DOWN TO THE LAND OF THE MOZABITES
Linked to Biskra and civilization by the slender thread of steel which
the French have thrown across some two hundred kilometers of dusty
desert, Touggourt, the dark-green mass of its palm-groves floating
betwixt the sky and the tossing dunes, suggested a boat moored to the
shore by a long hawser. Cut that hawser, and Touggourt would, you feel,
drift away upon the sea of sand, for it is the southernmost rail-head in
the Algerine Sahara.
Until very recent years Touggourt was to all intents and purposes an
island, a port of call for caravans plying between Algeria and the Niger
territories, to be reached only by a five days’ voyage on a swaying “ship
of the desert.” But with the completion of the railway its age-long
isolation has become a thing of the past, and it is visited each winter
by an increasing number of hardy tourists, who, foregoing for a time the
bath-tubs, table-d’hôtes, and gaming-tables of Biskra, summon up the
courage to brave the hardships of the eight-hour journey by narrow-gage
railway in order that they may send picture post-cards to their friends
at home from what it pleases them to term “the heart of the desert.”
When I first went to Algeria, more than twenty years ago, the journey to
Touggourt was a real adventure, to be undertaken only with the consent
of the French military authorities and with an adequate escort from the
Camel Corps. The oasis was as remote from the beaten paths of travel as
Baghdad, or Addis Ababa, or Khiva. But to-day it is only an excursion,
to be made by unaccompanied women in comparative comfort and perfect
safety. That is what comes from civilization. It is ruining the world
for those of an adventurous turn of mind. The motor-car has crossed the
Desert of Gobi to Urga; the mysterious mountains of Abyssinia resound
to the hoot of the locomotive; seats in the Cairo-Baghdad mail-planes
are booked for months in advance; the radio has become a commonplace
to the sophisticated savages of the Upper Congo; motor-buses rumble
through the jungles of Cambodia; Cooks sell through tickets, meals and
rooms included, from Cairo to the Cape. For the Outer Lands are almost
all exploited; the work of the pioneer and the frontiersman is nearly
finished, and in a few more years, a very few, we shall see their like no
more.
Forming a lofty hedge of green between the mud-brown town and the
encircling desert is a vast forest of date-palms—nearly a quarter of
a million of them—whose amazing luxuriance is due to the fact that
Touggourt lies in the valley of the Oued Rir, the largest of that system
of unseen rivers which drain the southern slopes of the Aurés and which
has rewarded the efforts of the well-drillers with a supply of artesian
water that has made this one of the most fertile and prosperous regions
in the whole Sahara.
[Illustration: THE SAND-STORM
Whipped by a roaring wind, the sand rises in suffocating clouds; the sun
is obscured; the hot blue sky changes to a murky red, then to an angry
purple; a sullen twilight descends upon the land; the crests of the dunes
melt and smoke, giving the impression that the whole landscape is in
motion]
From an architectural point of view, Touggourt is one of the most curious
towns in Africa, the labyrinthine native quarter being penetrated by
long, dim tunnels, just large enough to permit the passage of camels,
and running beneath the houses themselves. In places the walls of these
subterranean passageways are honeycombed with little booths and shops,
just as in New York establishments of a more pretentious order open
on the subway. The houses, their walls unwhitewashed and unpierced by
windows, are built of blocks of sun-dried mud, wisps of the straw used
in their manufacture still protruding from them, with domed roofs of the
same material. Seen from the top of one of the numerous minarets, the
maze of tortuous lanes and alleys, the black mouths of the tunnels, the
hundreds of earth-brown domes, and the mud walls, of the same monotonous
color, give the impression that one has wandered into a town inhabited by
some gigantic species of mole.
The native town is indescribably filthy, unkempt, and foul of smell,
its streets littered with refuse, swarming with whining mendicants,
scrofulous children, and great numbers of savage yellow dogs. But the
French quarter is very neat and clean, with broad sandy streets lined
by double rows of palm-trees; the inevitable Grande Place, deep in dust
and with rather discouraged-looking vegetation; a sprinkling of European
cafés and trading-establishments; and two hotels; a well-appointed
and comfortable one operated by the Transat and a considerably less
pretentious establishment called the Oued Rir.
For the blasé tourist, fresh from the casinos, dance-halls, and _cafés
chantants_ of Biskra, Touggourt holds few attractions, though one may
take some really delightful rides through the extensive date plantations,
the most fascinating vistas unfolding themselves at every turn of the
road. The horses, however, far from being the beautiful Arab steeds of
which the poets sing, are poor gaunt creatures, hard of gait and mouth,
while the high, broad-seated native saddles, with their small stirrups
and short leathers, might have been used with great effectiveness as
instruments of torture by the Spanish Inquisition.
It so happened that we found ourselves in Touggourt in the fasting month
of Ramadan, when no devout Mohammedan permits either food or water to
pass his lips between sunrise and sunset for a period of thirty days.
When the shadows began to lengthen with the approach of nightfall, we
were wont to climb to the lofty platform atop the minaret of a disused
mosque, from which could be obtained a superb view of the whole oasis
and the adjacent desert. Just as the upper edge of the blood-red sun
coincided with the western sky-line, an ancient field-piece, posted in
the square below, crashed in smoke and flame. As the reverberations died
away the white figures of the muezzins appeared on the balconies of their
minarets, as the little figures pop out of Swiss clocks when they strike
the hour, and over the waiting city rolled the high-pitched call to
evening prayer: “_Al-lah-hu il Al-lah ... Al-lah Ak-bar_!” At the eagerly
awaited signal the covers were tossed from the steaming cooking-pots, the
sellers of _cous-cous_ and sweetmeats were suddenly besieged by clamorous
customers, and the entire population of Touggourt fell to with knives and
fingers, ravenous after the day-long fast.
My daughter is passionately fond of animals, so, when she came upon
two Arabs boys tormenting a desert fox cub which they had captured,
she became its owner for a small consideration. It was an amusing
little creature, as soft and furry as a chow puppy, and quickly became
domesticated, following her about on a string. She announced at dinner
that she intended taking it back to America with her, remarking that
as a pet a Saharan fox would be much more chic than a sheep-dog or a
Pomeranian. I did not attempt to dissuade her; I knew better. She
retired happily, with the cub, a pile of blankets, and a bowl of milk.
But when she appeared for breakfast it was obvious that she had passed a
restless night.
“I didn’t sleep a wink,” she greeted us. “That fox is the most
exasperating creature I have ever seen. He kept me awake until long after
midnight with his barking. I fed him some milk, and he went to sleep
for a time, but a little later I heard a noise under the bed. He was
busy chewing the toes of my best dancing-slippers. I put him back in the
blankets and tried to snatch a little sleep, but when I woke up he was
gone. After looking everywhere for him, I finally found him hidden under
the bath-tub. I’m through. A bull terrier for mine. It may not be as
romantic as a Saharan fox, but it couldn’t possibly be as troublesome.”
* * * * *
One afternoon, for want of something better to do, we rode out to
Temacin, a pretty little oasis, fifteen miles to the south of Touggourt,
with white houses peering out from amid the palm-groves and the
inevitable marabout’s tomb. Though it was an insufferably hot day, with
the mercury hovering around 120 in the sun, the first two or three miles
were delightful, for the road led through the date plantations, with
the great leaves forming a canopy of green overhead and in our ears the
pleasant sound of running water. But when we debouched upon the desert,
to strike one of the seven main caravan-routes which cross the Sahara, it
seemed as though we were riding upon the top of a stove at white heat and
that we would be broiled alive.
The great trade-track on which we now found ourselves was very wide, a
broad swath trodden below the level of the desert by the heart-shaped
pads of the camels which have followed it since long before recorded
history began. When half-way to Temacin we met a caravan coming up from
the south; five months out of Timbuktu, our guide informed us after
a brief colloquy with the leader; an endless file of men and animals
plodding slowly across the burning waste. Some of the camels bore huge,
round, tent-like arrangements, called _bassourabs_, in the privacy of
which the women rode, protected alike from the sun and from the eyes
of men. Atop of the _bassourabs_ were curious wooden frameworks, six
or eight feet high, resembling the lattice masts of battle-ships or
miniature Eiffel Towers. The tops of these towers must have been fully
sixteen feet above the ground, and from them fluttered colored rags or
streamers, which were visible long before the camels themselves had
appeared above the sky-line. I could not even hazard a guess as to
their use, but the guide informed us that they were for purposes of
identification, like the numerals at the bows of a destroyer or the
emblems painted on the under wings of a battle-plane. His French was
very sketchy, but, as nearly as I could make out, every tribe, or every
caravan—I am not certain which—can be recognized by the shape of its
camel-towers and by the color of the rags which flutter from them. This
is a wise precaution, for in the vast stretches of the Sahara, where life
is none too safe at best, it is essential that the leader of a great
convoy, responsible for hundreds of lives and millions of francs’ worth
of merchandise, should be able to determine before they come within
rifle-shot whether those he sees approaching are enemies or friends.
[Illustration: THE SPORT OF KINGS
In the Barbary of to-day, as in medieval Europe, the great lords
a-hunting go with horse and hawk and hound. Some of the falcons, probably
a species of eagle, are powerful enough to bring down gazelles]
When Nature fashioned the camel she must have had the peculiar
requirements of the Arab in mind, for without the ungainly beast life
in the desert would be impossible. It frequently attains an age of
fifty years; it is capable of carrying a burden weighing up to half a
ton, though six hundred pounds is usually the maximum; because of the
structure of its stomach it can, as every one knows, go without water for
several days on end; it finds ample pasturage in regions where a horse
would die from starvation; and the fleet _méhari_, or racing-camels, such
as are used by the Touareg, can, when pushed, cover incredible distances
without resting. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that, were it not
for the camel, vast tracts on the maps of Africa and Asia would still be
labeled “unexplored.”
The term “camel,” strictly speaking, should be used to designate only
the single-humped dromedary of Africa, Arabia, and India, though it is
also frequently applied to the two-humped Bactrian species found in
Central Asia. Though motion-picture producers frequently use animals of
both species in the same scenes, this is an amusing solecism, for their
habitats are as widely separated as those of the bison and the buffalo.
Of the Arabian camel there are almost as many breeds as there are of the
horse; the clumsy, lumbering, moth-eaten beasts of burden made familiar
to stay-at-home Americans by the circus have about the same relation to
the slim, graceful, cream-colored _méhari_ as a draft-horse has to a
thoroughbred.
On desert journeys camels are expected to carry their loads about
twenty-five miles a day for three days without drinking, being watered,
however, on the fourth; but an animal of the fleeter breeds will carry
its rider fifty miles a day for five days without water; while a Bedouin
whom I once employed to carry an urgent message for me in Arabia covered
120 miles of desert in about eighteen hours.
The training of the camel as a beast of burden begins in its fourth year,
when it is taught to kneel or rise at a given signal, and is gradually
accustomed to bear increasing loads, which, in the case of exceptionally
sturdy animals, sometimes weigh a thousand pounds. When too heavily
laden, however, the camel, which can be as stubborn as a mule, refuses
to rise—it was the last straw, you remember, which broke the camel’s
back—but on the march it is exceedingly patient, yielding beneath its
burden only to die. When relieved from its load it does not, like other
animals, seek the shade, but prefers to kneel beside its burden in the
full glare of the sun, seeming actually to enjoy the red-hot sand, a
peculiarity which it shares only with the salamander. Overtaken by a
sand-storm, the camel kneels with its back to the wind, and, stretching
its long neck flat upon the ground, closes its eyes and nostrils and
remains to all intents and purposes inanimate until the storm has passed,
while its driver, muffled in his burnous, crouches in the lee of the
beast, whose great hump affords some measure of protection from the blast.
The camel is the only animal in the world that provides its owner with
transportation, food, drink, clothing, shelter, and fuel. The flesh of
the young camel, particularly the fat of the hump, is considered a great
delicacy, though camels are rarely slaughtered for eating purposes save
on occasions of ceremony. The Arabs either drink its milk or curdle,
strain, and press it into small balls, which are dried in the sun and
provide a sour but sustaining beverage when crushed and mixed with water.
Its long hair is made into the garments with which the folk of the desert
clothe themselves, the carpets on which they sleep, and occasionally into
tents, though goat’s-hair is more commonly used for the latter purpose;
while the hide is tanned into an extremely durable leather. In those
regions where wood is unobtainable, the camel’s dung is used for fuel,
and from it the Arabs of Upper Egypt and the Sudan extract sal ammoniac
for export. Given a camel and a date-palm, the desert holds no terrors
for the Arab.
Though classified as a domestic animal, the camel is by nature a wild and
savage beast. During the rutting-season male camels become exceedingly
dangerous, evincing their anger by a curious bubbling sound, half-snarl,
half-roar, engaging in fierce struggles with other males, and frequently
attacking their drivers. Once, while crossing the Syrian Hamad, I saw a
camel almost sever the arm of an Arab who had incautiously approached it;
and on another occasion, in Mesopotamia, I was called upon to treat a
Bedouin whose whole face had literally been smashed flat by a blow from
the foot of an infuriated camel.
A great deal of sentimental nonsense has been written about the camel,
which, as a matter of fact, is the stupidest, the most ungrateful,
and the most ill-tempered of all domesticated animals. “If,” says Sir
Francis Palgrave, “docile means stupid, well and good; in such a case
the camel is the very model of docility. But if the epithet is intended
to designate an animal that takes an interest in its rider so far as
a beast can, that in some way understands his intentions, or shares
them in a subordinate fashion, that obeys from a sort of submissive or
half-fellow-feeling with his master, like the horse or the elephant,
then I say that the camel is by no means docile—very much the contrary.
He takes no heed of his rider, pays no attention whether he be on his
back or not, walks straight on when once set a-going, merely because
he is too stupid to turn aside, and then should some tempting thorn or
green branch allure him out of the path, continues to walk on in the new
direction simply because he is too dull to turn back into the right
road. In a word, he is from first to last an undomesticated and savage
animal rendered serviceable by stupidity alone, without much skill on his
master’s part, or any coöperation on his own, save that of an extreme
passiveness. Neither attachment nor even habit impresses him; never tame,
though not wide-awake enough to be exactly wild.”
* * * * *
In the desert, about two hundred and fifty kilometers east-southeast
of Touggourt, lies a group of seven small oases, the largest of which
is Ghardaia. This archipelago is the home of a confederation of Berber
tribes known as Mozabites, or the Beni-M’zab, to give them their proper
name. The Mozabites, who number only about forty thousand, are not
Arabs, but one of the ancient Berber races which lived in North Africa
long before the Arabs came. Nearly all of them read and write Arabic,
but in conversing among themselves they employ the Zenata dialect of
the Berber tongue, for which, in common with the other branches of the
old Berber stock, such as the Riffi and the Kabyles, there survives no
written form. Though Moslems they belong to a sect of extreme dissenters,
branches of which are also found in Oman and Zanzibar, being shunned by
orthodox Mohammedans as the worst of heretics. Their creed is based on
the precepts of Abdallah-ibn-Ibad, the assassin of Ali, the son-in-law of
the Prophet, and hence the traditional hatred in which they are held by
the conventional followers of the faith, who refer to them as _Khammes_,
“the Fifth,” because they are outside the four great branches of Islam.
In their form of government, their extreme austerity of life, and their
intolerance of other beliefs, as well as in their energy, industry, and
commercial integrity, they strongly resemble the Puritans who settled
on the shores of New England three hundred years ago. Like the Puritans,
they went into exile in a remote land for the sake of their faith, while
still another point of resemblance is found in their form of government,
which is by a body of elders, called the Assembly. The laws promulgated
by this body are as strict and as rigidly enforced as were the Blue
Laws of early New England, a Mozabite found guilty of drinking wine or
coffee, of smoking, or of frequenting houses of ill fame being punished
by flogging.
[Illustration: THE CITY OF THE MOZABITES
Narrow lanes between high walls ... dim, covered passageways, inviting
in their comparative coolness ... _souks_ teeming with half the races
of North Africa ... black shadows falling on orange sand ... a huge,
fantastic minaret dominating all ... such is Ghardaia, the capital of the
Berber confederation of the Beni-Mzab]
The most direct route from Touggourt to the country of the Beni-M’zab
lies straight across the desert, via Guerrara, which is also a Mozabite
community; but should you be traveling by twelve-wheeler, in which case
a few score miles or less do not greatly matter, it will repay you to
take the somewhat longer road through Wargla—or Ourgla, as the French
spell it—which, barring breakdowns and sand-storms, can be reached from
Touggourt quite easily in a day.
Ourgla, said to be the oldest town in the Sahara, has a curiously
medieval aspect, due, no doubt, to its being encircled by a massive wall
pierced by six bastion-flanked gates. For centuries it was independent, a
sort of Saharan counterpart of the free cities of the Hanseatic League;
but, unable successfully to resist the aggressions of the desert tribes,
it eventually was driven to seek the protection of the sultans of
Morocco. Moorish protection proved but nominal, however, and about the
middle of the last century Ourgla was occupied by the forces of France’s
Arab allies, though French authority was not effectively established in
the oasis until 1872, since when it has been an important outpost on
the Algerine frontier and a base for military operations against the
Touareg. In the old, bad days, Ourgla was a thriving trade mart on the
trans-Saharan route to the Niger countries, its slave-market crowded with
blacks brought from Central Africa and with buyers from all parts of
Barbary, but its importance rapidly declined upon France’s suppression of
the trade in “black ivory.” In recent years, however, it has regained a
considerable measure of its ancient prosperity through the efforts of the
French engineers, who, by sinking numerous wells, have expanded the area
and enormously increased the fertility of the oasis.
Ghardaia, the Mozabite capital, lies about a hundred miles to the
northwest of Ourgla, in the middle of the Wadi M’zab, nearly eighteen
hundred feet above the level of the sea. It is one of the most
picturesque towns in the entire Sahara, its square, flat-topped houses,
which are built on the flanks of a hill, rising in terraces, one above
another, so that the place bears a certain resemblance to the New Mexican
pyramid-pueblo of Taos. Crowning the hill is the _kasbah_, an ancient
fortress with enormously thick ramparts, above which, like a slim white
finger pointing toward heaven, soars the tapering minaret of the Grand
Mosque. It is a profoundly impressive thing, this minaret, unusual in
shape and clearly visible from every quarter of the city and from far off
in the desert, as it rises in lonely majesty against the hot blue sky.
Unlike most Saharan towns, whose houses are built of sun-dried
mud-blocks, the buildings of Ourgla are substantially constructed from
sandstone. They are, as a rule, of a blinding whiteness, by reason
of repeated applications of lime-wash, but the dazzling monotony is
broken here and there by house-owners, more original-minded than
their neighbors, who have painted their dwellings lemon yellow, pale
pink, cobalt blue. Wandering through the narrow, tortuous lanes, one
frequently notices, pressed into the plaster above the lintels of the
doors, the imprint of a hand painted in red or blue; this represents the
hand of Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, an emblem which is supposed
to bring good luck to the household, like the horseshoe in Occidental
countries.
Ghardaia is divided by walls into three districts: the eastern quarter
belongs to the Jews, of whom there are several hundred families in the
town; the western is occupied by the Metabia, an Arab tribe from the
Djebel Amur; while the central quarter, which contains the _kasbah_ and
the Grand Mosque, is the home of the ruling race, the Beni-M’zab, to
whom the gardens also belong. The Jews and the Arabs are regarded by the
Mozabites as inferior peoples and have virtually no voice in the affairs
of the community, the government of which, as I have already remarked, is
directed by an assembly composed of Mozabite elders.
Of all the Berber tribes the Mozabites have remained the freest from
foreign admixture, their persistent refusal to have social intercourse
with other tribes having produced so pronounced a type that even a
Mozabite child is recognizable at a glance. They are usually of small and
wiry figure, with very short necks, high, somewhat rounded shoulders,
and under-developed legs which are frequently bowed. They are further
distinguished from their Arab neighbors by flat faces, short noses, thick
lips, and pale, almost sallow, skins, while one not infrequently sees a
Mozabite with the red beard and blue or gray eyes which Genseric and his
Vandal hordes left as a reminder of their visit to Berber Africa.
Unlike the Arabs, whose burnouses are invariably white or a dirty brown,
the Mozabites array themselves in garments of many colors. The dress of
the common people consists of a sleeveless woolen shirt, as short and
full as kilts, called _gandourah_, with tassels of camel’s-hair hanging
from their broad belts, their lower faces concealed by loosely bound
_haiks_, a necessary precaution in that torrid country. The costumes
of the emirs, caïds, and sheikhs are frequently of exceeding richness,
however, their enormous turbans, containing yards and yards of fine
material, bound with _agals_ of gold thread; their high, soft boots of
scarlet Moroccan leather; their delicately colored silk _gandourahs_
girt with broad, silver-studded belts from which protrude the ivory and
gold-inlaid hilts of a miniature armory of weapons. As they sweep by
astride their splendidly caparisoned horses they seem to have ridden
straight out of the pages of the Arabian Nights.
While wholly lacking the cleanliness, the sociability, and the charm
of manner of the Arabs, the Mozabites far surpass them in industry,
in commercial enterprise, and in dependability, their integrity being
proverbial in matters where money is concerned. It is said of them, as
it is of the Montenegrins, that their word, once given, is never broken,
and that they will die rather than betray a trust. In consequence of this
enviable reputation, though they are detested by the Arabs for religious
reasons, the Arabs will unhesitatingly intrust them with their last franc.
A warlike tribe, one of the last to submit to France, most of them have
now settled down as peaceful and prosperous agriculturists, cultivators
of dates and breeders of live stock, though their other industries
have not been neglected, the burnouses and carpets manufactured in the
M’zab finding ready purchasers throughout North Africa. Industrious
and enterprising, as successful at money-making as the Armenians or
the Jews—it is said that a Jew has to work with his hands in the
M’zab—they are prone to seek their fortunes outside their native land,
finding ready employment in the cities along the Barbary coast all the
way from Tangier to Tripoli, where many of them occupy positions of
trust and responsibility in banks and mercantile houses or are engaged
in businesses of their own. The men usually leave home to engage in
commercial pursuits as soon as they attain their majority; but, once they
have succeeded in amassing what passes for a fortune among the desert
folk, they return to their wives and families in the M’zab, where they
settle down to enjoy the fruits of their labors, while the eldest son
goes north in turn to carry on his father’s business.
[Illustration: FAR HENCE, IN SOME LONE DESERT TOWN
White-robed Arabs squat patiently in the sun-baked market-place; the
mud-walled houses radiate heat like a red-hot stove; rising above the
low, flat roofs and the fringe of date-palms is the inevitable minaret
from which the muezzin drones his call to prayer]
So strict are the rules of the caste that any intercourse with
non-Mozabites, save in the way of trade, is rigorously forbidden; nor may
a Mozabite take his wife, or a child under ten years, away from his own
country; nor may he marry elsewhere for any reason whatsoever. Those of
other cults, including orthodox Moslems, may not set foot within Mozabite
places of worship, while Beni-Isguen, the holy city of the Mozabites, not
far from Ghardaia, is held in such sanctity that no outlander, none but a
born Mozabite, is permitted to sleep in it. Until the French intervened,
the Mozabites refused to bury any member of their sect, no matter where
he died, except in the sacred soil of the homeland, the bodies of those
who died abroad being kept by their relatives or friends until there came
an opportunity to ship them by caravan to the M’zab. The Arabs will tell
you that, until the French authorities put an end to the practice for
sanitary reasons, there was a corpse in the back room of every Mozabite
shop in Biskra.
The market-place of Ghardaia, a great sun-baked square surrounded by
whitewashed arcades, and packed with men and animals, is one of the most
interesting spots in all North Africa, for to it are drawn caravans,
merchants, and traders from all the countries bordering on the Sahara to
dispose of their peculiar wares. Here come fat, greasy Jewish merchants
to tempt the spendthrift, splendor-loving Arabs with the magnificent
red saddlery manufactured in the _souks_ of Tunis; _commerçants_ from
Oran and Algiers to purchase dates for the European market; furtive,
shifty-eyed Moorish gun-runners, who, evading the desert patrols,
have slipped through the passes of the Atlas with cases of rifles and
ammunition concealed beneath bales of innocent merchandise; smart-looking
cavalry officers in quest of horses for the Algerian remount stations;
sun-darkened men who have come with caravans of salt from the far-off
Hills of Air; masked Touareg with their brindled, white, or piebald
camels, and, occasionally, a rare and valuable beast of the tawny
reddish-buff variety, so prized for speed and endurance; hawk-nosed
Arab horse-dealers from the Ziban and the slopes of the High Atlas;
wild-looking shepherds of the Fringe, driving great flocks of sheep,
their wool dyed in various vivid colors for purposes of identification;
ubiquitous Levantines from the littoral, hawking the tawdry European
articles which the desert people prize; and, mingling with these men
of business, stalwart Senegalese _tirailleurs_; swaggering _goumiers_
in enormous turbans and voluminous blue cloaks; hard-eyed soldiers of
the Foreign Legion, whose pipe-clayed helmets and linen uniforms seem
several sizes too large for them; dignified, richly appareled emirs
from regions as widely separated as Tibesti and Mauretania; marabouts,
clothed in rags and sanctity, pleading for alms; negro clowns from the
Sudan, drums slung about their necks and ostrich-plumes in their fuzzy
hair, who have accompanied some caravan across the dreary desert miles;
dervishes, snake-charmers, sand-diviners, story-tellers ... all these,
and many more, make of Ghardaia’s market-place a panorama of Saharan life
inconceivably rich in interest, variety, and color.
Upon leaving the capital of the Mozabites, two routes offer themselves to
the traveler bound for Algeria. If impatient for the food, the music, and
the lights of the hotels of Mustapha Supérieur, he had best turn straight
northward, through Laghouat, a prosperous border town of some size but no
particular interest, to Djelfa, the southern terminus of the railway to
Algiers. Djelfa, by the way, is the best starting-point for an excursion
into the mountains of the Ouled-Naïl, the home of that highland clan
from whose dusky, dashing daughters are recruited half the prostitutes
and dancing-girls of French North Africa. Time permitting, I should have
liked to visit these ladies of easy virtue on their native heath, but
I knew that Harvey and the Cadillac had been for some days at Biskra
and that awaiting us beyond the Atlas were peoples and places equally
colorful and strange. So, bidding farewell to the Mozabites, we mounted
our twelve-wheeled Pegasus and, turning our back upon Ghardaia and its
tall white tower, purred out across the desert toward the dawn.