FEASTS IN THE HOLY PLACE
January 13, therefore, should have seen the successful termination of
our long journey, instead of which it saw us prisoners in earnest until
a furiously ridden white donkey appeared on the horizon, amidst a whirl
of tarboush tassel, rifle and long legs ending in bright yellow
slippers, each swinging wildly at different angles. All this because
Abdullah over-reached himself. In order to make our destruction certain
he went to the kaimakaan at Jof and warned him that we were two
Christians from Italy disguised as Moslems and that we were learning all
about the country in order to conquer it later on. “It is impossible,”
said that official loyally. “They have letters from the Sayeds.” “What
is writing?” said Abdullah. “They have cheated the Sayeds, I tell you.
Ever since they left they have been secretly making maps. They had
watches on the feet of the camels, and the Sitt held a watch in her hand
all the time [my compass]. They hang a strange thing on their tent—a
weapon to kill us if we come near [the barometer] and they have
spectacles which make the country look big while it is far away.” He
drew such lurid pictures of our nefarious designs that the kaimakaan was
determined at all costs to protect his beloved Sayeds from the
consequences of their mistake. “They must not leave Hawari,” he said
firmly. “In a few days they must go back. The honour of our princes will
thus be saved.” Abdullah agreed warmly, believing that in a few days
what was left of us would hardly be worth sending back! Then the blow
fell. “You must take an order at once to Yusuf and Mohammed Quemish.” In
vain the guide protested, pleaded, argued. The kaimakaan was firm. It
was then the afternoon and there was plenty of time to reach Hawari
before night. The energetic official hustled Abdullah out of the town
and the plotter saw his neat little plan for our destruction in
jeopardy.
He knew that Mohammed was intelligent and that Yusuf was known to many
people in Kufara. Both were loyal. Therefore, unless we were killed
fairly quickly, in the general inquiry his own perfidy would come to
light. He had meant to ensure that we were not immediately invited to
Jof. He had no desire to return to us even with an order for our
detention, for though it might make things uncomfortable for us
temporarily, in the long run he was bound to suffer. Therefore he spent
the night in the mountains and only arrived at our camp at 9 o’clock,
hoping that by this time we should have come to blows with the Zouias,
for he had particularly instructed Yusuf to start off with the caravan
at dawn.
I do not know which was more aghast at seeing the other, Abdullah or I!
At that moment, of course, I knew nothing of his work at Kufara. I only
felt that we had jumped to wrong conclusions the preceding day and when,
with restless eyes downcast, he murmured that we could not leave Hawari
yet as they were preparing a house for us in Jof which would not be
ready for several days, but that the slave-girls were to go on at once,
I felt that something was seriously wrong. He tried to avoid presenting
the note to Yusuf and Mohammed in front of me, but I would not leave
him, so the paper, which was presumably meant to be private, was read
before me. It ran, “You will see that you do not stir from Hawari until
you receive further orders.” Abdullah murmured something incoherent
about going to the village and the remark galvanised me into action.
Once the Zouias knew of that message we should be prisoners. It,
therefore, behoved us to send someone reliable to Taj to find out what
had happened before the suspicious tribesmen set a guard round our camp.
Mohammed was the only possible person and he loathed the idea, for had
he not the written order of the Sayed’s wakil that he was not to move?
However, he yielded to persuasion. Perhaps the long miles trudged side
by side through hot sands under a hotter sun, the precious water shared,
the jokes over our aching feet, the first cold nights when we had
divided our blankets and coats, above all, the day we had torn up the
baggage saddles together and distributed the straw to our starving
animals with little hope that we could ever provide them with another
meal, all bore fruit. “Wallahi!” he swore. “I shall discover the truth.”
Abdullah almost lost his self-control. He burst into the tent with the
cowardly Abdul Rahim, while Hassanein was penning a tactful letter to
the kaimakaan. Angry protests flowed from his lips. He threatened to
fetch the Zouias. The little commandant stuttered feeble futilities.
Mohammed wavered.
At that moment I saw the dream of so many scorching days and weary
nights fading like the mirage of noon. The object I had striven for,
laboured for, for which I had studied Arabic during gay London summers,
for which I had plotted in Cyrenaica, for which I had pored over route
maps and charts from Khartoum to Tripoli, for which I had waded through
ponderous tomes from Ptolemy to Behm and Duveyrier, balanced trembling
in the scale of this man’s mind. Every nerve and sinew, still aching
from our almost intolerable journey, spoke of the strenuous effort made.
Surely this must weigh heavier than Abdullah’s guile. It did! Somehow
the dark-faced guide, the cringing commandant, ceased to exist.
Hassanein called for a donkey for our messenger and pushed the cleverly
worded letter into his wallet. Then for a moment Mohammed and I were
face to face, and I looked straight into his keen, boyish eyes, wringing
his hand with a few words of intense confidence and knew instantly that
he would not, could not, fail us!
Thereafter it did not matter that we could not leave the camp, that
Abdullah’s face was thunderous, that the soldiers hid in their tents
with the exception of the large, faithful Farraj, who offered me
pathetic little gifts every hour to cheer me up, raw onions, parsnips
and dry cut grass which makes a kind of liquid spinach! I had to pretend
to be ill and lie on my bed all day behind the harem curtain to escape
the distrustful Zouias, who peered into the tent every two or three
minutes to see that we had not escaped. It was a distinctly trying time,
for angry councils were held at intervals outside the camp, but we were
not invited to attend them and the friendly Tebus were absent, though
once a bronze maiden with wide brown eyes, a cheery smile and a large
white pea-nut stuck in a hole in her nostril, crept to my guarded
quarters and offered me four eggs with many kindly “Keif halak.”
In the sunset came Mohammed, smiling, triumphant, breathless, having
ridden 20 kilometres to Taj over a strange country he had never seen
before, without track or guiding mark, argued with a justly suspicious
kaimakaan anxious to defend the prestige of his princes, convinced him
of our good faith, learned the whole story of Abdullah’s treachery,
remounted his white donkey and plodded back over the rough sands to our
rescue—all in eight hours. Certainly Mohammed justified that day my
long-established faith in the Beduin race and their future. He brought a
letter of enthusiastic welcome to “their Excellencies the honoured
guests of the Sayeds,” asking them to proceed to Kufara on the morrow
and to bring blessings and honour to the town by their presence therein.
The mentality of Libya is as changeable as its barometer. That night,
the men who had wished to kill us a few hours before, sat amiably round
our camp fire and actually told us of their own accord the stories that
had preceded our coming. They varied extremely, for whereas most of them
put us down as the heralds of a conquering army one said we were cousins
of Rohlfs who had come to make inquiries as to his treatment. “I
remember that Nasrani well,” said old Zarrug. “He came with a Zouia
caravan.” “How many other Nasrani were with him?” we asked, remembering
the Buseima tale that on his return, at least, the German was alone.
“There were none. He came alone with his big horse and a cook called
Ali.” The sheikh was quite definite on this point. He told us that
“Mustapha Bey” had gone to Hawawiri to avoid the larger village and
then, skirting to the east of the Kufara dunes and hills, had camped
outside Boema, where he was promptly made a prisoner.
January 14 produced about the most unpleasant specimen of desert
climate. The sun, no doubt, was hot, but a cold, strong wind blew from
the east, raising clouds of sand and making progress difficult.
Nevertheless, we sent the caravan direct to Kufara and ourselves started
for Hawawiri. The Zouias meekly allowed us to go anywhere we liked, but
they did suggest that perhaps we were tiring ourselves unnecessarily,
for there were only three houses in the farther oasis, as all the palms
were owned by people in Jof and Boema. However, we felt we had to visit
the place as a lesson to the soldiers, who had refused to accompany us
the previous day. Therefore, muffled to the eyes in the thickest
blankets and jerds we could find, astride two minute, barebacked
donkeys, we plunged into the east wind and laboured down the whole
length of the narrow Hawari oasis.
The village of our captivity proved to be unexpectedly large, for more
houses were scattered continually along the strip of palms. When we
asked the number of inhabitants, the only reply was the one word which
denotes any form of size, long, big, great, powerful, plenty, numerous,
etc., “wajid”—but I imagine that there must be a population of two
hundred or more. There was a gap between the palms of Hawari and those
of its little companion, which was only a few square kilometres in size,
and whose three houses were surrounded by a few huge fig-trees. The figs
were nearly all small and hard, but the villainous-looking Zouia, brown-
haired and green-eyed, with very low brow and narrow skull, who
accompanied us, knocked down a few little purple ones from the top. They
were very good and comforted us for the awful wind, which froze us even
at midday, as we tramped over the stony gherds that lie on the way to
Kufara.
The red sand continued, mixed with more and more patches of black
stones, while little rocky ridges rose into low dark hills or big
mounds, increasing in size after Hawari was lost to sight beside her
vermilion gherds. Each time that we mounted a faint ridge and saw black
hills in front of us we said, “Those are the last—behind those is the
secret of the desert.” A dozen times we were disappointed as a further
waste of stones and rock obscured our vision. Finally, when from quite a
high hillock we saw nothing but mounds and low hills where the boulders
had almost conquered the red sands, we began to wonder if Kufara were a
huge joke by which the African mind retaliated on European curiosity. By
every map the oasis is a solid flat block of green just beyond the Gara
of Hawari and we had already walked 35 kilometres at least beyond that
imposing cliff and apparently could see half as far again in front with
not a sign of a palm. “Look! The sand begins again on the horizon,” I
said. “It is much paler and there are more hills.” “If Kufara is beyond
those, I shall give up and send home for an aeroplane,” answered my
companion firmly.
Thereafter we covered our faces in our jerds and struggled on blindly,
so that the Sahara gave us her secret suddenly and when we saw one of
the most wonderful views in the world spread almost at our feet, we
first blinked and rubbed our eyes to see if we were asleep and then
cursed ourselves as fools for not having guessed that the explanation of
the mystery was—a wadi!
For this reason one almost falls over the edge of the last black cliff
into the soft pale sand of the oasis before one realises it is there.
They say anticipation is better than realisation. They say that success
is tasteless and that it is only the fight which thrills, but I am not
ashamed to confess my excitement when a whole new world seemed to be
revealed to me. To the east where the cliffs ran out a little, the
sacrosanct village of Taj perched clear-cut against the sky, high above
the oasis it guarded. The massive block of the zawia rose above the
group of strong, dark houses, square, solid, all built of blocks of
black stone with red sand mortar. The endless blind walls gave away no
secrets, but here and there within the courts rose the triple arched
porches of some big dwelling and already there were blotches of white
that told of watchers for our arrival.
This is the holy place of the Senussi, where are the houses of the
Sayeds and the blessed qubba of Sidi el-Mahdi, with clustering colleges
and mosque all looking like grim fortresses, for Taj boasts no blade of
grass nor speck of green to relieve the monotony of black rock and red
sand. Below it, east and west, runs a wide, flat wadi, its pale, faintly
pink sands broken by a great mass of palms and green gardens, acacias,
figs and feathery bushes, all surrounding a curly, vividly blue lake—
this to the west; while eastwards beyond the guardian sanctuary on the
cliff are more dotted palms and then a broad splash of emerald round
another lake, while the whole enchanted valley is encircled with low
amethyst hills or gherds. Scattered here and there upon the rose-petal
sand are villages whose strong, dark walls look as if fortified against
more formidable weapons than the peering eyes frustrated by their
windowless secrecy.
Jof lies in front by the side of the greenest gardens, east of the first
blue salt lake. Beyond it Zuruk is hidden amidst her palms. Tolab and
Tolelib are too far away to be visible, for they lie at the western end
of the oasis, where emerald and coral blur together at the foot of the
strange purple hills. To the east is Buma, on the way to the second
lake, with a smaller village, Boema, close beside, and beyond again more
palms, till the pale sands rise to the dusky cliffs that shut in the
secret oasis from the south.
[Illustration: THE FOUR EKHWAN WHO RECEIVED us AT TAJ]
[Illustration: HASSANEIN BEY TALKING TO EKHWAN AT TAJ WHILE THE AUTHOR
PHOTOGRAPHED THEM]
We gazed and gazed as if afraid the whole glorious view might fade
before our sunburned eyes and leave us lost in the desolate, dark waste
that lay behind us. Then suddenly we felt how very ill and tired we all
were, for the one well at Hawari to which our suspiciously guarded
followers were allowed access contained very bad water and we were all
suffering strange pangs. “Wallahi!” said Mohammed. “It is beautiful and
I am grateful, but how I want to sleep!” And he wound himself up in his
jerd and flung himself down on the nearest patch of sand. I followed
suit, with a blanket over my head and one by one the foremost of the
retinue sank down beside me, so that when the lingering caravan caught
us up it had to wake half a dozen exhausted explorers before we could
make a dignified entry into the Holy Place.
[Illustration: THE KAIMAKAAN AT TAJ]
Abdullah came out to meet us, for he had taken Zeinab and Hauwa the
previous night to Sayed Rida’s house, as it was not meet that the
personal slaves of the Sayed should be looked upon by the people. He
tried one last shot when he saw me riding a camel. “Get down! Get down,
Khadija!” he shouted loudly so that the interested group of loafers
might hear. “You cannot ride into this holy place!” We were still nearly
half a mile from the nearest house, so we ignored him, but when we came
to the last hillock we dismounted, I covering my face completely, and
with the army of nine in battle array behind us we marched towards a
very dignified group who came forward to greet us.
Except for the Sayeds themselves and the ekhwan I had met for a moment
at Jedabia, I had so far talked only with merchants and Government
officials, a few sheikhs of the smaller zawias and the Beduins. Now we
were meeting the great men of the Senussi, important ekhwan, shrewd
statesmen as well as religious chiefs. They welcomed us with grave, calm
dignity, that unconscious, simple dignity that the West can never learn
of the East, for rank in the former is a ladder up which all men may
climb, but in the latter it is a tableland apart. It is such a remote
world, so utterly unattainable by those who do not inherit it, that the
sheikh may safely invite the camel-driver to “fadhl” with him or the
ekhwan unbend to the bread-seller. Men talk of the democracy of the East
because there appears to be but one distinction—the free-born from the
slave, yet even the black Sudani girl may be the mother of a Mahdi!
There is no shadow of democracy in the untainted East. There is only
heredity. A man lives by the glory of his father and his father’s father
and when he may not take pride in them it is to the glory of his tribe
he clings.
With the grave, massive figures in spotless white jerds, under which
gleamed the richest colourings, orange, red and purple, in splendid
embroidered jelabias, we entered the first big house on the edge of the
cliff. It was the dwelling of Sidi Idris, so a great honour was done us.
Along one side of the big central court ran one of the high arched
loggias we had seen from the hill and this opened into an equally long
room, immensely high, thickly carpeted, its white plaster walls
decorated with texts from the Koran and small, regular alcoves wherein
were unglazed windows protected by green shutters, over which hung
immense glass balls like those we put on Christmas trees. The ceiling
was covered with gay chintz and a row of huge ornate lamps, with more
pendant green and blue balls hung from it. We found ourselves seated in
a circle facing the open door with four of the reverend ekhwan. In the
place of honour was Sayed Saleh el Baskari, a cousin of Sidi el Abed,
his wakil and the acting kaimakaan of Kufara, in daffodil yellow and
black, with purple lining to his wide sleeves. He had a broad,
intelligent brow and dimples in his bronzed red cheeks, a long, drooping
black moustache above a firm-lipped mouth and tiny thin beard. His eyes
were kind and his smile frank, but he was the typical Eastern statesman
of few bland words to hide much thought.
Next to him sat Sayed Abdil Rahman Bu Zetina, a small man with broad,
grey beard and dark, reflective face, level brows and fine-cut nostrils.
He might be a philosopher, a divine! Then came the mighty Mohammed Bu
Fadil, brother of the absent kaimakaan, enormous of person, in pale
saffron yellow, with a primrose kufiya wound round and round his head
above the turban, so that much of his plump, shining face, with wide-
lipped smile and humorous eyes, was hidden in its folds. The fourth was
a very old man, long and lean, with pointed, trailing beard, shrunk,
hollow cheeks, parchment coloured as his robes, but something of the
seer burned in his still vital eyes. He, Sayed Osman the judge, had
known the wonders of Sidi el Mahdi, and the passionate faith which makes
martyrs was in him. The little council read and re-read our letters and
expressed calmly and graciously their satisfaction. Then the subject of
our detention in Hawari came up, and with it smiles. “You did not choose
your messenger well,” they said. “Had you heard the stories of Abdullah
you would have sympathised with our hesitation. We did not like that
talk ourselves. However, we will now relieve you of him.” The tone was
decided. We wondered what would happen to Abdullah. Justice is tactfully
slow in the East, but when it comes it is final.
Immediately after our visitors had left, while we were putting up gaily
painted canvas partitions in the long room, black slaves appeared,
bearing a banquet in many blue bowls on an immense brass tray. This was
placed on a vermilion cloth on the floor and beside it we sat cross-
legged, dipping our fingers first into one dish and then into another.
“This is the real joy of Kufara,” said Hassanein, voraciously devouring
most of a lamb cooked in “mulukhia,” a sort of thin spinach sauce. I was
silent from pure joy—and a wonderful vegetable which I discovered at the
bottom of one of the messes of thick, buttery gravy and meat. I hoped
Hassanein did not know it was there, so I encouraged him to continue
with the pseudo-spinach, but he pounced upon it suddenly. “Bamia! We
have it in Egypt,” he exclaimed, and thereafter it was a race! There is
practically no sugar in Kufara. It costs three mejidies an oke, so there
were no sweets to our banquet, but a great brass bowl and a long-necked
ewer were brought to us to wash hands and mouth in and, as we shook the
five weeks’ conglomeration of sand from our flea-bags, we were
blissfully happy.
I feel that one should not acknowledge it, but certainly January 15
stands out in my mind as a day of food! I have described so many fasts
that I remember feeling an intense pleasure in writing my diary that
night, while Hassanein concocted warm letters of thanks to be sent back
to Sidi Idris and Sayed Rida by a north-bound caravan.
I had scarcely woken up and blinked at the unfamiliar sight of a red and
blue carpet when Sayed Mohammed el Jeddawi (who had come from Jedda some
forty years ago, a follower of the sainted Mahdi, and was now wakil of
Sidi Idris and Sayed Rida) appeared with an offering of a bowl of sour
curdled milk and a palm-leaf platter of marvellous stoneless dates,
huge, soft, clean, golden things which melted in one’s mouth—such as
Europe has never known! We were warned that at 9 A.M. there would be a
banquet for the whole party in the house of Sayed Saleh, so we arrayed
ourselves in our cleanest garments, not a very imposing spectacle, for I
had to wear a jerd belted with a scarlet hezaam, as my only barracan had
served forty days without washing!
Slaves came to show us the way and we followed these cheery black
personages through a winding sandy path between high walls, across a
wide space before the massed buildings of the zawia with the high,
square block of Sayed Ahmed Sherif’s house. I began to see that there
were few houses in Taj, but all of them were large, intricate buildings
with a maze of courts and passages. As a matter of fact, in the holy
place, beside the clustered houses of the Sayeds, which occupy about a
third of the town, and the many dependencies of the zawia, only the
important ekhwan live. Therefore, one saw but two classes of people
among its dark walls. Many slaves in strips of bright colour, or
imposing and generally portly figures in immaculate white turbans and
silk jerds over straight tobhs or jelabias in all imaginable colours. I
noticed one delightful and massive old man in a garment the colour of
blood oranges with what looked like a white shawl bordered with
vermilion round his shoulders, but it was difficult to see clearly
through the one tiny little chink I allowed myself in my thick white
draperies.
In the desert I had been as careless of my veil as my namesake Khadija,
Mohammed’s first wife, a lady of forceful character, in whose service
the prophet took a caravan to Syria before he espoused its owner some
twenty years older than himself. In Kufara, however, the greatest care
was necessary and I had to learn to endure a more or less perpetual
headache from the heavy folds and also to make swift photographs from
between them. The faithless Abdullah had taught us one thing at least—to
hide our cameras and note-books with more care!
Sayed Saleh’s house was like the maze at Hampton Court. However often I
went in, I do not think I should ever be able to find my way out again.
A resplendent person with a dark green cloak, much braided in gold,
flung over his khaki uniform met us in the second court, where we left
our soldiers to be royally feasted in one of the rooms leading off it.
After that I counted three more courts and five passages before Mohammed
and Yusuf were spirited away to their separate banquet. Still our guide
went on past various pairs of yellow shoes discarded at several
entrances. At last, after two more yards and several passages, we
entered the central court, with broad, matted and carpeted verandas
running along two sides.
Hastily removing our shoes, we went to meet our stately host, who beamed
his welcome and waved us across the wide space between the arches into a
long, high room whose walls seemed to be entirely hung with clocks,
barometers, thermometers and other such objects. I cannot tell how many
instruments there were, but I counted fifteen clocks, most of them
going. At either end was a row of the huge painted, carved chests that
the great folk carry on their long caravan journeys and in most of the
alcoves, which were hung with rugs, were tea-caddies of every size,
shape and colour. A large pianola bore reels of _Pagliacci_ and
_Carmen_. Thick dark carpets were piled on the matted floor, with rows
of stiff cushions round the walls, but the thing that interested me
most, after the meagre rations of our journey, was the fringed, scarlet
cloth in the centre of which reposed a round brass tray laden with food
and flanked with all sorts of bowls and bottles.
Our host wished us good appetite. “Bilhana! Bilshifa!” “With pleasure
and health!” He then vanished and a slave lifted an exquisite silver and
brass ewer to pour water over our hands into its companion bowl with a
fretted cover. Another brought minute cups of black coffee strongly
flavoured with red pepper. Then we sank cross-legged beside the tray,
wide-eyed with wonder at the array before us. Arab hospitality is
prodigious. Everyone gives of his best, but only a very great man could
provide the Arabian Nights’ feast which was offered us. It brought back
memories of Sayed Rida’s marvellous dinners at Jedabia, especially as it
was to him and to Sidi Idris that we owed our welcome in Kufara, the
most loyal and devoted of all the Libyan oases, for it is the keynote of
the Senussi faith. I heard Hassanein repeating rapidly the vital points
of the speech he intended to make to the kaimakaan concerning our return
journey and I almost shook him. “Never mind those details now!” I
exclaimed. “How long do you think they will leave us alone with this
food?”
There were twelve dishes of lamb cooked in different rich sauces, with a
monster bowl of strange oddments, which I imagine also belonged to the
private life of a sheep, floating in rich gravy. There were a score of
poached eggs on silver plates and fifteen vegetables and green sticky
mounds of “mulukhia” which hid all sorts of intricate delicacies. Then
there were bowls of curdled milk, which I had begun to like, or powdered
mint leaves and of an unknown liquid which I thought was sweet-scented
vinegar, with bottles of water, because the Senussi law forbids strong
drinks. When we paused for breath a slave brought us another bowl, this
time of bitter lemon juice, to renew our appetites and when at last
these failed, a second cup of the peppered coffee appeared before the
ceremony of washing hands and mouth in the carved ewer. Then fly-whisks
were given us and we leant against the hard, stiff cushions, feeling
beautifully replete, until our host joined us and we did business in the
Oriental fashion, while he made three series of tea, the first bitter,
the second scented and the third with mint. He had an elaborate silver
tea-set spread before him and he warmed the teapot himself on a little
brazier, while we skirted round the subjects nearest our hearts,
approaching, retreating, avoiding obstacles or shadows of such and
winning his obvious approval by the tactful way we left the matter of
our future travels in his hands. As I regretfully relinquished my third
empty glass a slave poured scent over me, strong and sweet, and another
offered me a silver incense burner over whose warm perfumed smoke I
might dry my scent-drenched hands! In all the generous-hearted East I
had never met this last pretty custom before.
When the due proportion of business for a first visit—a very minute
amount it would appear to Americans—had been discussed, we bade farewell
to our host and returned to our cool house on the cliff. Since I said
this was a day of food, let me add immediately that about midday the
delightful wakil appeared with an enormous basin of “couss-couss” about
two feet in diameter. On the top of it reposed most of the jaw of a
sheep and the whole mass was encircled by a continual line of sausages
and a phalanx of hard-boiled eggs. Now, if there is one thing on earth I
love it is “couss-couss,” but for once I looked at it almost
indifferently. Hassanein suggested various desperate remedies, such as
instantly walking round the wadi, but I would not be parted from my
“couss-couss.” I looked at it lovingly and, after a violent argument
with Farraj over the possibilities of heating a quart or two of water
for a bath, found energy enough to eat a pathetic little hole in one
side of the floury mess.
The climax to our day was at sunset, when we were summoned to another
huge banquet at the house of the ever-hospitable Sidi Saleh, who was
determined to honour the Sayed’s guests by every means in his power. The
memory of that last meal is somewhat blurred, but I believe the centre
dish was the larger part of a sheep on a mountain of rice, flanked by
bowls of hot, very sweet milk. As we waited for our host to join us in
order tactfully to brush the antennæ of business, I complimented
Hassanein on the thoroughness with which he had assimilated the grave,
aloof dignity of a Sheikh el-Alim. He looked at me blankly. “It is not
dignity. It is torpor!” he said.
Of course, there were other moments in the day. The most delightful
little person about nine years old came to see us after we returned from
the kaimakaan’s morning feast. He had the largest and most velvety brown
eyes, surrounded by a thick fringe of curly lashes, with a faint shadow
of kohl to accentuate their beauty. A prince and the son of a prince,
little Sidi Omar had all the dignity of his race. He was garbed in a
long purple silk jelabia, opening over a rose-coloured embroidered
jubba, while his little pale face was framed in a miniature white kufiya
under a purple tarboush. He insisted on accompanying us as we wandered
round the sacred village, giving us grave advice. “Sitt Khadija, cover
your face now,” he would say as the snowy trappings of a bulky ekhwan
appeared at an unsuspected door, or “Sidi Ahmed Bu Hassanein, you must
salute So-and-so; he is the son of So-and-so.”
From the edge of the cliff, where the last houses almost overhung the
steep descent, there was a glorious view of the whole wadi. One could
stroll east of Taj and look across pale sands, broken by green of barley
and wheat, to the lake amidst palms and the narrow end of the valley
where the hills close in. One could gaze straight south over the Sayed’s
gardens to the solid walls of Jof rising in tiers on slight mounds with
the famous ancient zawia standing a little apart and in the far distance
the line of Zuruk’s palms, where a wide break in the guardian dunes gave
a glimpse of flatter sands. To the west the view was limited only by
one’s eyesight. A few large isolated houses lay beside the great mass of
palms, which swept round the second streak of blue water beside a dry
salt marsh and away, ever widening to the far horizon where lay Tolab
and Tolelib in a dark blur as the valley ran beyond the strangely
luminous hills.
When we started to stroll down one of the steep defiles that lead from
the rocky tableland to the smooth sands below, Sidi Omar’s brilliant
smile disappeared. “Do not go down alone,” he urged. “The Zouias are bad
people. Perhaps some of them will ask you questions—why you have come to
their country and for what business?” Therefore, we stayed that day on
the plateau and I took many photographs beneath the shadow of my heavy
draperies. For once I was grateful to the Moslem veil, for Hassanein
used tactfully to lure our companions away to look at a view and I would
wander shyly and slowly, with the uncertain gait of the harem women, to
the desired point of vantage, whip out the 3A kodak from my enormous
sleeve and snap some aspect of the enchanted valley before aimlessly
straying back. I risked a lightning snapshot at the main block of the
zawia while Hassanein greeted a learned sheikh, but I felt it was
dangerous, because there were a few students lingering round the door
beside the round tower in the wall and they must have seen the flash of
the lens between the white folds of my girdled jerd.