such an occasion. The chauffeur had forgotten to mend the spare wheel; it was the will of God and nothing could be done to remedy it.
At last we started again, but the nextouedwas a rushing torrent. The car floundered in water swirled about the axles, the engine roared, the chauffeur shouted something and every one, except thebash agha, tumbled out into the water. I followed and started pushing, while the water raced round us about up to our knees. The car began to move, and at last laboriously climbed out of the river.