r,aaag''!!?H-'Hf:c!;- LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO "N J si3Ra?SS«*E«*^W« IJ^^I '^m^M A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS A TAWAREK SERF A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS BY W. J. HARDING K[NG M.R.A.S,, F.R.G.S. WITH FORTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP LONDON • SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1903 [All rights reserved] PEEFACE The name Tawarek is also spelt Touareg, Tuareg Tuarik, and in other ways besides. I have used the form Tawarek, as it is, I think, the one that most nearly represents the correct pronunciation. I am indebted to the writings of the French authors, General Hanoteau, Commandant Bissuel, and MM. Duveyrier and Mercier, for much of the material relating to the Tawareks, the Sahara, and Twat. My thanks are also due to M. Marius Maure, of Biskra, for permission to reproduce his photograph of the serf who accompanied the Tawarek deputa- tion to Algiers. The account of the Senoussia sect is to a great extent taken from M. Duveyrier's pamphlet upon the subject. The remainder of the information was gathered from the natives them- selves, and is, I believe, new. W. J. H. K. May 1903. ILLUSTEATIONS A TAWAREK SERF FOOTPRINTS OF THE TAWAREKS . GRAIN-SELLERS IN BISKRA MARKET . THE FORTUNE-TELLER .... A SNAKE-CATCHER A ROUARA WOMAN THE MARRIAGE DANCE .... A STREET IN OLD TOUGOURT ARCADE IN THE TOUGOURT MARKET POOL IN OASIS OF TOUGOURT DYERS AT WORK IN THE TOUGOURT MARKET A STREET IN TEMASIN .... INTERIOR OF TOUGOURT MOSQUE THE TENT WATERING CAMELS AT HASSI MAMAR . PUZZLE— FIND THE ROAD WARGLA A GATEWAY AT WARGLA .... THE RAMPARTS OF WARGLA. A STREET IN WARGLA Fr To face •ontisinece page 2 5 11 34 46 50 68 88 88 91 102 105 115 121 121 135 139 15U 151 viii A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS OUR FLAT To face page 155 WALL AND MOAT OF n'gOUSSA .... ,,163 gazelle-stalking: APPEOACHING the gazelle „ 172 gazelle-stalking: the signal to TUEN . . „ 172 gazelle-stalking: the shot .... „ 174 a THIESTY COUNTEY „ 178 a GUEMEEEAH ,, 195 A BAD ROAD „ 200 PALM-GEOVES near el WAD .... „ 204 A KHOTAEA „ 207 EL WAD ,,214 A TAWAEEK eating „ 223 A DESERT MOSQUE ,,255 TENT FOE LADY ON CAMEL ,, 279 IN THE TAWAEEK CAMP „ 294 A TAWAEEK TENT „ 3U3 A GROUP OF TAWAREKS ,,305 IN THE TAWAEEK CHIEF'S TENT .... „ 310 THE 'LITTLE QUEENS* „ 314 A TAWAREK NOBLE „ 315 A TAWAEEK NOBLE AND SLAVE .... ,,316 MAP OF THE AUTHOE's ROUTE 334 A SEAECH FOK THE MASKED TAWAEEKS CHAPTER I Fae away to the south of Algeria, in the trackless wastes of the Sahara, there lives a race of marauding nomads, who, on account of their impious character, have been named by the Arabs ' Tawarek,' or ' God- forsaken.' It is a significant fact that in the whole Tawarek language there is no word for 'law.' The Arabs claim descent from Ishmael, the ' wild man ' whose 'hand was against every man,' and against whom every man's hand was turned, and they do their best to live up to the reputation of their illustrious ancestor. But the Tawareks are more Ishmaelitish than even these Ishmaels themselves. It is not often that they are seen, for they seldom come near the oases ; but their presence is felt and dreaded throughout the Sahara. A mystery seems to brood over these wild and dreaded raiders. It is extraordinary how very little B 2 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS is known about them. The Tawareks are, without doubt, one of the most interesting races in Africa ; but, though they inhabit a territory of about the same size as Kussia, and but very Httle further removed from our shores, it is probably well within the mark to state that not one Englishman in a thousand has ever even heard their name. Occa- sionally a brief notice appears in the papers to the effect that a party of these brigands have come up out of the desert and have captured a French mili- tary convoy, crippled an exploring party, or made a successful foray upon some Arab camp or caravan, and then have disappeared again in the same sudden and mysterious manner as they came away into the Great Unknown, and left no trace of their visit behind them beyond a few mangled corpses — and that is all we, in England at all events, hear about them. All over the Sahara they have stamped their footprints into the ground in the shape of little isolated graves or cemeteries marking the scenes of their terrible raids. The Tawareks are a Berber race, whose real domain is in the heart of the great desert, far removed from civilisation. A visit to this country would require a small army as escort and a journey of considerably over a thousand miles of desert travelling. But occasionally, driven northward by scarcity of water, lack of forage for their herds or the desire to purchase something in one of the desert towns, they encamp nearer to the northern edge of the Sahara, and these camps, though difiti- A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 3 cult to find, can be visited by a journey of only some five or six hundred miles. It was in search of one of these that I set out. My object in going was partly to see some members of this race, of whom, if I had heard little that was good, I had heard nothing that was not interesting, and chiefly to attempt to obtain some photographs of their faces, which were badly wanted by scientists and which might do something to clear up the much disputed problem of the origin of the Berber tribes. The difficulty in obtaining these photographs lay not only in finding the Tawareks, who are but thinly scattered over an enormous area, but in the fact that the men of this race, in accordance with a curious custom, keep their faces rigorously concealed by a mask from the gaze of even the members of their own family circle. For a guide I had secured the services of a pleasant, but melancholy and hot-tempered, little Arab named Aissa, whom I had previously employed. As soon as I had settled with him our route and the equipment which would be necessary for our journey, I set out with him into the market to buy provisions and other necessaries for our expedition. The Biskra market is a large arcaded square v^here the caravans coming laden with grain from the North meet those coming from the oases in the South, and exchange their charges for dates and other necessaries before returning to their homes. Here the Shawia tribesmen from the neighbouring Aures mountains sell their mats of plaited halfa grass, and the inhabitants of the Ziban oases bring sacks of B 2 4 A SEAKCH FOE THE 3IASKED TAWAREKS boiled locusts for sale. Fortune-tellers, draught- players, snake-charmers, haboh cookers, vendors of sour milk, and oil merchants cumber the ground in all directions. Under the arcades which surround the market are a row of little den-like shops kept mostly by the Mozabite traders. These Mozabites are a curious race, who claim to be descended from the Moabites of Canaan. Their home is in the five oases of the Mzab con- federation lying in the south of Algeria. They never settle definitely in any other towns, but come up into the Algerian cities to make their pile, and, having made it, retire with their savings to spend their old age in their desert homes. In ahnost every town throughout Algeria a colony of these merchants has established itself. Wherever they have settled they are slowly driving, by their capacity for business, not only the Arabs and other natives of Algeria, but the very European colonists themselves, from the field of commerce. Into one of their shops Aissa took me. It was a little den some twelve feet square, surrounded on three sides by tiers of shelves crammed with burnouses, bales of calico, and boxes containing odds and ends. From the ceiling hung a profusion of minor articles. Sacks of sugar, couscous, and soap stood on the floor, while piles of Arab sandals and slippers were heaped up in the corners. Not an inch of space was wasted. The proprietor, a shrewd, pleasant-looking old Mozabite, standing behind the zinc-covered counter, A SEAECH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 5 asked us our business, and supplied our needs with quite a fatherly air. I left the bargaining to A'issa, for I knew from experience that he was a past-master in the art. He squabbled over the price of everything. He haggled over every sou, and spent as much time in buying two balls of twine as would have sufficed a European to buy a whole week's provisions. By the time that we had finished our marketing the pile which represented our purchases had as- sumed most alarming proportions. There was a little tin saucepan for making coffee, a large iron one for making soup, a frying-pan, and two out- landish-looking earthenware pots, which Aissa as- sured me were absolutely necessary for cooking a kind of semolina known as co2iscous, which forms the bulk of every Arab meal. These, with two plaited grass baskets for carrying eatables, some plates, cups, spoons and knives, a tin lantern, a pound or two of candles, and two or three small tin boxes containing salt, sugar, and pungent Arab pepper, were all heaped up on the counter. Finally, the last straw which looked as though it would break our camel's back — came a huge sack containing four francs' worth of couscous. Leaving the things which we had bought in charge of the shopkeeper to be called for with the camel on the morning of our departure, we set out to buy some coffee, which the Mozabite was for- bidden to sell by the laws of the peculiar religious sect to which he belonged. Aissa took me off into a back slum, lying 6 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS between the market and the quarter of the Welad Nayl dancing girls, to the shop of an old nigger, whom he assured me was the best coffee-roaster in Biskra, adding as a further recommendation that not only he himself, but that the whole of his family besides, never patronised any other establishment. This, of course, was an unanswerable argument in its favour. Though the coffee turned out to be good, the place in which it was prepared was by no means prepossessing. It was a dark, windowless hovel, overrun with pigeons and fowls. Several huge stone mortars, furnished with iron pestles which must have weighed nearly twenty pounds apiece, were let into a sort of settle which ran all round the sides of the room. These were all more or less filled with the coffee already pounded. Having bought the amount which we required and left it with the remainder of our belongings in the shop of the Mozabite, our preparations were for the time complete, and I packed Aissa off down into the desert to fetch his camel, which was grazing under the care of an Arab herdsman, some distance away to the south. The first intimation that I received of his return was on the third morning after his departure, when I awoke at the unearthly hour of half-past five to find him and a very sleepy, unshaved, and dis- hevelled-looking waiter standing by my bedside. I was told that the camel was waiting below, and that it was time for me to get up. Aissa cast an experienced eye over my various A SEAKCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS 7 belongings scattered picturesquely over the floor, lifted each of them in turn to try the weight, and then he and the waiter between them carried them downstairs. Through the open window I could hear the camel snarling and growling in the road below as my guide and a little crowd of loafers loaded him up. Then came the final grunt of contentment as the great beast rose to his feet and was driven off to Aissa's house, where I had arranged to meet it. My guide lived close at hand, and on reaching his house I found the camel, a dyspeptic gouty- looking beast, with his load on his back, kneeling down in the road contentedly snarling and chewing the cud, with a stalwart young cousin of Aissa's, whom I afterwards found to be named El Haj, standing over him, and keeping off, with curses and blows from a thick stick, a crowd of 'street Arabs,' who surrounded him and were anxious to inspect, and if possible to appropriate, some of my belong- ings. I had not engaged and, in fact, had heard no mention of El Haj until then, and as he was evi- dently intended to form one of our party I thought it as well to inquire into the reason of his coming. Aissa explained that he had brought him on his own account to keep him company and to help him in his work. His reason for bringing him was not a very complimentary one, but as his cousin was a great strapping fellow who looked as though he might be useful in a row, I raised no objections to the arrangement. >*^, C'.^, 8 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS El Haj was a very different type from A'lssa, The latter was an Arab who had been born and brought up in the oases, and as he had lived for two or three years as a servant in different hotels and private families, had become to a certain extent Europeanised. El Haj, on the other hand, had spent the whole of his life in the desert, living with his father and tending his herds of camels and goats. He was about twenty years of age, tall and straight as a lance. He had never spoken to or had any dealings with a European until Aissa brought him out with me. He was, in fact, about as wild and mitamed a young blackguard as it would be possible to find. I and my actions and belongings were at first a continual source of interest and mystery to him. During the first week of our journey he hardly took his eyes off me, and when we stayed in a caravan- serai seized every opportunity to come into my room. He would pick up the different articles of my cloth- ing when he thought I was not looking, and examine them minutely, with a mixture of awe, amusement, and curiosity which it was very ludi- crous to see. He could not understand me at all. Why a man should eat with a knife and fork instead of with his fingers, why he should comb his hair instead of shaving it off, why he should be so parti- cular about having his boots and clothes brushed, and why in the name of Allah, Mohammed, and all the saints in the Moslem calendar he should want to go to the trouble of ivasliing, unless he A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 9 were going to say his prayers, he could not in the least understand. His name — El Haj — signifies * the pilgrim,' and is, it is perhaps hardly necessary to explain, the appellation which is affixed as a sort of title to the name of any Mohammedan who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca. As El Haj was only twenty years of age, and certainly not overburdened with this world's goods, I was at a loss to understand how he had come by the right to use this distinction until Ai'ssa explained to me that he was so called after his grandfather, who had been a real pilgrim. El Haj spoke with that musical high-pitched voice occasionally to be found among the desert inhabitants. Arabic is not a pretty language. As a rule when an Arab speaks he gargles the words in his throat, swears like a cat on the ' 'ain,' coughs the ' H's,' clears his throat on the ' G's,' and spits on the ' D's ' and ' T's.' But somehow when these desert Arabs speak, with their soft melodious voices and sing-song intonation, Arabic loses all its harsh- ness and sounds quite a pretty and musical lan- guage. El Haj's duties were primarily to take charge of the camel, to drive him out to feed in the evening on the desert scrub, to walk behind him during the daytime and whack him, swear at him, and twist his tail to make him go ; and all these duties he performed to admiration. But in his other work he was not so successful. He was also supposed to assist Aissa in his cooking and scullery work. At this he was a dismal failure, 10 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS for he could never be made to understand the proper management of spoons, forks, and crockery. When set to wash a plate he generally commenced opera- tions by breaking it. If he failed in this he wiped it in the most perfunctory manner possible, and, unless either Aissa or I stood over him to see he did it properly, he would content himself by scrubbing it with a handful of sand from the yard of the caravanserai, or rubbing it over with the corner of one of the camel bags, the end of his haik, or any other piece of rag which came to hand. He contracted, too, a nasty habit of wiping the spoons and forks upon the rag which I used to clean my gun with, and this, when I had caught him the third time in the act and found that it was hopeless to attempt to break him of it, compelled me to remove him entirely from the kitchen depart- ment and to relegate him exclusively to the stable. At ' house-work ' he was a failure. Aissa' s family had assembled at his house to see us off. His womenkind were peeping at us through the crack of his half-opened door, and his son and heir, a little brat of about three years old, artistically attired in an extremely skimpy shirt and a metal talisman, hung by a cord round his neck for keeping off the evil eye, was standing by El Haj with a little switch in his hand assisting him in his duties of driving back the crowd and guarding my belong- ings. Aissa, with a barefaced effrontery which deserved to succeed, reminded me that on starting on a long journey the Arabs consider it lucky to give someone THE FORTUNE-TELLER. A SEAKCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 11 a present, and suggested his young hopeful as a suitable recipient. I gave him a few sous, which he promptly placed for safe keeping in his mouth, whence Ai'ssa, in order, as he said, to prevent him from choking him- self, at once removed them and appropriated them to his own use. He folded his now howling son in an affectionate embrace, El Haj kicked up the camel, and, sur- rounded by a small crowd of loafing Arabs, we started for the Mozabite's shop to pick up the rest of our stores. Our crowd of followers increased so fast and became so x^ressing in their attentions during our progress through the town, that, in order to get rid of them, I took Ai'ssa with me into the market to buy some fresh vegetables and meat, and left El Haj to take on the camel alone. In the market we found a man who read fortunes in sand. I requested him to do a little prophesying on our account, to read Aissa's fortune, and tell us what was likely to happen to us on our journey. He seated himself by the roadside, unknotted a large handkerchief which he was carrying filled with the fine white sand from the dunes of the Souf, laid it open on the ground and carefully smoothed over the surface of the sand with an air of great im- portance and mystery. He next commenced to question Aissa as to his age, birthplace, name, and occupation. Ai'ssa replied that his age was thirty, his birthplace Biskra, and his name A'issa ben Jedu. His occupation was not 12 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS SO easy to define. Sometimes, he said, he worked as servant in the hotels or as guide to the tourists ; sometimes he made trading journeys with his camels ; sometimes he worked in his palm-grove ; once he had kept a small cafe ; sometimes he sewed bur- nouses ; but usually he just lived with his family and did nothing. The prophet hesitated for some time, but finally classified Aissa, much to his disgust, as a camel driver. At each reply which he received he consulted the tables which his book contained, and took from them dot- and dash-like markings which he copied in lines on the sand. Having finished his catechism, he gave Aissa a handful of dust and told him to scatter it over the writing. He then took hold of the handkerchief by its two nearest corners and gave it a sharp jerk towards him, thus still further obliterating the markings and causing them to form fresh combinations. He inquired how many of us were going, where we were going to, and when we intended to start, and on being told, consulted his book again and gave his verdict. Between Biskra and Tougourt we should lose something of importance. Between Tougourt and El Wad we should get into a bad sandstorm and would for a time lose our way. If from Tougourt we went on to the south to Wargla instead of pro- ceeding east to El Wad we should be attacked by highwaymen during the daytime, we should suffer much from thirst and sandstorms, and we should have a very bad time generally. He did not think A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 13 that we should find any Tawareks at Tougourt, El "Wad, or Wargla, or anywhere in the neighbourhood of these towns, but if we did they would be friendly and they would give us something which we greatly desired. We should in the end return safely. To what extent these prophecies were fulfilled this account of our Journey itself must show. Having completed our marketing we set out in pursuit of El Haj, whom we caught up in the road between the palm-groves of old Biskra and the modern French town. Here the camel was made to kneel down. El Haj caught hold of the beast by the long hair of his neck and cleared his throat at him in as loud and revolting a manner as possible, and at the same time dragged his neck downwards and hit him violently on the shins with his stick. This brutal proceeding was merely the ordinary signal for him to kneeL The camel dropped down on his knees with a grunt, and Aissa proceeded to charge the beast with the result of our recent marketing. The Arab method of loading a camel is very simple. A pad — formed of a long bolster-like sack with the two ends fastened together — is placed along the beast's back in such a manner that the hump and spine lie between the two arms of the pad. This is secured in its place by a sort of saddle of cross pieces of wood lashed together with raw hide, placed on the top of the pad just in front of the hump, and to this saddle the girth — a strong rope of plaited hair and wool — is affixed, which, passing under the belly of the camel, keeps the whole arrangement firmly fixed in its place. 14 A SEAKOH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS A huge sack about four feet long by two feet ill width, called a kerrata, hangs on either side of the camel. Into these as much as possible of the load is crammed. The wooden boxes containing our store of provisions and the heaviest baggage went in first, on the top of these were placed the lighter articles — my camp-bed and the hold-all containing my blankets, rug, and pillow ; the little dried goat- skins full of couscous or dates, the baskets in which were placed the provisions and the cooking utensils which would be required during the day's journey, and any articles of a crushable or breakable nature. In loading a camel the sacks are leant up against him on either side. To each corner of the top end of the herratas is fixed a small loop of rope. The sacks are lifted slightly until the loops of the sack on the one side can be passed through the corre- sponding loops in the sack on the other, and se- cured in their places by passing through them a short piece of stick. Other articles, such as the skin water-bag, which cannot be placed in the herratas, are tied by cords to the saddle and allowed to hang down below the sacks, or else secured on the top of the pad. The water-bag used in the Sahara is usually formed from the skin of a goat well cured with pitch to make it waterproof. They call the thing a gurbah, and as soon as you have drunk out of one you will know that it is most appropriately named ' gurr-bah-ughr ! ' While we were reloading the camel all the beggars and loafers in Biskra assembled round us from all A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 15 directions, and by the time that the operation was finished all the halt, the maimed, and the blind which the oasis contained — and a halter, a maimer, and a more cross-eyed crew it would be difficult to find — seemed to have collected together to see us off. Gradually, largely owing to El Haj and his stick, we got rid of our followers, and by the time that we had got among the mud houses and the palm-trees of the villages of old Biskra we had completely shaken them off. We followed the road for some two or three miles through the palms, and then emerged from the oasis into the desert beyond. 16 A"^ SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS CHAPTER II There is perhaps no part of the world which so little conforms to our preconceived ideas as the Sahara. One's first sight of this great desert is always somewhat of a revelation. The drearj', limitless waste of barren sand which it is usually represented to be by no means corresponds with the reality. In many parts the Sahara is extremely pretty. In the sandhill districts, where the dunes rise sometimes to quite a thousand feet in height, it is, it is true, almost entirely devoid of vegetation, but upon the level plains, which probably constitute the greater portion of its surface, the ground is usually more or less covered with tufts of rank grass and little stunted bushes. From Biskra the desert stretches away to the south for hundreds of miles in an almost perfectly level plain. Soon after leaving the oasis, we got into a tract of country thickly covered with bushes about four feet in height. We continued through this until about eleven o'clock, when, coming upon an open place in the scrub, we halted for our midday meal. The camel was made to lie down, and the kerratas were taken off him. He was then turned loose to graze upon the surrounding bushes. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 17 Aissa manufactured his kitchen range by scooping out a little hollow in the side of one of the innumerable mamelons of sand which surrounded us. The sticks were lighted in the bottom of the hollow, and the two earthen cooking-pots, fitting one on to the top of the other, for cooking the couscous (semolina), were wedged firmly between the two sides of the hollow at the top. After the meal we rested for awhile to allow time for a contemplative cigarette and for the camel to finish his gTaze. It was a perfect day : just suflacient breeze was stirring to temper the heat of the sun, which blazed down upon us from an absolutely cloudless sky. Looking back towards Biskra the view was ex- tremely fine. All around for several miles in each direction stretched the patch of brushwood, consist- ing of tufts of coarse yellow grass interspersed with feathery bushes and olive-green shrubs covered with little pink flowers. Biskra itself, a long, low belt of palms, lay some twelve miles away to the north. Behind that belt, stretching away into the blue hazy distance towards the right, lay, bathed in a mellow sunlit glow, the mountains of the Aures, with the oases of Sidi Okba, Drouh, Seriana, and several others nestling at their feet. The big oasis of Oumash could be seen to the left dancing in the heat haze which rose from the sun-baked soil, while behind us to the south stretched, with an unbroken horizon as straight as the sea, the great Sahara desert into which we were about to plunge. 18 A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS But time when on a journey in the desert is too precious to allow of much of it being spent in admiring the view, however beautiful' it may be ; so when our cigarettes were finished the camel was fetched and loaded up, and we took the road again towards south. I soon became initiated into some of the vaga- ries of the desert Arabs. Shortly after we had started Aissa noticed a man approaching us from the south, driving a couple of camels, on to one of which were hung head downwards some half-dozen fowls all tied together by their legs in a bunch. Aissa suggested that a fowl, if it could be bought cheaply, would be a very welcome addition to our larder, and, on my assenting, he commenced at once, though the man was still a good two hundred yards away, to enter into negotiations. ' Where are you from ? ' bawled Aissa. ' Shegga,' came the faint reply. ' How much for the fowls ? ' ' Two francs and a half each.' * Ah ! wah ! ' in great disgust ; ' I will give you a franc and a half.' And so the bargaining went on at full bawl without intermission. These leather-lunged Arabs on a still day can make their voices carry an extra- ordinary distance. I have myself seen in the Aures mountains two men carrying on an animated argu- ment from the top of the hills on either side of a valley which appeared to me to be considerably over half a mile across. And yet these ' two blest sirens ' (I am quoting, I believe, from Milton) seemed to A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 19 experience no difficulty whatever in making them- selves understood. By the time that we and the owner of the fowls had met a price had been agreed upon, and Aissa was at liberty to make his choice from the clucking bundle. He selected one, paid for it, and was proceeding to hang it up head downwards and squawking from our camel, when I interfered and insisted that it should first be killed. The wretched bird was handed over to El Haj, who, drawing his long sheath knife such as every Arab carries, proceeded to perform the hallal — that is, to cut the fowl's throat — muttering ' in the name of Allah ' as he did so, so as to make him lawful eating for a Moslem. Shortly after this we crossed a little stream, which in dry weather represents the Wad Jidi. This little brook, however, when much rain has fallen in the mountains where it takes its rise, becomes a huge and utterly impassable morass several miles in width, which completely cuts off Biskra from the desert to the south, and, as it remains in this condi- tion for sometimes considerably over a week, occa- sions the greatest inconvenience to travellers. After crossing the Wad Jidi we passed, on a small mound a short distance beyond, the horj or caravanserai of Saada, the first on the road from Biskra to Tougourt. These caravanserais, which are placed at the distance of a short day's journey apart from each other along the caravan routes, are built for the c 2 20 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS convenience of travellers using the roads, and for the purpose of affording rallying-points for the troops in the not improbable event of a v^ar or insurrection. The usual pattern on which they are constructed is that of a square courtyard surrounded by rooms and stabling, the v^hole building forming a small loopholed fort, furnished in the largest borjes with a flanking tower at each corner. From one borj to the next is the ordinary day's journey of a caravan. We, however, had decided to march by double stages— that is to say, sleeping in every alternate caravanserai ; so instead of halting for the night at Saada we pushed on to the following borj at Bir Jeffair. After passing Saada we came out on to a slightly rolling plain of gravel composed of little stones of every imaginable colour, whose combined effect was that of a dirty salmon pink. The plain was sparsely dotted over with little bushes of various kinds. Off one of these Aissa picked a few leaves, which he handed to me. Aissa said that the smell of these leaves was a great preventive of thirst and fatigue, and in order to derive the full benefit from it himself he stuffed a little pinch of them up one of his nostrils, and left it sticking there for nearly an hour while he inhaled their scent with evident satisfaction. The inhabitants of Algeria are extremely fond of any kind of scent, and this trick of stuffing some strong smelling, stuff up the nose is a very common one. The effect is generally ludicrous in the ex- A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 21 treme— to see a negro, for instance, walking about with some bright coloured flower or a piece of orange peel, or, as I once saw, a small onion sticking out from one of his expansive nostrils and showing in startling contrast to the shiny blackness of his face, is sufficient to provoke a smile from even the most wooden-faced individual in existence, Aissa was full of antidotes against fatigue and the other discomforts incidental to a desert journey. He cut me off a piece of stick from one of the bushes we passed, and gave it to me to gnaw if I felt thirsty. The wood was almost as hard as iron, but when bitten sufficiently hard I found that it had a bitter taste, which certainly had to some extent the desired effect. When a sirocco was blowing he cribbed the butter or the vaseline which I used for my gun to smear on his lips to prevent them from cracking, and when later on we had to cross the half-dried bed of a sliott, or salt lake, and Aissa, in order to save his shoes, had taken them off and stuffed them into the hood of his humous on the top of his cigarettes and some dates, which he had just bought from a passing Arab, and was walking barefooted through the salt mud, he stopped occasionally to split open one of the dates and rubbed it over the soles of his feet to prevent them from becoming split and sore with the salt. A propos of the little coloured pebbles which formed the gravel we were walking over, I, in an unfortunate moment, told Aissa that I had always heard that there were both diamonds and emeralds 22 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS to be found in the Sahara. I told him that I had read somewhere that the soldiers of the disastrous French exploring expedition, under Colonel Flatters, who were massacred by the Tawareks while in the heart of the Sahara, had on one occasion collected nearly a canteen full of green stones which the geologist of the party had declared to be emeralds, and also that I had heard that one of the officers of the Khartoum relief force had collected a quantity of transparent stones which, on his return to civili- sation, were discovered to be diamonds. From that moment I had no peace, for Aissa would be continually running up to me in a state of great excitement to show me a stone about half the size of his fist which he had picked up, and to inquire whether it was a diamond or an emerald which he had found. Aissa, in fact, like Mr. Micawber, was one of those people who live in a constant state of expecta- tion that ' something will turn up.' On one occasion he saw at a little distance from the road a tuft of coarse yellow grass, called drinn, which some passing Arab had tied into a knot. He at once stopped the camel, and began to search the ground in all direc- tions. He said that that knot in the grass was, he felt sure, a guemeerah, or landmark, and as it was not by the roadside he felt certain that it had been tied there by some Arab to mark the place where he had buried some money or other valuable. He was very anxious for me to allow him to dig to see if he could find this buried treasure, and when I declined to let him do so, he very generously A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 23 offered me a half of anything which he might find, adding that he and El Haj would be quite contented with the remaining half between them. I was obliged to refuse even this tempting offer, for by that time I had begun to understand Ai'ssa, and I felt perfectly certain that if once he had started digging he would never have been satisfied, and it would have been impossible to get him away until he had either found something or dug up the whole of the Sahara. Ai'ssa, in spite of his vagaries, was an interesting companion, for he was a perfect walking encyclo- paedia of desert lore. When I first made his acquaintance he was very reticent upon the subject of the superstitions and beliefs of the desert Arabs. He was, I think, afraid of my turning his yarns and legends to ridicule. But when after a time he found that I never did this, but treated every word that he said with the greatest seriousness and told him some of the most blood-curdling ghost stories I could think of in return, he came out of his shell, and I was rewarded by some very interesting little bits of desert folk-lore. In fact, he went to the other extreme, for being, like all Arabs, forgetful, he repeated his stories so often as to be positively tedious. One day when he had brought me an unusually large ' diamond ' to examine, and I had been com- pelled to declare it to be a mere ordinary stone, he came out with a long rambling story and told me that he had heard that somewhere in the Tawarek country ' over there ' — he looked towards the south- 24 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS east and raised his chin, as an Arab does when he wishes to indicate anything — there existed a valley between some mountains where large stones * as big as a fowl's egg ' were to be found which glowed with a phosphorescent light in the dark. The night was the only time when these stones could be found, for during the daytime they could not be distinguished from the pebbles which sur- rounded them. Unfortunately after sunset the whole valley swarmed with venomous snakes which, since they could spring as high from the ground as the hump of a camel, made it a matter of certain death for anyone who ventured within their domain. During the daytime the snakes in the valley retired to holes in the rocks to sleep, and there was no danger whatever in entering the gorge — but during the daytime the stones could not be found. Any Tawarek, therefore, who made it his busi- ness to collect them was compelled to enter the valley by night. In order to protect himself from the snakes he adopted the following method of pro- cedure. He sewed up his camel in sheepskins with the woolly side out, and covered the lower part of his own body as far as his waist in the same manner. Before him, on his camel, he carried a small bag of powdered charcoal, and he held in his hand a hollow reed. Whenever he caught sight of a luminous stone he placed the end of the reed over it, and, without dismounting, poured a handful of the char- coal down the tube, so that when morning broke, and the serpents had retired to sleep in their dens A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 25 among the rocks, he would be able to return, and, by means of these little heaps of charcoal, identify the stones which he had observed during the night. What kind of stones these were, what the Tawareks did with them when they had got them, and where that valley was, Aissa could not exactly say, but he was ready to swear to the whole story as being true. Among these serpents Aissa declared that there was to be found a horrible reptile, which he called a Tliarhen. He described it as being eighty feet long, six feet wide, and declared that it had long hair on the back of its head like a woman. I am devoutly thankful to say that we never met one of these horrible reptiles. Aissa told me, in strict confidence, that he did not quite believe in the existence of this particular creature ; but, for all that, I fancy that when, later on, we camped at night in the open desert, and he borrowed my gun to keep watch, as he said, against robbers, it was not so much the attacks of marauding Arabs or Tawareks that he feared as the arrival on the scene of one of these gruesome Tharbens. The Tawarek country, being practically a terra incognita to the Algerian Arabs, is regarded by them as a sort of enchanted land, peopled with spirits and all kinds of horrible creatures. One of the most curious of these is the Taner'oiot. It is described as being a huge black creature, globular in shape, and as large as a camel. It lives in the caves of the Saharan mountains in a state of perpetual slumber. Bat if any man is unfortunate 26 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS enough to enter a cave inhabited by one of these creatures, and by so doing should awaken it, the Taner'out squirts from its enormous mouth a jet of boiling water at the intruder, which not only kills him, but cooks him as well. After feasting upon the body of its victim, this uncanny beast falls again into a peaceful sleep, which lasts until it is re- awakened by some fresh intruder. With Aissa spinning such yarns as these, and an occasional detour off the road after bustard, hare, or sand-grouse to relieve the monotony of the journey, time passed pleasantly enough. Soon after five we reached the borj of Jeffair, a little loop-holed caravanserai placed about a hundred yards from the well of the same name. Here we halted for the night. The guardian of the borj — a fine grey-bearded old Arab, who, with his family, occupied two of the rooms — came forward, and gave us a most cordial welcome. He was, I think, un- feignedly glad to see us, for he was a garrulous old gentleman, with few opportunities of indulging in conversation. The caravanserai was a small one, many miles from any human habitation, and one which was seldom used except by the few travellers who, like ourselves, journeyed by double stages. There were two rooms reserved for travellers. One of these was placed at my disposal. The camel was unloaded, and then, while the guardian made me some coffee, Aissa and El Haj mixed themselves a huge bowl of aroueena (a sort of oatmeal), which, with the aid of their fingers, they consumed in enormous quantities and at an astonishing rate. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 27 Having finished their meal, El Haj drove the camel out to graze. The lodging allotted to me was a bare white- washed apartment, with a brick floor. The room was lighted by two loop-holes, which served for windows. A little fireplace had been built in one corner. The guardian produced from somewhere a deal table and a very rickety chair, and by the time that Aissa had spread my rug by the bedside for a carpet, and furnished the room with a miscellaneous assortment of boxes and cooking-gear, it began to look quite homely. He fetched some water from the well, and then, with the help of the guardian, proceeded to kindle an enormous fire of brushwood in the middle of the courtyard, and set to work to cook the dinner. He apologised for not having provided a mivrger for me for dinner ; but there was no need for him to have done so, for I always avoided a murger when possible. Murger is the Arab soup. It is made, I should imagine, as follows : You take a pint of brack water (brackish is not salt enough), and you carry it for two or three days in the sun in a gurbah formed from the skin of an old he-goat, well cured with pitch. When it has reached the consistency of a good thick soup you boil it in a pot to condense the flavour. You then add several onions, a quantity of garlic, a handful or two of Arab pepper, and any kitchen refuse which may be handy. As soon as dinner was over everything was packed up in readiness for an early start on the morrow. The camel was then brought in, made to 28 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS kneel down in the middle of the courtyard, and double knee-haltered to prevent him from moving during the night. Unaware of this arrangement, I went out later on for a final look round before turning in, and, to our mutual disgust, fell over the evil-smelling beast in the dark. Though the second room was offered to Aissa and El Haj for a bedroom, with the usual aversion of an Arab to sleep under cover they preferred, after the old picturesque though occasionally inconvenient custom of Arab servants, to lie in the open across the doorway of their employer. There, with the two kerratas (camel sacks) for mattresses and the bags of couscous and dates for pillows, they, to my disgust, spent the night snoring, or talking in undertones to the guardian, to the accompaniment of the low gurglings and mumblings of the camel, and the weird chuckling whistle of the sand-grouse as they flew overhead in the dark. Long before daybreak on the following morning I heard the ponderous door of the caravanserai quietly unbarred, and El Haj drive the soft-footed camel out to graze. Then followed a crackling sound as Aissa relighted the fire, and the clicking of crockery together as he quietly prepared the breakfast. Shortly afterwards I heard the latch of my door gently raised, a freezingly cold blast of air swept in, and with it came Aissa. * Are you awake, M'sieur ? ' he asked. ' The sun will rise in half an hour ; it is time to get up. I have brought you your coffee and breakfast.' While I dressed and breakfasted, Aissa and El A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 29 Haj between them finished the packing and loaded up the camel. The plates, saucepans, and other things which had been used for the breakfast were then placed into one of the baskets, which was tied on to the saddle above the kerratas, so as to be easily accessible when required. I handed a small tip to the guardian, for which he was more than grateful, and then, just after the sun had risen, in the piercing cold of a desert morning, we left the caravanserai, and started again upon our way. 30 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS CHAPTEK III A DETAILED description of a desert journey would be tedious. Day after day passed in much the same way. Occasionally a sirocco blew, parching our lips and scorching our cheeks, or a sandstorm raged, making our eyes smart, filling our nostrils and ears with sand, and causing general misery. But the days on which these happened were the exception, and the fine days which came between amply made up for these temporary inconveniences. The Sahara in the spring is a delightful country to travel in. The air, though warm, is usually wonderfully soft and invigorating. Mosquitoes are unheard of, and flies, the plague of most warm countries, are unknown — those delights are reserved for the oases. The scenery was never without charm. There was always the same wide level expanse of brownish soil, covered more or less sparsely with tufts of rank yellow grass and little silver-grey and olive-green bushes. There was nearly always the same clear blue sky overhead and the same brilliant sunshine, but though the scenery was somewhat monotonous the colouring was so soft and harmonious that it was always most wonderfully pretty. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 31 Nor was it by any means devoid of life. Little lizards scuttled across the road, crested larks ran before us down our path, swallows skimmed over the ground, and huge kites and falcons sailed on motionless pinions overhead. Sometimes a raven would be heard croaking lugubriously in the distance or a lovely little black, grey, and white bird, perched on a bush by the roadside, would go through an eccentric performance for our benefit, sing three bell-like notes in an ascending scale, and then rise perpendicularly into the air to a height of fifty feet and drop like a stone on to the same twig, and repeat the performance. Occasionally we would disturb a covey of sand-grouse which would fly off with their curious chuckling whistle. Sometimes we would sight a gazelle or bustard. Then Aissa and I would go in pursuit, while El Haj took the camel on to try and divert their attention. A camel with his regular plodding stride is a capital beast to walk with — if you keep on his windward side. Over a hard gravelly surface he moves, perhaps, rather slowly, but over soft sand he goes quite fast enough to satisfy the average mortal. Sometimes we met a caravan coming from the south, laden almost invariably with dates, and we stopped for a few minutes to pass the time of day and to pick up if we could some news of the where- abouts of the Tawareks. We got, however, no definite information, for the news which we received was always very vague and conflicting. More rarely we were overtaken by a caravan coming 32 A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS from the north. We never overtook anything ourselves. This was not because our camel was unusually slow, but because when walking alone a camel always goes much slower and requires more driving than when in the company of others of his kind. When, as we usually did, we joined forces for a while with those caravans which overtook us the increase in the pace of our camel was very noticeable, and for a time El Haj and his stick would have a rest. The ease with which Aissa could recognise a caravan from a distance was extraordinary. ' That caravan,' he would say, indicating one approaching us, but still more than half a mile away, ' has been to Tougourt to buy dried dates. Both the men and the camels come from Biskra.' And then he would proceed to point out their pecu- liarities. The camels from Biskra were broader, thicker, and on a shorter leg, than those of Tougourt, which were somewhat ' leggy.' He could tell by the loose bulging way in which the kerratas hung down that the dates which they contained were dried or fresh, as in the latter case the sacks would have had a flatter and more solid appearance. He identified the men as belonging to Biskra by the pattern of the sacks which they used, for the kerrataa used by the Biskris are striped in black and grey, instead of the brown and black of those of Tou- gourt. Each Arab tribe has its own peculiar stripes and colour for its kerratas, just as each Highland clan has its own peculiar tartan. Some of the tribes A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 33 appear to have a rather ' loud ' taste in kerratas. Those, for instance, in use at Bou Saada are of a flaring red, others are red and black, others again are red and grey, and so on, each tribe having different colours and widths of stripe. Aissa knew them all, and besides was able as a rule to tell, either by his shape or ear-marks, where any camel came from that he saw. The men who travel with these caravans are a queer moody set ; one will sometimes sit huddled up in a ' brown study ' on the top of his camel, thinking of the beautiful Fatma which he — or, more pro- bably, some other Arab — has left behind at the last oasis, for an hour at a stretch, silent, absent, dreamy, and in a state of utter oblivion to all things mundane. His brother Arabs, following on foot with the strong dogged trudge of the camel-driver, will often be obliged to speak to him several times, or even to give a tug to his burnous, before he will awake with a start from his dream and realise the fact that he is still on earth. It is easy, when in an oasis, to recognise the sedentary inhabitants from those wandering camel- drivers who are merely passing through with a caravan. The latter stride along with the ' desert swing ' which is unmistakable. These clean-limbed Arabs are wonderful walkers, they move with a long tireless stride and a jaunty swing of their shoulders, which does much to carry them along over heavy or uneven ground. Like most races who live a natural open-air life, they are wonderful long-distance runners. When D 34 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS necessary they can sprint like greyhounds. When, however, they wish to cover a long distance as rapidly as possible, they adopt a sort of jog-trot which they can keep up without intermission for hours, and at this pace they will cover an extraordinary distance in the twenty-four hours. Sometimes we met a sheykh, or other rich Arab, migrating northward with his family and flocks to his summer quarters in the Tell, with his women- kind invariably concealed from sight in basoors — huge tent-like erections formed of richly coloured material stretched over a light framework of canes placed upon the camels' backs. Once we met a couple of Arab falconers hunting hares, bustard, and gazelle in the desert, and stopped for an hour or two to join them in the sport. On another occasion we encountered a snake- catcher collecting the deadly horned vipers to sell to a collector in Biskra. Armed with merely a stick, he tackled these dangerous serpents with the utmost confidence. These horned vipers, fortunately, are very sluggish in their movements. If one attempted to escape on the Arab's approach, he immediately pinned it to the ground by placing his stick across the back of its neck. He thus was able to take hold of it close behind the head, and when he had also succeeded in taking hold of its tail besides, he had him entirely in his power. Upon the other hand, if the snake coiled itself up prepared to spring, he held his humous in front of him, and poked and teased it until it struck at it, and then while its fangs were entangled in the material, seized it by the fatal grip A SNAKE-CATCHER. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 35 at the back of the neck, and transferred it into his bag with the others. During the course of the second day of our journey from Biskra, we passed a Httle oasis called Shegga, where the track from El Wad, by which we were subsequently to return, joins the Biskra- Tougourt road. Here my guide found some of the camel herds- men of his tribe who had come in from their grazing- ground, some ten or twelve miles away in the desert to the west, to water their herds at the Shegga well. It is to these men that the owners of camels in oases like Biskra confide the charge of their beasts when they are not using them on some expedition. For each camel under his charge the herdsman receives about seven francs per annum. He gets, besides, occasional presents of dates, grain, and so forth, from the owners of his charges. This does not, at first sight, appear to be a very large remunera- tion for the trouble entailed in the care of a camel ; but an Arab who is fortunate enough to gain a good reputation as a herdsman will sometimes have as many as a thousand camels under his charge, and these would bring in an income which, for a nomadic Arab, would be very large indeed. The salutations which pass between Arabs of different degrees of intimacy are very sharply dis- tinguished. Mere acquaintances when they meet simply touch each others' right hands and then kiss their own forefingers. More intimate friends kiss each others' hands before kissing their own. An inferior Arab when he meets a Kaid, or other native ^6 A SEAECH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS of position, riding on horseback kisses his knee, or if the man is a very great swell indeed, the hem of his burnous, or even his big silver stirrup. But the most effusive greeting takes place when two relatives or great friends meet. It is a curious sight for a European to see two brawny, bearded camel-drivers suddenly relax from their habitual dignity and morgue, fall upon each others' necks in a public place, kiss each other repeatedly, first on one shoulder and then on the other, finally winding up with a resounding smack of a kiss on the cheek or forehead, and then walk off hand in hand smiling with a childlike expression of delight on their faces. The tie of blood is very strong among the Arabs, who carry their relationships nearly as far as the Scotch. Among these herdsmen at Shegga, Aissa discovered several relations of his of sorts, with the result that he and El Haj promptly fell upon their necks and much hugging and kissing took place. I felt rather out of it while this performance was going on, and stood at a little distance looking on, until one of the cousins noticed me and, taking pity upon my forlorn appearance and recognising in me a friend of the family, as it were, came up and we kissed hands. I considered it, however, expedient to check any further display of friendship on his part. The Sahara is an arid waste, where water is far too valuable a commodity to be squandered in any un- necessary ablutions. My guide owned a second camel, which he had left in charge of one of his cousins at Shegga, and this, as he considered the one we already had with A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 37 US too heavily laden for a long journey, he wished to take on with us to carry part of the baggage. Un- fortunately it was not at the well at the time of our arrival, but at the desert grazing-ground with the other part of the herd, which had been watered on the preceding day. To wait at Shegga while he was fetched would have entailed the loss of a day, so Aissa arranged with one of the men to bring him after us and to catch us up at the caravanserai of Setil, where we intended to spend the following night. We saw no sign of the camel at Setil, though we delayed our start for an hour or two the next morning to give him a chance of overtaking us. About eight o'clock, as he had not put in an appear- ance, we decided not to wait any longer, so, leaving word that if he came he was to follow on after us and catch us up at the next horj, we started. The caravanserai of Setil, like that of Bir Jeffair, stood by the side of a well in the open desert many miles from any habitation or tree of any kind. On leaving the horj, I sent El Haj on with the camel, while Aissa and I made a slight detour to the west to visit the scene of a very grim little desert tragedy. A cemetery containing the tombs of some twenty persons, forming the inhabitants of a douar, or circle of Arab tents, who some years before had been massacred by a party of raiding Tawareks, was planted out in the open desert. As usual, the Tawareks after this raid had got off scot-free with their loot, and had left behind them only a pile of corpses as an interesting 38 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS memento of their visit. Those marauding sons of the Sahara, mounted upon their meharis, or trotting camels, had come up from the great desert for some fom- hundred miles to seek what they could take from their Arab neighbours. According to their usual custom, they attacked the camp just before the dawn. The Arabs, knowing that they could expect no quarter, fought desperately and resisted to the last man. The fight continued fiercely all day, and the Tawareks, though they lost many of their number, were not able to enter into undisputed possession of the camp until nearly sunset. Over the grave of each of the men of the Arab party was set up a pillar of mud and stones. In the upper portion of the column which marked the grave of the chief was a small niche, in which was placed a saucer for burning incense. Similar saucers or small lamps lay on each of the other graves. Relatives of the deceased persons occasionally visited the cemetery from their camps in other parts of the desert to offer up incense or to burn a little scented oil in one of the lamps on the occasion of the feast at the end of Ramadan — the Ayed-es-seghir, or ' little feast,' as it is called. As we approached this little graveyard Aissa accosted its defunct inhabitants with a jaunty ' Es-salamou a'lihoum ' — ' Peace be with you ' — and proceeded in the most cheerful voice imaginable to wish them good luck in their new abode. This I found was a form which he invariably went through on nearing a grave, and frequently, A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 39 when apparently nothing of the sort was in sight, he would strike up his jaunty greeting, and in explanation point out a little cairn of loose stones marking the spot where some luckless traveller had been found with his throat cut by the roadside and buried where he lay by some passing good Samaritan. The Tawareks have a superstition that the whole of the earth in the Sahara, below the surface of the ground, is ruled over by a supernatural class of beings known as Ahl-et-Trab. The delight of these creatures is to play mischievous pranks upon the desert inhabitants. They are said to catch hold of a camel's feet as they sink into the soft sand and to pull them with every step to make the travelling heavier. They bite off the roots of the desert plants so as to kill them and reduce the amount of grazing, and when they see an unusually thirsty traveller approaching a well they drink up all the water which it contains so that upon his arrival he may find it empty. But they do not always confine their operations to such comparatively innocent underground pranks, for they occasionally come up from below the surface of the soil, and to attain their ends assume some bodily shape. A story goes that two Arab brothers, who were extremely attached to each other, were travelling together in the desert. At the end of a day's journey they killed a sheep for their evening meal. They then cast about for some means of cooking it. The spot where they had halted for the night was a small areg, or sand-dune district, absolutely 40 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS devoid of any kind of vegetation. The only object visible to break the dreary monotony of the landscape was a Tawarek tomb. Now the Tawareks, in accordance with an ancient custom among them, erect at each end of their graves a slab of wood or stone, with the name of the deceased cut or painted in the characters of their language upon the slab at the head. These slabs are known as Shouahed or * witnesses.' The eyes of the elder brother fell upon the two wooden slabs which formed the ' witnesses ' of the Tawarek's grave, and, thinking that they would make good fuel, he directed his brother to fetch them. The young man obeyed, and seizing one of the slabs shook it violently to loosen it in the ground. He soon desisted, however, from his efforts, for at each shake which he gave to it there arose from the grave the most plaintive and heartrending sigh imaginable. Thoroughly scared at this unaccountable sound, he returned to his brother, and telling him of what had happened, declared that he was too frightened to make another attempt. His brother laughed at him for his fears, told him to stay and prepare the sheep, and that he himself would go to fetch the wood. As in his brother's case, the same heartrending sigh arose from the tomb when he attempted to loosen the slab. But he was not to be easily daunted. ' Sigh away,' he responded cheerfully to the lugubrious sounds which proceeded from the grave. A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS 41 * This slab is of no use to you. I want it to cook my dinner, and I mean to have it.' With a vigorous tug he wrenched it up, and throwing it over his shoulder, came back in triumph to his brother. Finding him lying fast asleep, he left him where he lay and proceeded to light the fire and cook the supper, so as to be ready for his awakening. The sheep was roasted and ready, and the cook was about to awake his brother to join him in the meal, when suddenly the form of the dead Tawarek arose from his grave, and coming to where the two brothers were stationed, seated himself by the fire between them, and, on the ground that he had supplied the means for cooking the sheep, put forward a claim to a share in the food. As this seemed to be but reasonable, the elder brother admitted the force of his argument, and commenced to divide the carcase of the sheep into three portions instead of the two which he had originally intended. ' Why are you cutting that sheep into three ? demanded the corpse. ' Because there are three of us — you, I, and my brother.' ' No ; there are only two. Your brother is dead.' • No ; he is merely asleep.' ' I tell you he is dead.' * Nonsense; I tell you he is asleep.' The dispute thus begun continued until both parties, becoming heated in the debate, turned from argument to insult, and began upbraiding each other in the strongest terms. 42 A SEAKCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS At length the Arab, becoming enraged at the insults heaped upon him by the dead Tawarek, completely lost his self-control. ' If my brother is dead,' he cried furiously, * you shall at any rate keep him company,' and, snatching up his gun, he fired point blank into his antagonist. The latter sprang to his feet, and pursued by his living opponent fled to his tomb, where he suddenly disappeared. The Arab, considerably pleased at having fought and got the better of a real ghost, retm'ned in ex- cellent spirits to the fire for his meal. He stooped down and shook his brother to awaken him; but found that the ball which he had aimed at his late opponent had passed through his shadowy form, and, striking his brother in the head, had killed him instantly. The Sahara, especially at night, is an uncanny land. Its wild and desolate wastes seem to have been chosen by Nature as a playground wherein to exhibit her most eerie and fantastic tricks. The solitary life led by the nomadic inhabitants, who, while hunting or tending their herds, are frequently compelled to pass day after day alone in the wilder- ness, by accentuating their inherent morbid and dreamy temperament causes them to see in the hidden forces of Nature the agency of supernatural beings created by their own vivid imaginations. Any natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by their simple science is thus attributed by them to some jinn or demon. The weird unaccountable droning to be heard on A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 43 a still night in many parts of the Sahara is said by the Arabs to be the jitms conversing among them- selves. The curious pillars of sand raised by the whirl- winds so common in the desert, and known even in England as ' sand-devils,' are attributed to the play- fulness of a passing jinn. A story is current among the natives of Algeria of an Arab who, while travelling in the desert, made some slighting remark to his companion about a ' sand-devil,' which chanced to be passing near. The ' devil ' immediately wheeled round, rushed swirling and roaring towards him, caught him as he turned to fly, knocked him down, and tearing the burnous from his back, whirled it up into the sky until it was lost to sight. The ' devil ' swept shrieking triumphantly on, leaving the Arab to rise sadly to his feet, the poorer by a new Mirnous, and with a greatly increased respect for the unseen jiniis of the desert. 44 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS CHAPTER IV From Setil the road rises very gently, but steadily, all the way to Kef-ed-dour, some five miles further to the south, whence it drops again abruptly to the great Sliott or salt lake of Melchir. This hill is practically the only one in all the road between Biskra and Tougourt. The French have taken advantage of this elevation to erect on its summit a poste optique for heliograph and flash- lamp signalling between Tougourt and Biskra, The view from the top of this post, looking over the Shott Melchir, is extremely fine and extensive. Stretching away to the south, as far as the eye can see, lies the great level expanse of the Shott, which, like most of the salt lakes in the Sahara, is, except after heavy rain, dry and covered all over with a dazzling salt incrustation as white as snow, whereon the mirage dances, turning the little mounds and bushes in the distance into fantastic hills and forests. Melchir — the name of the Shott — is the Arab word for a quicksand. According to the native tradition, the lake is so called because once when? one night after heavy rain, a party of horsemen from Biskra were traversing the bed of the lake on their way to make a raid upon the inhabitants of A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 45 El Wad, they found themselves suddenly engulfed in a quagmire in the bed of the lake, where they lost not only most of their horses, but several of the riders as vi^ell, before they could extricate themselves from their difficulty. For some distance beyond Kef-ed-dour our road lay over the dry bed of the lake. It v^as as hard and smooth as a turnpike road, and afforded the most excellent going. The camel rose to the occa- sion, put on a spurt, and v^e bov/led merrily along at quite a respectable pace. After a while, however, the Shott curved away to the left of the road, we got on to a softer surface, and our pace fell back again to our normal rate. Soon afterwards we reached Ourir, the northern- most oasis of the Wad Kirh group. From this point on as far as Tougourt we had generally one, and often several oases in sight. The Wad Kirh, like most of the Saharan streams, flows underground, and to the inexperienced eye shows no visible indication of its existence. Wells on the artesian principle, which have always been supposed to be of European invention, have been for centuries in active operation in the Sahara. But since machine-drills, iron tubes, and other modern appliances were not available, the wells had to be sunk by hand. A man with a cord tied under his armpits was lowered into a shaft, and by means of an iron implement scooped the earth at the bottom of the pit into a basket, which, when full, was drawn by means of a cord to the surface. This method of well-sinking was most dangerous. 46 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS for on the final stroke being given which tapped the water-bearing stratum the water rose with a rush to the mouth of the well, and unless the unfortunate workman could be hauled with sufficient rapidity up the two hundred feet or so of shaft to the surface he was inevitably drowned. The shafts, owing to the roughness of their construction and the largeness of their diameter, were continually falling in and be- coming choked, and they could only be cleared out by lowering again a man to the bottom and tapping afresh the water-field. The French ' Compagnie de I'Oued Birh ' have, with their modern appliances, sunk a number of excellent wells, and are rapidly developing the re- sources of the district, for they have not only supplemented the supply of water in the existing oases, but have created several new oases of their own. By them the cultivation of the palms is carried on in a scientific manner. The trees which they plant are selected varieties — the Arabs recognise over seventy different kinds of date palms. They are sj'^stematically planted in rows, instead of in the haphazard manner adopted by the Arabs, and are pruned, watered, manured, and cared for in accord- ance with the most modern scientific principles. But in spite of all the care, labour, and capital expended upon their plantations, the company only estimate their profit at three and a half francs per palm. The inhabitants of the forty oases which consti- tute the Wad Eirh district are of a type which is A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 47 found nowhere else in Algeria. They are known as the Bouara. With their dark, almost black, skins, crisp curling hair, and thick fleshy features, they bear a strong resemblance to the blacks of the Sudan. Some of them, however, showed a different type. They had the same close curling hair and the same deep-coloured skin ; but instead of the negro features, they were conspicuous by their high, narrow foreheads, aquiline noses, and comparatively thin lips. In language and dress, too, these Bouara differed greatly from the Biskris. Almost all the women and children whom we saw were dressed in dark-blue cotton clothing, which offered a great contrast to the variegated dresses usually worn by the inhabitants of Biskra. A fine broad road led between the palm planta- tions from the outskirts of Ourir to the large fortified house which formed the residence of the Frenchman in charge of the company's property in the oasis. Before leaving Ourir we stopped for a few moments to look at one of the artesian wells which watered the plantations. The water poured up through an iron tube some five inches in diameter into a circular concrete basin, whence it was conducted by a narrow channel to a network of little streams which flowed in all directions through the palms. The water must have come from a considerable depth, for it felt distinctly warm. Aissa looked upon this phenomenon as somewhat uncanny. A hot spring is always regarded by the Arabs as the product of some supernatural power. 48 A SEAECH FOE THE ilASKED TAWAEEKS There exist in the northern part of Algeria some hot springs whose medicinal waters have for cen- turies been used by the natives as a cure for skin- diseases and rheumatism. These springs, which gush from the ground at almost boiling-point, are supposed by the Arabs to be heated by subterranean furnaces. According to the legend of the place, Solomon, as a punishment, compelled certain genii, who had been guilty of some crime, to stoke these furnaces and attend to the springs ; and in order that they might not be able to see, hear, or repeat anything that went on at the baths — a very wise precaution if they were to be frequented by the Arabs — he deprived them at the same time of sight, hearing, and the power of speech. In consequence of these infirmities their fellow- genii have never been able to acquaint them with the death of their taskmaster. Being, therefore, under the impression that he is still alive, and fear- ing that should they cease for one instant from their labours they would be visited with a still severer punishment, they continue the toil imposed upon them of stoking the fires which heat the springs. At M'raier, the half-way house between Biskra and Tougourt, we halted for a day to give our rather overloaded camel a rest. The day which we passed there was ushered in by a sand-storm. About noon, however; the wind dropped, and I took the opportunity to go out into the oasis to take a few photographs. By the side of the village was a large open space, A SEARCH FOE THE 3IASKED TAWAREKS 49 used by the inhabitants alternately as market, village- green, parliament-house, and ball-room. At the moment of our arrival we found that it was being utilised in the last capacity. A marriage-dance was in progress. All the un- married girls of the village, with a few of their mothers and married sisters looking on so as to allay the scruples of the not very exacting female who takes the place of Mrs. Grundy in the desert, were present in the square. They had come out in their very best finery, and when a Eouara girl puts on her best frock she makes herself very fine indeed. For the nonce they had discarded their usual dark-blue clothing and had dressed themselves in spots and stripes of all the colom^s of the rainbow. Silver or brass chaplets encircled their brows, silver bracelets covered their arms, and anklets of the same metal clinked on their feet with every step they took ; many of them had their breasts almost covered with beautifully pierced and embossed boxes of silver containing charms or some sickly scented perfume. With their arms laced together they danced in short, shuffling steps, swaying their bodies in time to the music. While dancing, each girl held ^^-ith her henna-sto^med fingers a corner of the cloth which covered her head across her face so as to act as a kind of veil, coquettishly lowering it occasionally so as to allow a momentary glimpse of her ebony loveliness. The band of four performers which dis- coursed the barbaric music to which the women danced joined occasionally in the performance and E 50 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS danced in and out of the others, sometimes spinning themselves, teetotum fashion, or throwing them- selves into fantastic and grotesque attitudes. The men of the village stood in a circle round the dancers criticising their points and performance in a languid blase man-about-town kind of manner, which was evidently intended to show the infinite superiority of the Mohammedan male. All this dancing was merely a preliminary to the marriage. That great event was not to take place for nearly a week, the dance was only a compliment paid by the bride and her friends to her future husband. In the evening we went down again into the village to see the bridegroom return the compliment by serenading his lady-love. The bride's house, which stood in one of the streets of the village, was of the usual flat-roofed, mud-built type common to the Saharan oases. Some twenty or thirty early comers, who had evidently determined to secure front seats and to see the per- formance through to the bitter end at three or four o'clock in the morning, were squatting wrapped in their white burnouses, in a ilong row against the opposite wall, silently awaiting the arrival of the future bridegroom and his friends. Soon a small party of men, a dozen or so in number, armed with tamtams, derbouhahs, Arab pipes, and other out- landish musical instruments, made their appearance on the scene, and seated themselves in a circle in front of the door of the bride's house. The crowd now began rapidly to thicken. The A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 51 bridegroom and his party, however, sat for some time silent, or merely exchanged remarks in a low midertone. They were apparently waiting until a sufficiently large audience had collected to do credit to their efforts. In a niche in the wall of the bride's house a lighted candle had been placed, more apparently with a view to producing an artistic effect than with any idea of dispelling the darkness, for owing to the wind it was continually being blown out. It took one man all his time to attend to it. At length the orchestra began to tune up, and, after the usual preliminary twangings and tootlings had been gone through, the song began. The pipe gave out a shrill, ear-splitting shriek, a reed whistle squealed, the drums and tamtams banged and pounded, and the other instruments joined in and produced the most discordant sounds imaginable. After a few bars the bridegroom commenced the solo. He laid back his head like a dog when he bays, lifted up his voice and gave vent to his soul- consuming love for his future bride in a series of long-drawn, melancholy howls which would have done great credit to a hyena in ' the blues.' At intervals duiing the song the orchestra joined in in a sort of chorus, which they sang through their noses in various minor keys, producing a most unique effect. The song which they sang was a famous Algerian love-song known as the * Lament of the Prisoner of Kairowan.' The main idea of the song is quite poetical. It is supposed to be sung by an Arab who E 2 52 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS has been taken prisoner during a desert raid and is being held to ransom at Kairowan. It is addressed to his lady love at Tougourt. He begins by explain- ing the situation, and then proceeds to say how much he wishes that he were sitting with his adored under the shade of his palms with a stream of water running in front of them. The remainder of the song, owing to the intricacy of the language, is extremely difficult to translate. It is an Arab love-song, and Arab love-songs are usually so full of local colour that they cannot be rendered into idiomatic English. The bride-elect and a bevy of dusky damsels, whom, for want of a better name, must be called her bridesmaids, were seated out of sight upon the flat roof of the house, and whenever any point in the song particularly took their fancy they struck up that shrill quavering ' Ay-ay-ay ' by which the Arab women are wont to express their applause. At the conclusion of the song, the performers, who had each, in his own particular way, been doing his best to produce as much noise as possible, laid down their instruments, quite exhausted, panted, fanned themselves and mopped their faces, while the bride's mother ran round the group rewarding them for their efforts with coffee and lumps of sugar. After an interval for rest and refreshment other songs followed, in which the bridegroom compared his beloved to the daughter of a Sultan, told her that her eyes were like those of the gazelle, that her hands and ears were like rose-leaves, and showered other fulsome compliments of a like nature upon her. A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 53 Now I have no wish to be unnecessarily ungallant, but I had seen that dusky damsel dancing in the square, and the praise which was being lavished upon her personal appearance struck me as being the most extravagant that I had ever heard— an uglier, a greasier, and a more repulsive little negress I have never seen. We stayed a considerable time watching the proceedings. But at length, as the performance varied very little, we became somewhat bored by it, and made our way back again to bed. But the serenade was by no means over. It continued far into the night and wound up, to the detriment of our night's repose, somewhere during the small hours of the morning with a feit-de-joie from the guns and pistols of the serenaders. On our way back to the caravanserai we came across no less than three other serenading parties. How many more of them there were performing that night in M'raier I have no idea. My impression of the inhabitants of the place, gathered from the one day which I spent in their midst, is that they spend the whole of their time in marrying and giving in marriage, and leave the care of their palms and gardens to the kindly hand of Providence. 54 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS CHAPTER V SiDi Amran, the last place we stayed at between Biskra and Tougourt, is an oasis containing some forty thousand palms. When you ask an Arab the size of any oasis he always describes it as containing so many palms. He may add that there are three or four villages in it, that it contains a town, or that there are a great many people inhabiting it ; but the only subject upon which he can give you any exact information is the number of palms which it con- tains. A man's wealth in the Sahara is calculated almost entirely by the number of camels and other animals or palm-trees which he owns, and the amount of water to which he is entitled. Water in the desert is so scarce that the ownership of it is most jealously guarded. Sidi Amran is one of the oases in the Wad Eirh ; and throughout this district water is mainly derived from wells sunk on the artesian principle, which give a continuous flow of water. This water is distributed throughout the oases by means of a network of little channels, known as segias. In buying a palm-grove it is always necessary to stipulate for so many sa'as per day or week. A sa'a— literally an hour — is the amount of water A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS 55 which will flow in an hour through an opening of the width of a man's fist in the side of a segia. The main segias as a rule follow the roads of the oasis, forming a sort of ditch at the side. A regular time-table is kept showing the hours at which the owners of the different plantations are entitled to draw their water. The time is measured by a very curious little water-clock, consisting of a metal cup, made usually of brass or copper, with a small hole pierced in its bottom. This, at the commencement of each hour, is placed in a basin of water. The water gradually percolates through the hole until, at the expiration of the hour, the cup sinks to the bottom of the basin. It is then taken out, emptied, and set again to measure off the next sa'a, and so the process is con- tinued throughout the twenty-four hours. This instrument is usually kept in the village mosque. In order to prevent it from being in any way interfered with, a watchman is set over it, who notifies the expiration of each hour from the minaret of the mosque. At the end of the sa'a the opening in the side of the segia through which the water flows is closed with clay, and the water is cut off from the planta- tion and allowed to flow uninterruptedly down the main channel. That, at least, is what is supposed to happen ; but an Arab, if he gets the chance, will always steal an extra five minutes of water, and as the other persons interested in the same segia are always on the look out for any sharp practice of this kind, 56 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS this stealing is apt to lead to very unpleasant con- sequences for the thief. We reached Sidi Amran about three in the after- noon. It had been cold and cloudy all day. Shortly after we had settled ourselves in the caravanserai a perfect deluge of rain came dov7n vi^hich lasted nearly an hour. As soon as the weather had cleared I took my gun and went out into the oasis to try and shoot some palm-doves. On my return to the caravan- serai I found that the sheyJch of the village, having heard of the arrival of a European in the oasis, had sent up a messenger to invite him to dinner. This was an unexpected and rather embarrassing offer. I had partaken of the hospitality of Arab sheykhs before, and, bad though it was, I infinitely preferred Aissa's cooking to the style of cuisine in vogue among the natives of Algeria. To refuse, however, would have been to offend, if not to insult, the old gentleman, and these feasts, though very indigestible, are often extremely entertaining. I decided to go. The sheykh's messenger departed with my answer, promising to return when the time arrived to show me the way to his master's house. He returned about seven o'clock, and we set out together for the village. The rain of the afternoon had reduced the clayey surface of the soil to an indescribable greasiness, and it required all the nails which my boots contained to keep me on my feet. My guide, however, made no bones about the matter. He kicked off his shoes, and with his bare feet seemed to obtain a wonderful hold upon the slippery A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 57 ground, for he trotted along with the utmost confi- dence. We passed through the narrow mud-built streets of the village, which was one of the slummiest I ever was in, splashing into puddles and tumbling over mounds of refuse and dead dogs in the dark, until, to my great relief — for I began to think that I should end my days by breaking my neck in one of these narrow alleys — we arrived at the house of the sheykh. My guide pounded vigorously at the rough palm- wood door, and shouted for the inmates to open. A sound of much scuffling immediately came from within. One or two resounding thumps and a slight feminine scream showed that the master of the house was hustling his womenkind out of the way. The next moment we were greeted by a furious barking overhead. The house watchdog, stationed as usual upon the flat roof, was expressing his desire to taste the blood of an Englishman. My conductor picked up a clod of earth and, waiting until the dog showed his head above the low parapet which surrounded the roof, hurled it straight at him, causing him to retire with a yelp. At the same moment the sheykh, with a candle in his hand, opened the door and bade me enter. His house was merely one of the ordinary mud- built dwellings to be found in other parts of the oasis. It was perhaps rather larger, but otherwise it presented no special features. We entered, through a passage some six feet wide, into a courtyard. The passage, which was ,/- 58 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS merely intended to act as a sort of porch to the house and to screen its interior from the view of passers-by in the road when the outer door happened to be open, ran parallel with the street itself, and the doors in it were so placed as to make it impos- sible for anyone outside to see into the house. The courtyard measured perhaps twenty- five feet square. It was surrounded on all sides by rough mud-built walls about ten feet high. These, except for the door by which we had entered and a corre- sponding door in the opposite wall leading to the inner apartments, were quite blank. A date palm growing in the centre of the court was utilised as one of the props of a sort of verandah, thatched with palm leaves, which covered about half the courtyard. In the uncovered part a table had been placed, and the slieykh's most valued possessions — three very rickety chairs — were placed around it to serve as seats for two of the leading Arabs of the oasis and myself. The slieykh himself sat upon a wooden box at the head of the table. After I had been introduced to the other two guests, and we had kissed hands after the approved fashion, we all took our seats at the festive board. I sat down very gingerly, and soon found that to maintain my balance would require the exercise of considerable acrobatic powers. The off fore leg of my chair had been badly broken and had been but indifferently spliced together with string. The two hind legs were in a very ' groggy ' condition, and the back threatened every minute to fall off. The only part of the chair upon which I could place any A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 59 reliance — and that creaked in the most ominous manner — was the near fore leg. I was consequently obliged to seat myself upon the extreme front corner of the chair and to balance myself as best I could. The conversation turned mainly upon my journey from Biskra, the state of the Anglo-French rela- tions — this required some careful handling — the un- usual rain of the afternoon, the raid which the Trood Arabs of El Wad had just made upon the Tawareks of the neighbourhood of Ghadames, and the price of camels and palm-trees in England. The sheykh spoke French of sorts, and the con- versation was carried on between us in that language, he translating my remarks to the other guests, who, beyond an occasional question, took but little part in the conversation, confining themselves to deep guttm-al ' Ah wahs ! ' and similar exclamations of amazement at the account which I gave them of the wonders of England and European civilisation. After spending some little time in improving conversation of this description a nigger came in and spread a very greasy and dirty red cloth over the table. A second servant followed with another and much greasier cloth, which he laid upon the centre of the first to prevent it from contact with the dinner. A third nigger followed v/ith a huge pile of couscous heaped upon a high dish shaped much like a dumb waiter, and covered with a conical cover of plaited halfa grass. Two mugs and three large horn spoons, or rather ladles, were provided among the four of us. I imme- diately seized one of the mugs and the nearest spoon 60 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS and successfully eluded every attempt which was made to share them with me. A bowl of sour camel's milk and another of a horribly murgerous- looking soup were brought in, the sheykh muttered grace — Bismillah — and the feast began. The milk was first handed round. The sheykh just sipped it as a guarantee that it was not poisoned and then handed it on to me. I took a sip, as in duty bound, and passed it on ; the soup followed in the same manner, but as no one took more than a sip the lid of the couscous dish was removed and the bowl emptied over the pile. Each person's share of the dish was divided off from that of his neighbour's by a hard-boiled egg embedded in the pyramid of couscous. I didn't like the look of those eggs at all. They belonged to that class which has been described as being suitable ' for electioneering purposes.' I left them severely alone. That couscous was as full of surprises as those ' bran pies ' which are given to children to dive into at Christmas time for presents, I never knew what was going to turn up next. Now it was a half raw potato, now it was a carrot, sometimes it was a goat chop ; these last we ate with our fingers, and then flung the bones under the table or anywhere else which came handy. One particularly tough bit of goat which the sheykh dug out of the pile and handed to me as a special favour was quite beyond my powers of mas- tication . I was obliged to seize an opportunity when my host was not looking to get rid of it by dropping it under my chair. I did not, however, succeed in A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREK8 6l doing this unobserved, for one of the servants who were attending upon us, noticing my action, picked up the half-eaten piece and, retiring to a corner, finished it himself. As soon as we had satisfied our hunger upon the couscous it and the greasiest cloth were removed, and some dates, some excellent coffee, and a packet of rasping Algerian cigarettes were produced. Then came tea — green tea, brewed strong — and after that, at about ten o'clock, the party broke up. Our host considerately retired into the inner recesses of his mansion, on a pretence of fetching a fresh candle, to allow us an opportunity for tipping his servants. He then came back, and with a light in his hand led the way from the house. The etiquette of the desert demands that on these occasions the host should always precede his guests through the outer door into the street. As long as you are a guest in an Arab's house you are under his protection, and your person is sacred from any attack, but this security is supposed to be at an end as soon as you have crossed his threshold, and your host then, if he wishes it, is perfectly at liberty to stab or shoot you in the back. He accordingly pre- cedes you through the door in order to shov/ that he has no intention of doing so. When outside the house the two other guests took their leave of our host and departed to their homes. The sheykh then, accompanied by one of his servants, escorted me, lighted candle in hand, out of the oasis. The servant was sent on ahead and discovered the puddles by the simple method of 62 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS splashing into them with his hare feet. My host then stooped down and by the light of the candle showed me where they were, so that I could walk round them. The caravanserai lay at a little distance outside the oasis. As soon as we had left the palms behind I stopped the slieijkh, told him that I could find my way across the desert alone as it was a starlight night, and when I had promised, to his great delight, to send him a present of a little gunpowder we fell upon each other's necks, embraced, and bid each other a most affectionate farewell. I have described the men who attended upon us as being ' servants,' but from some remarks which Aissa let fall upon my return I am not sure that they would not be more accurately described as slaves. In the ' good old times ' of Barbary, when piracy reigned at Algiers and the voice of the French was not heard in the land, slavery was a recognised insti- tution in the country, and huge caravans came several times a year from the Sudan, via Twat to Wargla, bringing slaves, which from this point were distributed all over Algeria. But since the French have conquered the country slavery is of course theoretically abolished. In the eye of the French law there are no slaves. But that eye, like many others, is occasionally given to the immoral habit of winking, and slavery in the out-of- the-way districts is one of the things which it con- siders itself not always bound to notice. Since, in the majority of cases, both the slaves and their masters A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 63 are perfectly contented, why should the la\Y in- terfere ? Aissa, on my return, made most searching inquiries into the menu of the repast. Was there any murger (Arab soup) ? Was there a meshwi (sheep roasted whole) ? Was there any meat in the couscous ? Was the couscous itself white or brown ? Were there any honey cakes or sweets ? All these are points which go to show the amount of honour done to a guest. When he heard of what the meal had actually consisted he was extremely indignant. He had always heard, he said, that that sJieykh was a terrible skinflint, but he had no idea that he would have condescended to such meanness. Aissa had a great idea of the respect which was due to his employers, and the sheykh's stinginess in providing such a meal impressed him very unfavour- ably. The next morning, when I sent him down with my present of powder to the sheykh, he must have made some very strong representations to him on the subject, for he brought back with him, apparently to square the account, a present of three eggs. I gave them to Aissa — I had seen the sheykh'' s eggs before. B4 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS CHAPTEE VI During the night it rained again heavily. When I looked out at about five o'clock in the morning it was still descending in torrents, so I decided to wait until eight o'clock, to give it time to clear. Aissa was very much against leaving at all, and wanted to stay on at the caravanserai until the following day, so as to allow the ground to dry up and make better going for the camel. This did not, however, sound a very cheering prospect, and, as I was anxious to get to Tougourt, I, much against his better judgment, decided on a start. Accordingly, just before seven, as the weather showed signs of clearing, Aissa and El Haj grumblingly loaded up the camel, and we set out. Aissa was right, of course. We soon found that his forebodings as to the state of the road were fully justified. We had not gone a quarter of a mile before the camel slipped and fell on his side, where he lay groaning as though he had broken his back. But it was only the * nature of the beast,' and soon we had him again on his feet and w^ere advancing more cautiously than before. Books on natural history tell you that a camel's foot is a most wonderful structure and perfectly adapted for traversing the deserts in which he lives ; A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 6b and so, until after rain, it is. But if the ground is in the least slippery a camel can obtain no hold on it at all. His soft-padded foot does not ' bite ' the mud in the least, and the knock-kneed manner in which his hind legs are set into his body causes him to slip at almost every step. Our camel skidded and skated along at about two miles an hour, halting occasionally, after an unusually long slide, to recover his balance, and then advancing again more gingerly than ever. Aissa walked on one side of him, and every time he slipped called loudly upon his patron saint — Sidi Abdullah — while El Haj, walking on the other, whacked him well with his stick and called him ' ben halloo/ ' — son of a pig — whenever he threatened to fall. Between the two of them they somehow managed to get him along with only an occasional cropper. Between us and Tougourt lay a small shott (salt lake), which it was necessary for us to cross, and it was this part of the road which caused Aissa the greatest anxiety. Everyone we met coming from the direction of Tougourt was accosted by him with the same question : * Kan shi uregah fi shott ? ' (Is there any mud in the lake?) And the answer was invariably the same, ' Kan bessef ' (There is, a lot) . It was not a very cheerful outlook, for the bed of a salt lake after rain is about as slimy and slippery a surface to walk over as it is possible to imagine. My guide was certain that we should not be able to reach Tougourt that night, and proposed that F 66 A SEAECH FOE THE MASKED TAWAKEKS we should sleep instead at an oasis on the road called Mugger. Mugger, when we reached it, proved to be quite as uninviting in appearance as it was in name. It was a squalid, tumble-down looking village with a half-ruined caravanserai overrun with goats and fowls. It was impossible, so we determined to cross the lake and push on at all costs for Tougourt. "We halted for an hour in the oasis to give the camel a rest and a feed before subjecting him to the ordeal of crossing the lake, and then left the oasis and entered at once upon the sliott beyond. Aissa took off a charm he was wearing round his neck and hung it over that of the camel, and, with a muttered invocation to Sidi Abdullah, drove him out on to the mud. El Haj took his stick in hand and, with an audible curse at the foolishness and pig- headedness of Europeans in general, and of me in particular, proceeded to vent his ill-temper upon his miserable beast. Both of my retainers were in the worst of humours. This was, perhaps, hardly to be wondered at, for the road was almost impassable. The smooth salt slime which covered the bed of the lake was as slippery as ice. Not only the camel, but we our- selves slipped with every stride we took, and in order to get along with any degree of safety were com- pelled to walk with the shortest of steps. Once when El Haj was endeavouring to chastise the camel for an unusually long slide by an unusually heavy thwack, he lost his balance, and to the dehght of his cousin, and I have no doubt of the camel A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS '67 also, fell down full sprawl on his side. It was a most trying journey, but somehow or other, by dint of appeals to Sidi Abdullah and to El Haj's stick, we managed, in spite of continual slips and a few croppers, to get across. We were rewarded for our exertions by getting at once on to sandy ground beyond, which, hardened as it had been by recent rain, afforded a very fair going. We halted just before sunset for a short rest in the desert, and then pushed on again for Tougourt, which was still some ten or twelve miles ahead. The sky was overcast, and a cold, damp wind was blowing which, accustomed as we were to the hot weaiher which had preceded it, made us all feel thoroughly cold and miserable. The night Wiis very dark, and for a considerable time the only guides which we had to prevent us from straying off the track were little mounds of earth thrown up for that purpose every hundred yards or so on either side of the road. As we approached Tougourt, however, the minaret of the mosque and the observation tower of the French fort showed themselves faintly silhouetted against the sky, forming most useful landmarks. It was nearly ten o'clock when w^ reached the town and made our way to our quarters situated in a corner of the market conveniently near to the fort. Tougourt, the capital of the Wad Rirh district, was before the arrival of the French ruled over by a Ime of Sultans known as the Beni Jellab. The F 2 68 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS mortal remains of these rulers of the desert are interred in a mud-built mausoleum lying in the desert at a distance of about a mile to the west of the town. The city was taken by the French in 1854, but was retaken by the Arabs during the great insurrec- tion of 1871, when the garrison, consisting almost entirely of native troops, was massacred, and the city sacked by the victorious Arabs. After its re- conquest by the French a strong garrison was placed in the fort, and the town was made the headquarters of a military district. The houses on the outside of the town originally all joined up to each other to form a kind of fortified wall, and this was at one time surrounded by a stagnant moat. Many of these houses have now been pulled down, and in order to make the town more healthy the moat has been filled up with sand ; but bits of the old wall still remain to show that in its day Tougourt must have been a very strongly fortified place for a desert town. One of our first inquiries on reaching Tougourt was naturally for the objects of our journey. The Tawareks, we were told, had not been seen for some time in the neighbourhood. This was rather a disappointment, for we had been led to believe at Biskra that we should possibly find some in or near the town. One, we were told, had appeared in the market about a month before ; but, after staying for a day or two in the oasis, he had suddenly disap- peared, and no one knew where he had gone. We were recommended, if we wished to find some A STREET IN OLD TOUGOURT. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 69 members of this tribe, to proceed to Wargla or El Wad. It was not until our arrival at Tougourt that I discovered that in order to proceed to either of these places it would be necessary to obtain the permis- sion of the French Government. I was given to understand that this, especially in the case of Wargla, was not easy to obtain. As there appeared to be some doubt as to my getting permission to go to either place, I considered it advisable, on the principle of asking for twice as much as one wants in the hope of getting a half, to apply for permission for both. I accordingly laid my papers, my passport and permis-de-chasse, before the authorities, who promised to forward my application to headquarters in Algiers, and to acquaint me with the result of their application. We were all, I think, rather glad of an oppor- tunity of taking a rest. Aissa declared that our march by double stages had reduced his camel to a skeleton ; but I was unable myself to see any very appreciable difference in his appearance. The morning after our arrival El Haj was sent to take the camel out into the desert to a patch of scrub some miles off to graze, while I took Aissa down into the oasis to have a look at the palms. We neither of us felt inclined to do much walking, for we were both horribly stiff after our long and slippery journey of the day before; moreover, the fierce sun, which was blazing down from the cloud- less sky, caused a glare from the white sand which was anything but pleasant. 70 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS Under the palms, however, it was more agree- able. Narrow lanes, bordered on either side by high mud walls, stretched in all directions throughout the palm-groves. At intervals in these walls doors were placed to give access to the plantations. Finding one of these ajar, we pushed it open and unceremoniously entered into the garden beyond. A fallen palm trunk offered an inviting seat, and of this I promptly took advantage, and gave myself up to the enjoyment of that acme of an Arab's bliss — dolce far niente. That garden was a delightful spot. Carrots, parsnips, water-melons, gourds, and other vegetables covered the ground in luxuriant profusion. Above these grew quince-trees, apricots, lemons, fig-trees, and oranges, while over all spread the leafy canopy of the palm tops, protecting the lower growths from the scorching rays of the sun. The sunlight filter- ing through their interlacing fronds fell in great splotches of gold upon the tangled greenery below\ Gorgeous dragon-flies darted hither and thither in all directions. The air was filled with the musical hum of bees and myriads of tiny insects. Close by the water babbled through its narrow bed in a segia, and overhead the doves of the oasis buffeted and cooed with their soft melodious notes in the tops of the palms. The air was warm and heavy with the perfume of orange-blossom and the varied indefinable scents of a tropical garden. Even Ai'ssa seemed influenced by the beauty of the spot. He leant his back against a palm, gazed sentimentally into the shady recesses of the grove, A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 71 and with all his finer feelings aroused, crooned softly to himself ' The Lament of the Prisoner of Kairowan.' Somewhere in the Sahara — over there in the country of the Tawareks, where such wonderful and mysterious things occur — there is said to be an en- chanted oasis. All kinds of stories are told about this place. It is said to be planted with the most splendid palms and fruit trees in creation. In its midst, surrounded by magnificent gardens, where fountains play in marble basins, gorgeous singing- birds warble all day long, and trees bearing precious stones instead of fruit grow by the side of babbling streams, a splendid palace is planted. Its walls are of alabaster, porphyry, jasper, and jade ; the windows are set in diamonds, rubies, and pearls ; delicate arabesques cover the roofs ; domes and minarets of gold flash and sparkle in the sun, and the whole is a dream of Oriental splendour which only the mind of an Arab could evolve. Many men have visited that palace, but none have yet been able to enter its doors. Beautiful damsels appear upon its roof and beckon to them from its windows to approach ; but when, in answer to their invitations, they attempt to enter its walls, that palace always recedes before them, and no mortal yet has ever been able to set foot upon its threshold. Men, captivated by the loveliness of these sirens of the desert, have followed that palace about the oasis until they fell and died before its walls of exhaustion and fatigue, while those beautiful damsels still stood above them on the roof and lured them on to destruction. 72 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS One man, and only one, has succeeded in escap- ing from that oasis. He, hke the others, saw that palace and those beckoning beauties, but being of a prosaic mind turned his back upon them and de- clined to listen to their blandishments. He busied himself instead in loading his camels with the dates and precious fruits of the gardens around him. When he had filled his kerratas (camel bags) to their utmost capacity, he set out to return to his tent. For three days he travelled, but though he drove his camels at their utmost speed, he invariably found himself in the evening at the same spot from which he had started in the morning. He realised then that the oasis belonged to the genii, and that they were preventing him from carrying away its fruits. He became alarmed and emptied his Jcerratas of their precious burden, and made another attempt to return to his home. In the evening, however, as before, he found himself back again at the point from which he had started. An investigation revealed the fact that a single date which he had overlooked remained in the bottom of one of his kerratas, and it was not until he had thrown this out that he was permitted to return to his tribe. In the afternoon we paid a visit to the old town. A more curious or more interesting place it would be difficult to find. The streets, mere narrow, tortuous alleys between walls of rough sun-dried bricks, were throughout the greater part of their length roofed over to form a sort of tunnel as a protection from the A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 73 burning rays of the sun. Here and there, so as to allow for the admission of light and air, this roof was discontinued. On either side were raised seats of earth, blackened and polished by continual use. Kough palm-wood doors, six inches thick, and dark narrow entries appeared on either hand. No windows opened into the streets, but sometimes through a half -opened door a glimpse of the interior of some mud-built house could be caught, or an Arab school could be seen where some twenty or more little dark-skinned urchins seated round their teacher were chanting, with the babble of an infant- school all the world over, the lesson which they were learning by heart. In these cool, dim streets the inhabitants of Tougourt spend the hottest part of the day. Men sat upon the seats at the side, knitting socks, sewing burnouses, plaiting fans from slips of palm-leaves, smoking, talking, or cobbling their shoes. Others stretched themselves out at full length, drew the hoods of their burnouses over their heads, and, with their shoes for a pillow, slept the sleep of the lazy and the unemployed. Children swarmed everywhere. Little girls of five, clad in dark blue, staggered along, carrying on their backs smaller children clad in — well, very little at all. Children sprawled upon the seats and round the knees of their fathers and big brothers. Boys on stilts formed from the mid-rib of a palm- leaf, with a block of wood tied on to it about a foot from the ground, ran along, crying out imperiously ' Treg, Treg ' (way), to clear the road. Gaunt, 74 A SEAUCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS hungry-looking dogs on the look-out for garbage slunk by, and goats of the black, hornless breed of Tougourt hurried bleating past, to disappear sud- denly through an open door into an Arab house beyond. Now and then a dyer from the market pushed his donkey laden with blue and bright red cloths through the throng. Arabs, bringing home in their hands their dinner of charred sheeps' heads and trotters, mixed with the crowd. Wild-looking specimens of humanity from the desert came along with donkey-loads of firewood, and women swathed entirely in dark-blue cotton, showing not even an eye, carrying water in quaintly shaped earthenware jars to their houses from the wells, hurried furtively past, their anklets clinking with every step they took. Sometimes a sheykh in his scarlet burnous rode by on a mule, or an Arab trooper from a spahi regiment, ducking his head to avoid the palm-trunk rafters of the lower parts of the road, emerged from one of the darker tunnels, and unceremoniously scattered the crowd in all directions as he trotted through them. In the evening I strolled out into the great souk or market in search of Aissa and El Haj. Several big caravans had come in during the afternoon, and the camel-drivers, with their loaded kerratas around them, were scattered about in little groups, cooking their supper and talking in low, guttural tones around their brushwood fires. In the obscurity behind them the long necks and supercilious faces A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 75 of their camels could be seen as they munched their evening meal of barley from off the cloth before them. The smell of the camels, of the Arabs' cooking, and the smoke of their fires hung heavily in the warm, still air. The hum of the old city behind mingled with the low gurglings and grunts of the camels, the crackling of the fires, and the quiet, guttural speech of the men. A couple of men who were sitting by one of the groups rose as I approached, and came towards me. By the fitful light from one of the fires I recognised Aissa and El Haj. Aissa looked grave and troubled. ' I was waiting for you, M'sieu,' he said. ' I have heard bad news. I have just been talking to a man from Twat, and he says that there is going to be a big war between France and Morocco. One of the big officers of the Sultan down there — a Basha, or someone, I don't know who — sent a letter to the French, telling them from the Sultan that they must leave the country, and when they refused he attacked them, and there has been a big fight. There is sure to be a war. We all knew there would be. The Marabout of Tolga told me so himself. Some one has seen a Nijem die/ (stranger's star), and that always means that there is going to be war or famine.' Aissa then went on to explain that a Nijem die/ was a ' star with a tail ' which occasionally appeared in the desert, and always preceded some calamity. One, he said, appeared at the time of the great insurrection in 1871, and another had been seen in the year of the great famine. He was, however, 76 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS rather reticent -upon the subject, and I could not get anything very definite from him. I could not find out whether this mysterious star was some comet or only a meteor of an unusual size. Whatever it was, his faith in its baneful influence was very great indeed. I did not put much faith in this portent myself, and told him that I could not see that, even if war between France and Morocco did occur, that it would have much effect upon us. But that was not his difficulty. The French, it seemed, were requisitioning through the Kaids an enonnous number of camels for the purpose of carrying stores to Twat, and he had left three camels at Biskra which he was terribly afraid would be taken. ' What am I to do ? ' he asked. * There is only my wife. She cannot arrange anything. I am away, and the Kaid is sure to take them. He has orders to send five thousand. If I were there I would take them and hide them in the desert. But I am not, and as I am away they are sure to be taken. Then, if they are killed, the camel-drivers will not trouble to bring back their ears, and so I shall get no Government compensation ; and, even if they are not killed, they will be so badly treated that they will be good for nothing afterwards. Oh ! I wish I had stayed at Biskra. If my camels are taken, my wife will not be able to sleep for crying.' Aissa was in a terrible state of perplexity. His three camels represented a very large proportion of A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 77 his worldly goods, and if they were taken the loss would be a very serious one to him. He had once told me that he had a cousin who was a secretary in the Bureau Arabe at Tougourt, and, as it struck me that he might be a man who would probably know the ropes a bit, I suggested that on the morrow he should talk matters over with him, and see if they could not find between them some solution of the difficulty. In the meantime there was an hour or two before bedtime which promised to hang rather heavily upon our hands. I inquired of Aissa how the Arab population spent their evenings. He shrugged his shoulders, and answered with a dreary laugh, for the thought of his camels still weighed upon his mind. * Why, they sleep.' That seemed to be the normal occupation of a large portion of the population of Tougourt, and did not sound a very cheerful form of enter- tainment. * But is there no place where they amuse them- selves in the evenings ? ' Aissa thought for a moment before answering. ' Well,' he said, * there is a big cafe, where the music is, if you care to go there. It is at the other side of the town.' This certainly promised amusement, if nothing else, and we decided at once to go. El Haj went back to the fire near which he had been sitting to pick up his stick, and then Aissa, with a recommendation to me to keep hold of 78 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAKEKS his humous, led the way, El Haj following behind me, into the tunnel-like streets of the old town. They were dim and curious enough in all con- science during the daytime, but it was nothing to what they were after dark. The place was as black as Erebus. Not one inch could we see before us. Once or twice, at an important street corner, a sort of night-light, formed of a wick floating in a glass tumbler full of oil placed upon a bracket in the wall, made the darkness almost visible, otherwise it could only be felt. Aissa, though he had only been a few times to Tougourt, guided by that marvellous sense of direc- tion which the Arabs appear to possess in common with the wild beasts, made his way at a rapid walk round the corners and along the narrow, tortuous ways of that old town in the most extraordinary manner. A large proportion of the population of the city seemed to be sleeping on the benches at the sides of those streets or on the ground below them. We could hear their soft, heavy breathing as we passed. Now and then Aissa stumbled over some prostrate sleeper and stopped for a moment to curse him. On one occasion he fell over a goat, who pattered frightened and bleating away before us into the darkness. Once, when El Haj lagged behind, he turned round and shouted to him to come on, his voice echoing with a weird, hollow effect through the covered galleries around us. An old hag, lamp in hand, opened a door as we passed, but retreated again with a shriek on seeing my European clothes. Mufded voices, whose origin it was impossible to A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS 79 determine, floated softly in the thick, still air. Babies cried somewhere in the distance. A dog barked above us on the roof, and unseen forms rose and shuffled away before us through the Stygian gloom. It was a most uncanny place. After stumbling along for some time in this utter darkness, down streets and round corners innumerable, we emerged all of a sudden into the open air on to a wide street of the softest sand, into which our feet sank almost over the ankles. The wild, discordant music of an Arab band, which pro- ceeded from a big mud-built house before us, showed that we were near the cafe. We soon reached it, and entered. Some of the inmates looked up with a start at our arrival, but after a good stare at me relapsed into their usual silent, dignified reserve. The cafe was a room some fifty feet square. In the centre, supporting the roof, were four huge square pillars built of the same mud bricks as the walls. The space enclosed between them was raised so as to form a seat to a height of two feet from the ground. All round the walls were broad ledges of earth, forming seats, which in one or two places rose in tiers, one above the other, almost to the naked, smoke-blackened rafters of the roof. These seats were packed with Arabs, who, with their burnouses closely wrapped around them, were mostly sitting silent and motionless, listening to the deafening banging and squealing of the band and watching a gaudily arrayed girl, who, with clinking anklets and slowly waving arms, was 80 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAAVaEEKS going through the languid, undulating movements of an Arab dance on the trampled earthen floor. The palms and nails of her hands were dyed red with henna. Her tattooed cheeks and chin were stained with saffron, and her eyelids and brows were pencilled with thick black kohol. The dress that she wore, of rose-coloured satin embroidered with gold and flowers in coloured silks, was set off by an enormous silver buckle which fastened her girdle. Goldchains and strings of gold coins hung from her head and round her neck. Gold and silver bangles jingled on her arms, and altogether she presented a most gorgeous, if somewhat barbaric, appearance. The proprietor of the cafe came forward to receive us, hustled some Arabs from their seats to make room for us, and took our orders for coffee. Two men sitting next to me were playing damwah — the Arab draughts. At the conclusion of the play one of them begged a cigarette from me, and in return offered to initiate me into the mys- teries of the game. The board was a little table about six inches high, with a drawer underneath to contain the men. These were conical-shaped pieces, which, but for the fact that they were all alike, bore rather a strong resemblance to chessmen. The game was played in the same manner as the English draughts, except that there was no huffing, and that a piece, when crowned, moved and took after the manner of a bishop at chess. While we were engaged with the darmvah, two men who were playing cards in another part of the A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 81 cafe fell out over some point in the game and began to wrangle. Their voices rapidly grew louder and fiercer until at last one with a snarl hurled himself upon his opponent, seized him by the throat, and began to strangle him, snarling all the time like a dog when he fights. They were separated before they could get their knives to work or do each other much harm. The proprietor of the cafe, aided by one or two other Arabs, dragged the aggressor to the ground, dis- armed him, and bundled him, frantically struggling and screaming with impotent rage, out into the street. The dance went on through all this shindy, and no one except those in the immediate neighbour- hood of the fight paid much attention to the incident. Suddenly the girl who had been dancing stopped in front of Aissa, smiled sweetly upon him, and dropped the handkerchief which she had been waving about during her dance across his shoulder. ' She only wants some money for dancing,' Ai'ssa explained. ' Give me a franc, please.' I gave him the franc ; the girl when she saw it dropped on her knees before him. Aissa licked the money to make it stick, and pressed it against her forehead. The girl rose to her feet with the coin on her face, and continued her dance for a few steps. She then stopped in front of another Arab and dropped her handkerchief across his shoulder. And so she G 82 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS made the circuit of the room, collecting money from anyone who looked rich enough to give it. At the conclusion of the dance she had about four francs — all in silver, for she refused anything less — sticking on to various parts of her face and neck. Having collected all that she could get, she suddenly ceased her dance, sat down on a vacant seat, gathered the money off her face, and called for some coffee. The dance was over — it was time for us to go. Aissa called the proprietor, and I paid the reckoning — half a franc for the three of us — and then we left, well satisfied with our evening's amusement. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 83 CHAPTEB VII Friday is market-day in Tougourt. The souk or market of Tougourt is one of the most important in the northern part of the Sahara. Unfortunately, we were rather too late in the year to see it at its best. As the season advances, and the weather gets hotter, the nomadic Arabs of the desert migrate northwards in search of pasture for their flocks, and in consequence the markets of the desert towns become less frequented. When at its height this weekly fair must be a most interesting sight, for caravans from all parts of the neighbouring deserts and oases come in, bearing dates, grain, fleeces, live-stock, tent-cloth, and carpets for sale. Some of the carpets are beautifully made ; they are mostly woven by the nomad women in their tents. The best are made entirely of wool, with a pile often two inches or even more in length, and though sometimes tinted rather crudely, are in the majority of cases of wonderfully soft and harmonious colouring. Occasionally, as we had been told, a wandering Tawarek finds his way to this fair. But they meet with little encouragement to come, for they are apt to go back to their tents with reliable information a 2 84 A SEAECH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS as to the movements of the richer caravans, which later on they turn to good account by lying in wait for them and attacking them in the open desert, and the Arabs, perhaps naturally, do not approve of these proceedings. Some young camels had been brought- into the market for sale, and it was very amusing ip watch their purchasers breaking them in. The first thing which an Arab does when train- ing a camel is to teach him to kneel down at the word of command. He seizes him by the throat with his left hand, places his right behind the bend of his neck, forces his head backwards, and at the same time pulls his neck downwards and towards him, kicking him all the time on the shins and crying * Kh-h, Kh-h ' — it is impossible to write, and utterly impossible for anyone but an Arab to pro- nounce. The result is a sort of wrestling-match between man and beast, which, unless the camel is very young, will frequently last for several minutes. The crowd standing round applauds one side or the other, while the camel gurgles and snarls and the Arab tugs, curses, 'Kh-h's,' and kicks. The man sooner or later always gets the best of the match, for by his hold upon the camel's throat be is able to compress the windpipe, and eventually the camel is obliged to succumb. When once a troublesome customer has been got down, one of his fore legs is knee-haltered, and then, when he rises again to his feet on three legs, he is entirely in the power of his trainer. V-. ..^ A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 85 Many of the wares displayed for sale in the market were quite strange to my European eyes, and I had to ask their use. The vendors mostly squatted on the ground. They leant two slender frames, formed of jereeds (palm-leaf stems) , against each other, threw a burnous, or piece of matting, over this, and sat underneath in the shade. In front of them were displayed the goods which they had for sale. Amid the bales of cotton, piles of burnouses, scarves, little circular mirrors in tin frames, cutlery, padlocks, and other odds and ends of European origin, were giirbahs filled with pitch, large wooden dishes for making couscous, bunlike loaves, huge sun-hats of straw worked with coloured wools, dates, kohol, henna, dried roses, spices, little glass tubes of attar of roses, jasmine, or orange- blossom, alum for curing skins, salt, simbel for per- fuming dead bodies, incense, the roots of a desert shrub for cleaning the teeth, dried pumpkin-rind for dyeing purposes, oil, tobacco, and Heaven knows what besides. My guide suddenly pounced down upon some object which an Arab had beside him, and after examining it minutely, came back beaming with satisfaction. ' That Arab,' he said, ' has got some butter. It's Arab butter, but it's very good. I've just been tasting it. We have finished all ours ' — Ai'ssa always alluded to my belongings as though they were mutual property — ' I think we had better buy some of it.' I inspected the butter. It had a singularly un- wholesome and unprepossessing appearance. It was 86 A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS dark yellow in hue, and it had a peculiar curdled look about it which I did not like. It was contained in a much-patched gurbah, which, from its size, must once have covered the carcase of a very old he-goat. It had a savoury smell. Aissa plunged his forefinger into the mess and dug out a lump, which he transferred to his mouth, smacking his lips as he did so. Judging from the number of pits in the surface of that butter several other people must have sampled it in the same manner. Aissa swallowed the lump, smacked his lips afresh, and gave his opinion of it with the confi- dence of an expert. ' That's very good butter.' I told him that I did not like the looks of it. He seemed rather crestfallen. ' It is quite good,' he said indignantly. * There is nothing wrong with it. All Arab butter looks like that. You couldn't get better butter than that. Why, it has been kept for over two years in that gurbah ! ' This was apparently intended to be an unanswer- able argument in its favour. As far as I was con- cerned it settled the question entirely. A contact of two seconds with a goat-skin is quite sufficient to impart the most piquant flavour to any butter in existence, but two years — no. Something a little more juvenile would have been preferable. Aissa lagged behind as I moved on, and I heard him endeavouring to buy a small portion of it for himself. I am thankful to say that he failed, for it A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 87 would have been impossible to have travelled with him if he had succeeded. The Tougourt market, like that of Biskra, seemed to be the rendezvous of all the marabouts in the place. One cantankerous-looking old negro saint had somehow managed to get hold of a length of gold fringe, apparently of European origin, which, to the envy of his rivals in sanctity, he had sewn all round the edge of his burnous, thus giving a very smart effect to his otherwise ragged attire. But the marabout which most attracted my attention was a holy man who got a living by eating scorpions for the delectation of the people who visited the market. At the moment of our arrival he was standing with his face turned up to the sun, and two of these loathsome creatures crawling over his forehead and cheeks. He allowed them to creep for some time about his face. Then suddenly, with a frantic yell, he snatched them off, flung one of them down, causing a small stampede in the crowd around him, tore the tail and claws off the other, put the body in his mouth, and crunched it up with apparent gusto. He then picked up the other one, and treated it in the same way. It was a most disgusting spectacle. I have seen the Beni Issou dervishes of the northern part of Algeria hammer nails into each other's heads, ram spikes into their eyes, bite at a red-hot shovel, and eat live snakes, prickly cactus, and glass, but the revolting exhibition given by that 88 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS scorpion-eating marabout stands, at any rate in my experience, unrivalled. There was probably little danger in the perform- ance, for an Arab, when he catches a scorpion which he wishes to keep alive, usually renders it innocuous by breaking off the thorny point of its sting against his thumb-nail ; but the absence of danger did nothing to detract from the repulsive nature of the performance. Scorpions and tarantulas abound during the summer months in Tougourt. In order to save themselves from being stung during their sleep, the inhabitants, who during the hot weather mostly sleep upon the house-tops, spread their mattresses upon a curiously formed bedstead of jereeds (palm stems), up whose hard smooth sides these poisonous creatures cannot crawl. Round a great part of the market of Tougourt runs a roughly constructed colonnade which, on account of the shade which it affords, is a favourite resort at all times of the day. Mud-built seats like those in the streets of the old town, and an occa- sional little-used stove for making coffee, line its sides, while innumerable little cupboard-like shops open into it all along its length. It is under this colonnade that the Jews of Tougourt have their stalls. Bullied by Arabs and Frenchmen alike, these Jews seem to have lost the whole of their manliness and self-respect. What earthly entertainment the Arabs can find in badger- ing these men it is impossible to imagine, for more ADE IN THE TOUGOURT MARKET. POOL IN OASIS OF TOUGOURT A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 89 degraded specimens of their race than these Saharan Hebrews it would be impossible to find. I told Aissa that I wished to photograph a Jew. He looked round, and, catching sight of one passing at a little distance, sang out to him imperiously : ' Ya, Yahoudi, arouioa ' (Hi, Jew, come here). The Jew turned round and slouched towards us, blinking his bleary eyes and combing his filthy tangled beard with a dirty claw-like hand. Aissa caught him by the humous as he came up and dragged him forward. * Where shall I place him ? ' he asked. I pointed to a blank wall at a little distance. My guide, who loathed a Jew nearly as much as he did a Frenchman, shoved him roughly towards it. His victim, who was nearly twice his size, cringed away from him and lolled limply against the wall, nervously grinning, blinking and puckering up his face to shield his eyes from the sun. And in this very characteristic attitude I photographed him. In one of the shops by the market Aissa found his cousin Mohammed, of the Bureau Arahe. We at once carried him off to a neighbouring cafe to hold a consultation as to the best line to adopt with regard to Aissa' s camels. The discussion was long and serious. Eventu- ally Mohammed, who was a man of the desert world and accustomed to the ways of Kaids and French officials generally, suggested that Aissa should send a letter to another cousin of his at Biskra with instructions to get ten francs from Aissa's wife for the purpose of squaring the Kaid to leave the 90 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS camels. My guide could not write, so Mohammed volunteered to do so for him. Aissa borrowed a pen from one man, some ink from another, and two sous from me. He then sent a small boy round with the money to a shop near by to buy a sheet of paper and an envelope. As soon as these arrived Mohammed seated him- self on the ground outside a cafe, and with the paper in the palm of his hand commenced to write the letter at Aissa's dictation. A small crowd of men — evidently total strangers — stood round and assisted in its composition, wrangling among themselves as to the choice of words and phrases. It was a lengthy business, and by the time that that letter was completed a large percentage of the population of Tougourt must have been aware of the fact that Aissa was trying to square the Kaid and of the loving messages which he was sending to his wife. Mohammed, having finished it, read the letter over two or three times to Aissa, who pondered over every word and sentence, suggested two or three alterations, and having at last got it to his liking, heaved a great sigh of relief, folded it up and went in search of someone to take it to Biskra for him. He had no faith in the French postal arrangements. He soon found his man — a camel-driver who was leaving with a caravan the next morning. He handed him the epistle open, for it is not etiquette to seal a letter in the desert if it is sent by hand, and having given him a few sous for his trouble, expressed a wish — the usual formula when sending A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 91 a letter — that Allah would bless him if he delivered it, and curse him pretty freely if he didn't, turned away with a great load taken off his mind. We wandered down into the lower end of the market, where the fire-wood and nets of palm fibre for carrying forage lie exposed for sale, where the dyers boil their stuffs in huge iron cauldrons, and the butchers lay their camel beef upon the ground to tempt — or to disgust — the passers-by. I recognised an old acquaintance here in the shape of a white she-camel which the evening before I had seen being flogged about the market in a moribund condition. The carcase was almost covered with flies, and was of a most unappetising colour, but for all that there was a very brisk demand for the flesh. Aissa, before leaving Biskra, had promised his wife to bring her a present on his return, and had asked her what she wanted. She had chosen a bracelet. But Aissa, upon thinking the matter over when his fit of generosity had passed, con- cluded that a bracelet would be a foolish present to give her. Acting upon the Arab saying that you should always ask your wife's advice before doing anything, as that ensures keeping her in a good temper and so conduces to harmony in the house- hold, but that you should never take it because her counsel is certain to be bad, he determined to give her something else. Bracelets, after all, he argued, were only luxuries and not essential to existence. Shoes, on the other hand, were necessities, and so, as her husband, he was expected to supply her with 92 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS them. He determined therefore to make a virtue of this necessity and to take back for her as a present a pair of shoes. He was a generous husband. Tougourt is famous for its shoemakers. He selected a pair at random from the pile which one of these had displayed for sale, examined the work- manship, spanned them over roughly with his hand, and remarking to me that he thought they were ' about her size,' paid for them and crammed them into the hood of his humous on the top of some carrots which we had bought for our larder and turned away with that look of unctuous piety on his face which a stingy man always assumes when, for once in his life, he has been guilty of performing a charitable action. Just as we were leaving the shop a reckless- looking Arab, whom I had noticed watching us for some time, came up, looked fixedly at me for a moment, and then spoke to Aissa. I caught his reply : 'No, not French— Enghsh.' Then followed some further conversation of which I could only understand a few words. Aissa turned to me, and after a cautious look round to make sure that no one was listening, said : ' That man is one of the Trood Shaambah who have been raiding the Tawareks. He has got some Tawarek things and wants to know if you will buy them.' Genuine Tawarek things are very difficult to get, and I naturally jumped at the offer. The Shaambah led us up a by -street and pro- A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 93 duced his treasures — a charm done up in a leather case and fitted with a cord to hang round the neck, a few little triangular talismans of opaque white glass for keeping off the ' evil eye,' a battered knife, and a bracelet beautifully worked in coloured beads on a narrow strip of leather which he had taken off some luckless Tawarek woman. The mystery with which he had seen fit to conduct the transaction and the inquiries which he had made into my nationality were accounted for by the fact that all the men who were known to have been concerned with the raid had been arrested by the French, and were then living, more or less as prisoners, encamped with their wives and families in the desert on the other side of the town. The Shaambah had so far succeeded in eluding arrest. I asked him to take me to the camp, but he declined as he was afraid of being arrested if he did so ; so, having bought his treasures, I went in search of it with Aissa. The prisoners were not very strictly guarded. The trooper from a spahi regiment, who was sup- posed to be acting as sentry, had stuck his sword upright in the sand, thrown a humous on it, and was lying asleep with his head in its shade. The prisoners seemed to take their fate very easily. They sat about in groups talking, cooking, mending their clothes, cleaning their arms, and pursuing the ordinary occupations of the nomadic Arabs. They were a cheery, devil-may-care, hard-bitten crew who,, in their vocations of hunters and herds-: 94 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS men among the sand-dunes to the south of El Wad, were accustomed to lead a life of hardship and con- siderable danger, and clearly did not trouble them- selves much as to what the morrow might bring forth. We roused the sentry and went down with him to interview them. They were by no means loth to talk of their raid. At the very mention of it the man we were speaking to relaxed his features into a grim smile and gave vent to a low laugh of retrospective triumph. There has for centuries been a blood-feud between the Shaambah and the Tawareks, and this has resulted in much camel-stealing, caravan-raiding, looting of camps and incidental bloodshed. Of late years the Shaambah have been getting rather the worst of the game, for while the Tawareks have been making perpetual attacks upon their camps and herds, the French authorities have when possible prevented them from retaliating in the same manner. Human endurance of wrong has its limits, and when that human happens to be a Shaambah Arab and the wrong is inflicted by his hereditary enemies, the Tawareks, that limit is very soon reached. Swearing and fuming at their forced inaction the Shaambah for some time endured those Tawarek raids ; but at length the limit to their patience was reached, and they resolved at all costs to elude the French, and to read their enemies a lesson which they would not easily forget. A hundred or so of these wild, dare-devil Shaambah, mounted upon their meharis, or trotting A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 95 camels, met together at a point in the desert, and, with all the glee of a party of schoolboys out for a holiday, started off across the sand-dunes to wreak their vengeance upon their foes. They marched by easy stages, so as not to exhaust their camels, until they came to a spot ' somewhere beyond Ghadames,' where they found a Tawarek camp. They surrounded this during the night, and when day broke attacked it and killed every man which it contained. ' That man killed two,' said the sentry, who was a Shaambah himself, and would, it was easy to see, have given his soul to have been there. The man indicated set his teeth and grinned at the recollection. That had evidently been one of the red-letter days of his life. But though they eventually captured that camp, the Shaambah by no means got off scot-free. There were only a few male Tawareks in the tents, for the majority of them were away on a trading ex- pedition, but those who were there, well knowing that they could expect no quarter, fought like in- carnate fiends, and a Tawarek when fairly cornered will take a lot of killing before he is done. One of them having emptied his gun and smashed it over the head of a Shaambah drew his sword and attacked a man near him. The latter, in order to guard his head, held up his gun with both hands. He underrated, however, his opponent's strength. The Tawarek's sword shore clean through the barrel of the gun into the Arab's head beyond Having looted this camp, the Shaambah com- 96 A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS pelled the women, under pain of instant death, to lead them to another camp in the neighbourhood. This was treated in the same way, and then, having satisfied themselves that there were no more camps near at hand, they determined to go on and endeavour to capture one of the big Sudanese caravans coming up from the Sudan to Tripoli. Carrying the survivors of the two camps with them as prisoners, they went on and encamped at a convenient point near the main caravan route from Ghat to Ghadames, and sent out scouts in all direc- tions to prospect the land. They allowed two or three small caravans to pass them without betraying their presence — they were looking for bigger game. In the meantime their scouts hung upon the caravan route, and while keeping themselves well concealed from view, kept in touch with everything that passed by dropping down occasionally upon the route and examining the tracks — a Shaambah can almost follow a shadow by its trail. One morning the scouts came in with the news that a big caravan was coming up from the south. The camp was immediately broken up, and the men, leaving their prisoners to look after themselves, moved out to the attack. The caravan was taken unprepared, and after a very short fight was captured. The raiders, with their booty, immediately turned about, and made off at their best speed for their tents. For nearly a week they continued unmolested A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 97 their homeward march. Then their scouts wlio were guarding their rear warned them that a large party of Tawareks had appeared in pursuit. Half of the Shaambah turned back, and delaj'ed by every means in their power the advance of the Tawareks, while the other half drove the slow, heavily laden baggage camels forward at their best speed. For three consecutive days and nights, with only an occasional halt of an hour for rest, they drove the baggage camels on until the\^ reached a solitary well in the sand. Round this their drivers and the other half of the party, when they arrived, entrenched themselves by throwing up mounds of sand on the crests of the dunes which surrounded it. The Tawareks attacked them several times, but at each assault they were driven off, and at length, being short of water, they were compelled to retire to another well in the rear, in order to avoid a death from thirst. After a rest, the Shaambah continued their retreat until at length they arrived in safety at their tents. The amount of loot which they acquired during this raid was, considering the nature of the country, enormous. According to them, it consisted of hun- dreds of camels, large quantities of filali (red leather), arms, and clothing, two lumps of gold — each ' as big as a baby's head ' — immense quantities of ostrich feathers, and a sufficient sum in money to pay them a hundred and fifty francs apiece. They were all agreed that it had been a most successful H 98 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS razzia. It was, however, as will afterwards be seen, only the first round of the fight. Perhaps they exaggerated the amount of their booty. The only item which I was in any way able to check was the ostrich feathers. I bought a number from a man who produced a goat's skin nearly full of them, which he declared was his share of what was taken on the raid, and there were over a hundred raiders. No wonder that they were satisfied. While this account of their exploit was being given to me, the man who had been described as having killed two of the Tawareks glanced up at the sun to see the time, then strolled about ten paces away, kicked off his shoes, washed his hands with a little sand, and began to say his prayers, leaving it to his fellow brigands to finish the description of the raid. That's the Arab ' right through ' ! You can always rely upon him to adhere to the strictest letter of the first five commandments, but no power on earth which has yet been discovered will induce him to pay the slightest attention to any of the remainder. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 99 CHAPTEE VIII TouGOURT, though extremely interesting, is not a pleasant town to stay in. The climate is about as bad as it can be. One day it rained, the next day the sun blazed down with a heat that was intoler- able, and then again the weather changed, and a cold wind, driving clouds of sand in off the desert, kept everyone shivering and drove them into the covered ways of the old town. This is the winter climate ; later in the season the place becomes a hotbed of fever. One day I hired a mehari (trotting camel), and rode over to Temasin, a small oasis near, to see the village. The interest of the place lay in the fact that it is built in the form of a ksa?', or fortified town, after the manner of the villages in Twat and in other places in the Sahara. The fortifications are still in a fair state of preservation. Eiding a mehari on an Arab saddle is an art which requires considerable practice. You sit on a round, plate-shaped seat, with your feet resting on the camel's neck in front, and a cross-shaped pummel between your thighs. As your legs are almost hori- zontal they give you little assistance in maintaining your equilibrium, and, as the grip that you get from the pummel is of very little use, all the balancing H 2 100 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS has to be done by your arms — an Arab when he trots waves his arms about like a windmill. It is, I soon discovered, quite impossible to ride a trotting camel with any degree of dignity. You must flourish your arms frantically round your head, and throw yourself into all sorts of grotesque atti- tudes if you are to remain upon his back at all. If you attempt to sit bolt upright with your elbows into your sides, your spine gets painfully jarred, and you end, as I did, by slowly sliding round, with the pummel as a pivot, until you find yourself sitting in the camel's neck, where your feet should be, and your legs waving in the air over the top of the saddle — and that is not an attitude which is calculated to inspire in your Arabs that respect which is due to a British subject. Having once managed to get into that igno- minious position, I considered it advisable to aban- don what remained of my dignity, and to adopt the more practical, if less imposing, Arab method of riding. By so doing I managed somehow or other to keep my seat. On the occasion of my mishap I was a good half- mile ahead of any of my Arabs, and was entirely unable to get back to my former position. I hung on for some time to the pummel, but at length, finding the attitude extremely irksome, I slid down into the slack of the camel's neck, and so on over his head to the ground beyond. When a few minutes later my companions arrived upon the scene they found me tugging at the rein of my mount, and already suffering from an incipient sore A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 101 throat from my fruitless efforts to tell the beast to ' Kh-h: Temasin is a small tumble-down, dirty, neglected- looking place, built on the top of a mound in the midst of its palms. It is surrounded by a mud- built wall furnished with flanking towers, and has a moat half full of stagnant water. These ksars are places of no mean strength, and against even European troops, not provided with artillery, are capable of offering a very considerable resistance. During the French operations in Twat, in February 1900, a large military force was com- pelled to wait powerless and inactive before the fortifications of the ksar of In-Khar for nearly five weeks while two guns were being brought to breach the walls. The entrance to Temasin lies across a narrow bank of earth, which traverses the moat and leads through a fortified gatev/ay into the town. On either side of the sandy streets are rows of dilapidated houses and the usual cupboard-like shops. All the buildings looked as though they were badly in need of repair. Here and there the road ran, like those of Tougourt, under a sort of arcade, but after the well-filled streets of the latter town, the whole place looked ruinous and decayed. Them — the deadly oasis-fever of the Sahara — was slowly killing off the inhabitants, with the result that many of them had migrated to the slightly less fatal climate of Tougourt. In order as far as possible to remove the cause of this unhealthiness the moat was being slowly filled up. 102 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS We made our way to the minaret of the mosque situated on the summit of the mound. This mosque, like almost every other building in the place, was falling into ruins. The top of the minaret had fallen off, and the door at its base which gave entrance to the tower was almost choked by the debris. We crawled in as the serpent goes, and made our way up a narrow, broken, and ill-lighted stair to the top, bumping our heads and barking our shins as we went. We were rewarded for our exertions by a splendid view of the oasis and surrounding desert. To the north lay the great forest of palms which represented Tougourt. At some little distance to the south could be seen the oasis of Tamelath with the domes of its Zaioia, or monastery, sparkling in the sun and the oases of El Goug and Bled et Ahma lying behind it. The jumbled, billowy, sand-dunes of the Souf, among which, though invisible to us, lay the great city of El Wad, closed in the eastern hori- zon, while to the west the great level expanse of the desert stretched away further than the eye could see. There was little to be seen in Temasin itself, so after we had descended from the minaret and made a circuit of the walls we started back for Tougourt. Before reaching our destination we were over- taken by a man riding a splendid white mehari. He regarded my beast, which was a wretchedly under- bred brute hardly better than a baggage camel, with the utmost disdain. The beast which he rode had A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAKEKS 103 once, he told Aissa, belonged to a Tawarek. He was very reticent as to how he had come by it. After a while he offered to exchange mounts with me, in order, as he said, to show me how a thorough-bred camel could go. As he was riding on a pad, it was necessary to change my saddle on to his camel. As soon as I had mounted I found at once an extraordinary difference in the action. A very free use of the stick had been necessary to get the beast I had been riding out of a walk, and when he trotted his action was so rough that he bumped and jolted me in a most unpleasant manner and required, moreover, a continued use of the stick to prevent* him from dropping back again into the slower pace. With my new mount everything was different. A slight rub of my heel on his neck — the usual signal — was sufficient to set him at once into a quick trot, and his action was as smooth and easy as that of a cantering horse. He was a thorough-bred mehari, and his owner declared that he would not exchange him ' for all the palms of Tougourt.' The Tawareks take the utmost pride in their riding-camels, and a thorough-bred beast will, it is said, sometimes have a pedigree which professes to go back to the famous camel of the Prophet Moham- med himself. Meharis among the Tawareks take the place that is usually assigned to horses among the Arabs. The mehari is the pet of the family. Several years are employed in his education. From his youth up he is trained to make long journeys at full speed and to go without water and food for 104 A SEAECH 1<'0E THE MASKED TAWAEEKS gradually increasing periods. By the time that the mehai'i's education is completed he is as docile and as easily managed as a well-trained horse. Meharis, being much more valuable beasts than the ordinary baggage jimels, are looked after with much greater care. As the hot weather comes round they are clipped ; the owner takes the long wool-like hair in pinches between the forefinger and thumb of his left hand and saws it off with a knife. A properly trained mchari will, if the long rein attached to his nose-ring is allowed to trail on the ground, stand for hours without moving while this operation is being conducted. From this hair the most valuable and the softest burnouses are made. Camels of all kinds are said to suffer much from toothache. A young camel may often be seen gnawing the bones of one of those defunct members of its race whose skeletons are occasionally to be seen lying about in the desert. This is not cannibalism, but what a baby's mother would describe as ' teething.' The shin- bone of a dead camel often performs the same office for its juvenile relation as a coral and bells does for a human infant. The permission for us to proceed was long in coming, and as the season was far advanced, and as I, in consequence, was anxious to get on, I found the time hang rather heavily on my hands. We visited all the surrounding villages, watched the sinking of an artesian well, shot palm-doves, and did our best to kill the time, but for all that we found our sojourn very tedious. INTERIOR OF TOUGOURT MOSQUE. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 105 One day we visited the big mosque by the market, which is famous for the plaster work in its dome. This arabesque work, which was designed by a famous Tunisian architect, makes the mosque quite one of the show places of the Sahara, and the inhabitants of Tougourt are justly proud of it. The tiles which lined the wall round the Mihrab, or niche to indicate the direction of Mecca, the pierced brass pillars which stood on either side of it, and the carved woodwork of the Mimbar or pulpit, all combined to give an apjfearance of richness to the interior which is very rarely met with in a desert mosque. We spent a considerable part of our time among the raiders in their camp, for in spite of, or perhaps because of, their disreputable character, I found them extremely interesting. Our acquaintance terminated in rather an un- expected way. I was returning one afternoon from the palm-groves to the town, when I came across in the market the Kaid of Trood's son, and some dozen of his fellow tribesmen seated in a group on the ground whiling away their time talking or playing harubgah (a kind of go-bang) with pebbles and date-stones on a ' board ' scratched in the dusty soil. They were evidently awaiting my return, for they rose and came towards me as I approached. After a careful look round to see that no one was listening they announced that they had been set at liberty, and that as they had tasted blood again they were thirsting for more. They clearly intended to make 106 A SEAKCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS good use of their freedom, for they had decided to start in about three weeks' time to make another raid upon the Tawareks. They then intended to go on and lie in wait on the road to the south of Ghat for a big caravan which they hoped to intercept as it came up the Sudan. They had come to ask me to accompany them, offering me a share in the loot if I did so. Soon after my return to England I gained from a most unexpected quarter news of how they had fared. I happened to see in a daily paper a leading article to the effect that a party of Tawareks had cut up a big caravan coming from the Sudan to Ghat, and had captured no less than 80,000 francs' worth of goods and camels. In consequence of this exploit such a funk had been established that the camel-drivers had, so to speak, gone on strike and declined to use the road, which for the time at all events was thus practically closed. I had no difficulty whatever in recognising in these so-called Tawareks our friends of the Tougourt camp. The much-looked-for permission at length arrived for us to proceed, not only to El AVad, as we had expected, but to Wargla as well. This was an opportunity for seeing the desert which was too good to be lost. But the journey to Wargla required an addition to our outfit. Between Bled et Ahma and N'goussa, three long days' journey, there was no oasis, village, caravanserai, or habitation of any kind in which travellers could sleep. A tent was therefore necessary, and this I had omitted to bring. After foraging about for some time in the market A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED tAWAREKS 107 we discovered a long strip of black carael's hair tent cloth, which looked like a very sooty strip of stair carpet. This, after much haggling, we bought, and El Haj was set to work with a packing-needle, a ball of string, and some rope, to convert it into as much of a tent as it would make. Aissa was the engineer, and, all things considered, a very fair job of it he made. He doubled about one-third of its length back upon the centre third, and sewed the edges together. This formed the roof; the loose piece at the other end was to be folded round to form the back and to shut in a part of one end. The other end, front and gaps, were to be filled up with boxes, brushwood, and anything else which came handy. Having secured a tent, it still remained to engage an extra camel for the remainder of the journey to carry the tent and ease our already rather over- loaded beast. We also required some powder. Some of the troops from the garrisons of the desert posts had been drawn off by the authorities to take part in the military operations at that time being carried on by the French in the Twat district, and the inhabitants of the desert, who probably knew to a man how many soldiers each little French fort contained, had, to judge from the rumours which we heard in the market at Tougourt, seized upon the opportunity to get out of hand and indulge in a little highway robbery upon the caravan roads to the south. Three men had been found murdered only a week before near N'goussa, and the night before our start for Wargla a caravan had come in 108 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS who said that for two days they had been followed by a small body of Arabs who had been evidently waiting for a favourable opportunity ^o attack them. In order to give our party a more formidable appearance I had bought in Tougourt an Arab gun. I did not wish to cut up the few cartridges which I had, so I asked Aissa whether he could procure me some powder from the Arabs. As the inhabitants of Algeria are a particularly unruly lot to govern, the French have been compelled to place the sale of arms and ammunition under the most stringent regulations. But the Arabs, of course, elude them. Aissa, with a knowing wag of his head, assured me that he would have no difficulty in procuring me as much powder as I wanted. Only the night before, he told me, while he was sleeping in the market with some friends of his who had come in with a caravan from Biskra, an Arab had come round to them soon after midnight and showed them a sample of some excellent powder, a camel-load of which he had smuggled into the country from Tripoli and concealed in the house of a friend of his in the old town, and they had merely to go round to this house and mention a password to buy as much powder as they wished. As for the extra camel, El Haj had met a man named El Ayed, who, having come in the night before with five camels, was anxious to get them away again as soon as possible to save them from being requisitioned by the French. I sent El Haj in search of him. He soon found A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 109 him and brought him up. After a little preliminary conversation, I pointed out to El Ayed that the best means of saving his camels was to hire them out to me, and so place them under the protection of the British flag. El Ayed, with a confidence in the might of the British Empire, which was really touching, jumped at my offer, and I, taking a mean advantage of his dilemma, at once engaged him and his five beasts to take me to Wargla and back for twenty francs, or about two francs a day, which, as the usual price for a single camel per diem is about four francs, was a fairly good bargain. The name of my new retainer, El Ayed, is the Arab word which means the feast, and was given to him because he happened to have been born upon one of the festivals of the Mohammedan year, much on the same principle as a boy who in England is born on Christmas Day is sometimes christened ' Noel.' He was a brawny-looking specimen of humanity, who called himself an Arab, though his fair skin, almost flaxen beard, and grey eyes, seemed more to point to a Berber origin. Our preparations for a start occupied all the morning, and it was not until the small hours of the afternoon that we finally set out for Wargla. With a high wind and sandstorm blowing travelling was anything but pleasant. We passed Temasin, passed the Zawia of Tamelath on our left, and then entered into a small shott beyond. A terrific storm of wind and rain went by us on the east and then wheeled round and followed us, 110 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS catching us up just as we reached the oasis of Bled et Ahma. We found a new dar-dief (house for strangers) on the outskirts of the oasis, and hammered at the ponderous door to gain admission. The place was deserted, and as no one was about, I sent El Haj up into the village to find the custodian, while I and my two other Arabs crouched under the walls to shelter as best we could from the rain. It did not quite come up to my preconceived ideas of the ' burning Sahara.' We could all, I think, have put up with a little burning then. While we were waiting. El Ayed, in order to pass the time, started chaffing Aissa about his three camels at Biskra, facetiously declaring that, if they were no better than the one he had brought with him, he need not be in the least anxious about them as no one would bother to take them. Aissa, remembering that he was my headman, and as such entitled to be treated with respect, stood upon his dignity, and did not at all enter into the spirit of the thing. He sulkily put up with this chaff for some time, but at length lost his temper, and instead of snubbing El Ayed, as he should have done to put him in his place, began to retaliate with nasty snappy remarks about his manners, which eventually caused his tormentor to become nettled, and in his turn to pass from chaff to abuse. Both men were in an irritable state owing to the rain and the delay, and as they appeared to have taken a dislike to each other from the first, it would have required very little to set them by the ears. I was con- A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 111 seqneiitly not sorry when El Haj came back bringing a very apologetic guardian with him. The guardian, however, being an Arab, had forgotten to bring the key ! This proved too much for the already ruffled temper of El Ayed. He arose in his wrath, and with chattering teeth, promised that doorkeeper the very soundest thrashing if he did not immediately open the door. The guardian, a miserable fever-stricken wretch, departed at once, and I began to think that after all El Ayed might have some useful points about him. In a few minutes the guardian was back again. The door was opened and we entered. That dar- dief was most palatial. In the middle was a small court almost entirely covered by a wide arched colonnade, which surrounded it on three sides. On the fourth side was the entrance door. All around under the colonnade ran a raised seat of masonry. A huge fireplace had been built in one corner. Doors from various rooms opened into the court on all sides; three of these rooms had been arranged to form a sort of suite, opening into one another, and these I appropriated to my own use. The guardian, who had an eye to his tip on our departure, and was evidently anxious to retrieve his fault, departed for the village, and presently returned with several other men bearing huge bundles of fire- wood, jars of water and milk, eggs, and some splendid thick carpets to cover the floors. We were soon installed in style. My suite of roonis was luxuriously carpeted and elegantly fur- 112 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS nished with my camp bed and luggage. A huge fire blazed and spluttered on the hearth, and, in spite of the rain which pattered on the roof and the wind which howled and whistled round the building, we soon became warm and comfortable. Soon all were upon the most amicable of terms. El Ayed ceased swearing at the guardian and hob- nobbed with him over the fire, while Aissa and El Haj lounged upon a long-piled rug, picked up information as to the Tawareks, and exchanged the news of the desert with the guardian's friends. Occasionally even El Ayed and Aissa addressed mild remarks to each other. The squall passed away almost as suddenly as it had come ; so I took my gun and went outside to see if I could find any palm-doves to shoot. The Sahara is a land of many surprises. This great desert is the last place that one would imagine capable of affording the angler an opportunity for exercising his skill, yet once in a desert stream not very far from Biskra I enjo^^ed an excellent day's fishing with a rod and line for a sort of barbel. In doing so I thought I had reached the height of the incongruous in sport. But at Bled et Ahma I think that I surpassed this record, for there, in an oasis in the Sahara hundreds of miles from the edge of the desert, I shot a snipe. Supper that night was a meal which I shall not soon forget. Before leaving Tougourt I had sent Aissa down into the souk to buy some meat, and unfortunately I had not superintended the marketing myself. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 113 With conscious pride he laid before me a huge steak done to a turn. One mouthful was sufficient. I turned to Aissa. ' I thought I told you not to buy goat again for me?' 'Pardon, that is not goat.' 'Well, it is not mutton.' ' No,' he said, ' it is not mutton. There was no mutton in the market. It's beef.' ' Beef ? Why, we have not seen a cow since leaving Biskra.' ' Not cow's beef — camel's beef. I thought as I could get no mutton that you would like it better than goat.' Visions of that dying she-camel being flogged to death and of its spotted purple flesh lying covered with flies on the ground in all the filth and garbage of the Tougourt market came up before my eyes, and I arose sadly and went supperless to bed. My Arabs had a feast that night. In the village near at hand a zickar, or marriage dance, was going on. Their gun-firing and tamtam banging continued all night, and had not even stopped when at six o'clock we started the next morning. The weather was still cold and inclined to rain, and, though I walked in an ulster most of the day, I was by no means too warm : and this was in the beginning of April in the ' burning Sahara ' ! About midday we were joined by a small caravan, proceeding like ourselves to Wargla, with cement for the French Government. The meflabers of the I 114 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS caravan, seven in number, were a v^ild-looking set, each with a wooden club in his hand and a long- barrelled Arab gun slung over his shoulder or a huge horse pistol peeping in its red leather holster from underneath the folds of his humous. We travelled with them all day and camped with them at night. As they had no tents they arranged the cement barrels to form a semi-circular wall, and lay down under its lee with their camels beside them. My tent came very near to being a great success that night. Propped up with jereeds (palm sticks), pinned together with wooden skewers cut off the surrounding scrub, with El Ayed's burnous hanging like a curtain over the front, and the gaps filled up with bundles of halfa grass, bushes, baggage, and some casks of cement lent me by the caravan men, it was very nearly wind-proof. The members of the caravan took the greatest interest in its erection, suggesting improvements, collecting bushes, and doing their best to make it a success. As a reward I stood them coffee and cigarettes all round, with the result, which I had not quite bargained for, that they all brought their supper and ate it round my fire. A little sand-coloured mouse, known as a bou byether, crept into the tent as I was sitting on my bed after supper and, in less time than it takes to write, gnawed a hole in the leather couscous bag by my feet. I frightened him off, but in a very few minutes he was back again gnawing away at a bag full of dates. I drove him off again, but soon he returned and commenced operations upon one of my A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 115 boots which I had taken off. He seemed absolutely fearless. As a precautionary measure, Aissa slept with the couscous bag for a pillow, but several times during the night he had to frighten the little beast away, and in the morning when he examined the bag he found that two fresh holes had been made in it. It rained again during the night, and then, by way of variety, it froze a little towards morning. The Arabs do not seem, as a rule, to mind the cold at all. It is, I believe, a scientific fact that an Arab has a hide just about three times the thickness of any European's skin. On that occasion, however, Aissa admitted in the morning that it had been cool, while I, with two blankets, a railway rug and an ulster, lay and shivered in my bed with Aissa's burnous hanging with El Ayed's over the front of the tent so as to close it. The caravan we camped with were up and off some time before we were ready. We followed about an hour later. It was Longfellow, I believe, who wrote about * the cares that infest the day folding their tents like the Arabs and silently stealing away.' He was pre- sumably indulging in a little poetic licence. I have frequently seen the Arabs folding their tents and I have also suffered on one occasion from their ' silent stealing ' — they are past-masters in the art — though not in the sense in which the poet meant. A more noisy and tumultuous proceeding than the break up of an Arab camp it is impossible to imagine- Even the folding-up and packing of my small tent occasioned a fairly tumultuous scene. I 2 116 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS It was El Ayed who was the discordant element. The other two Arabs, being cousins, had always got on well together until he appeared upon the scene. But immediately upon his arrival he seemed to set everyone by the ears. Each of my three Arabs wanted to have that tent arranged according to his own ideas, and swore lustily at the other two for not falling in with them. El Haj wished to have it stuffed into one of the ker- ratas. Aissa insisted upon packing it over the hump of one of El Ayed's camels ; while El Ayed himself swore that nothing on earth would induce him to have the clumsy bundle on his camels at all, and was determined to place it upon Aissa's. After shouting and wrangling with each other for some time they finally turned to me to settle the dispute, which I did by telling them to load the heavier baggage in our kerratas on to El Ayed's camels and to arrange the tent as a sort of cushion for me to sit upon, over the hump of Aissa's beast. But, of course, they none of them were satisfied, all three of them sulked for the greater part of the morning, only coming out of their gloom occasionally to snap a few snarling remarks at each other. It was El Ayed's fault, of course. I began to doubt, after all, whether he was going to prove the treasure" which I had at first hoped. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 117 CHAPTEE IX Thebe was a great sameness in the desert between Biskra and Tougourt, but between Tougourt and Wargla the scenery was more same than ever. There were always the same sandy soil, the same small bushes, the same level horizon, the same desert larks, the same hawks and ravens, and the same little lizards scuttling about the sand. It was very monotonous. The animals we saw were few, but there were clearly plenty about, for the soft desert sand testified to the recent passing of many nocturnal beasts. Now we crossed the huge, dog- like track of a hyena, now the smaller though similar ones of a jackal. Sometimes the little triangular footprints of a gazelle appeared, or the large, fowl- like marks left by a bustard. The ground was covered with the footprints of smaller animals. A line of double dots at long intervals showed where the jerboa rat had hopped kangaroo-wise over the ground ; while lizards, snakes, and the small desert rats and birds, had passed and repassed in all directions. Shortly after leaving our camp we were over- taken by a smart, well-dressed Arab riding on a mule. He was one of those singularly handsome men who are not infrequently to be met with among 118 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS the better-class Arabs. His dress and person were spotlessly clean — a rather rare occurrence in a native. His skin was hardly darker than that of a Spaniard or Italian. His face was a perfect oval, and his features were faultlessly regular; though, like many of the high-bred Moors, of a rather effeminate type. He had, moreover, in his big dark eyes, a languishing look which would have made him a very dangerous person in society. He joined us in our midday halt, or rather he dismounted beside us, and said his prayers most of the time while we were eating. I offered him some food, but he declined it, as he said that he only took one meal a day in the early morning. He put aside, with an ill-concealed expression of disgust, a cigarette which I tendered to him. He was evidently a man of most abstemious habits. He had, however, one weakness — coffee. When I offered him some he drank five cups on end. Then Aissa, who was responsible for the stores, came to me to ask if he was to give him any more. I told him to give him as many as he wished. He drank nine. Having finished the coffee, he fell again to prayers. He then produced from his saddle-bag a Koran, which he began to chant. We waited some time for him ; but, as his devo- tions appeared to be interminable, we at length went on without him, leaving him sitting alone in the Sahara chanting, in the usual whining manner of an Arab, the Koran to himself. I began to take an interest in this man. He A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 119 was SO abstemious, so clean, so devotional, and so entirely different from anyone whom we had hitherto met, that I felt that there must be something unusual in his history which would be worth inquiring into. Unfortunately the etiquette of the desert forbids you to ask any questions as to the identity of any traveller whom you may meet. You may ask him where he is coming from, where he is going to, or questions of a similar nature, but you must on no account ask him who he is. There is a polite fiction to the effect that every man you meet, even if he is the commonest camel-driver, is such a well-known personage that any inquiries concerning his identity are unnecessary. As a rule, after you have travelled with him for a short time, an Arab will let out casually in the course of conversation his origin and name. But sometimes you may be with a man for a day or two without gaining any clue to his identity. It is, however, advisable, especially if they will not eat with you, to steer clear of such gentry as these. There is generally some very sound reason for their wishing to remain unknown. As our water supply had run short, we found it necessary to turn off during the afternoon from the caravan route to replenish our gurbahs at the neigh- bouring well of Hassi Mamar. These hassis, or wells, which are the usual type of well to be found in the Sahara, are mere shafts sunk down into the water-bearing stratum. For- merly the nomads used, in order to prevent strangers from drajving the water in their wells, to hide them 120 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS by closing the mouth with a goat-skin stretched over a Hght framework of wood. This lid was then covered over with sand, so that no one, unless he knew of the exact position of the well or actually trod upon it, could have the faintest clue to its whereabouts. The Sahara is said to be by no means so desti- tute of water as it is usually supposed to be. The Tawareks are said to have placed landmarks, after the manner of a gypsies' ' patteran,' readable only by themselves, throughout the great desert to indicate the position of their wells, and it is asserted that by means of these guides they will always be able to find some hidden liassi (well) within a day or two's journey from any point in the Sahara. The concealment of wells is now forbidden by the French. Accordingly they are now left un- covered, with the result that, unless they are con- stantly cleaned out, they soon become choked with sand. Fortunately Hassi Mamar was a well in constant use at that time by some nomads encamped in the neighbouring desert. We found two of them, whose camp lay concealed in some small depression near by among the desert scrub, drawing water from it when we arrived. Some enterprising person had constructed a rough trough of sun-baked mud by the side of the well for the purpose of watering camels. The nomads had brought with them a sort of bucket, consisting of a bag of leather with a cord attached, for raising the water, and volunteered to draw it for WATERING CAMELS AT HASSI MAMAR. PUZZLE- FIND THE ROAD. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 121 US into the trough to give our camels a much-needed drink. After filhng our gurbahs and watering our camels, we made our way back again to the caravan route. The road between Tougourt and Wargla is a mere track, and, especially after a high wind, when the footprints of previous caravans have been obliterated by the drifting sand, cannot be dis- tinguished from the desert which surrounds it. In order to guide travellers on their way little mounds of earth and branches torn from the desert scrub are placed at frequent intervals on either side of the track. Until one has become well accustomed to these caravan routes they are very difficult to follow. More than once, when walking ahead of my caravan, I followed the footprints of some grazing camels, which I took to belong to a caravan proceeding to Wargla, and wandered off the road into the desert around. This always threw my guide into a state of the greatest excitement. He would come rushing after me, frantically waving his burnous to attract my attention, and calling out to me in an agonised voice to come back or I should get lost and die of thirst in the desert. Towards nightfall we were overtaken by our fellow-traveller of the morning, who came spurring after us at a spanking pace on his mule. Soon after joining us he produced again his Koran, and spent nearly an hour in chanting it as he rode on his mule, being now and then joined in his devotions by my Arabs. 122 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS Our mysterious fellow-traveller continued with us until we halted, and then expressed the intention of camping with us for the night. After a time he became more communicative, and we discovered that we had been entertaining an angel — or, at any rate, a saint — unawares. He was a marabout (saint), Hamid by name, the son of one of the big Tunisian saints. He was travelling down to N'goussa to inspect a palm plantation which had just been presented to the zatvia (monastery) of which his father was the head. He was journeying in the true Biblical manner, relying entirely upon his saint-ship to find him lodg- ing and the means of proceeding upon his way. His mule and the blunderbuss which he carried for pro- tection had been lent him by a man at Tougourt ; his food had been given him by another man, and he was relying upon a fellow-saint at N'goussa to find him in food and lodging during his stay there. On finding that he was a marabout my Arabs became at once unusually devout, and joined him in his prayers and chanting. That was a scene to remember ! The night was wonderfully still, and, except when a faint breeze off the desert rustled softly in the scrub, not a breath was stirring. The blazing camp-fire, with the camels kneeling round it, the mule, relieved of his saddle, rolling luxuriously in the sand, the Arabs seated round the fire engaged in their deep, solemn chanting, and overhead the dark velvety blue of the sky thickly studded with brilliant silver stars, all A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 123 go to make up a picture which it is difficult to forget. The next day was one of the hottest that we experienced. But the morning was as cold as ever. At six o'clock we all stood shivering and trying to warm ourselves round a huge fire, while the keen, searching desert wind swept over the country, making the flames roar like a furnace. I started in the morning as usual in an ulster, muffler, thick woollen jersey, and corduroy waist- coat. About seven o'clock the muffler came off. An hour later the ulster was removed. Then at intervals, as the day grew warmer, followed the other garments, until at eleven o'clock it grew so hot that, having removed all that decency would allow, I began, like Sydney Smith, to wish that I could get out of my flesh and walk in my bones. Hamid travelled with us all the morning, and, when we had become more friendly, invited me to stay with him at the house of his friend the mara- bout at N'goussa. It was a rather informal invitation ; but as Aissa assured me that coming from a Mohammedan saint it was quite en regie I accepted. Hamid accordingly went on ahead with his mule to prepare his fellow-saint for our reception, leaving us to follow more slowly with the camels. Nightfall found us in a densely bushed country still many miles from our destination. The surface of the desert had changed, and we and our tired camels had to plough our way along over the softest sand. To make matters still worse the weather, 124 A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS with that suddenness characteristic of the Sahara, had altered ; the sky was overcast, and soon after sunset it became so dark that we could hardly see a camel's length before us. Aissa hurried us forward with the encouraging remark that it was somewhere in this patch of scrub that three men had been found murdered only a week before. How those Arabs found their way I have never been able to understand ; there were no visible land- marks — during the daytime the track was difficult enough to follow — there were no stars ; there was not even a wind to guide them ; yet for the last mile or two we took a straight line across country with- out even the usual little mounds of earth and bushes thrown up by the side of the road to guide us. Ai'ssa, who had only been twice before to N'goussa, led the way through the darkness for hours, with an occasional help from El Aj^ed or El Haj, slowly but with hardly any hesitation, straight towards the marahoiiV s house, which lay at some little distance outside the oasis. It was a mystery to me how he did it. He would give no explanation of his methods, and, when I asked him to explain the secret, he merely laughed, and remarked with a conscious pride, which I must own was justified : * Ah ! I told you I was a good guide. Only an Arab who has travelled much in the desert could have found his way like that,' and that was all that I could get out of him. The only solution that I can offer of the mystery A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 125 is that he was making use of a dodge known to some savage tribes, and was following the footprints left by Hamid's mule by feeling them with his naked feet. I remembered afterwards, when I came to think the matter over, that soon after it became dark he kicked off his shoes and walked with a peculiar shuffling step, which at the time I had attributed to the fear of knocking his feet against some stone or bush. Shortly before reaching the marabout's house we were met by a slave — at this distance from civilisa- tion no attempt was made to disguise the man's condition — who had been sent out with a lantern to find us and conduct us to the house. At the door we were met by Hamid himself, who, candle in hand, had come to receive us. He led the way through a lower storey, built in the manner of a ponderously pillared crypt, and almost filled with sacks — which Aissa, who contrived to peep into one as he passed, declared to contain sugar, smuggled, he expected, into the country from over the Tripolitan border to evade the heavy duty — up a narrow stairway in one corner to the upper chamber above. Here the walls had been neatly plastered and whitewashed. The roof was supported on four sturdy pillars in the centre of the room. These were joined together at their bases by a low wall about eighteen inches high, which formed a sort of parapet to a hatchway-like opening between them intended to give light and air to the basement below. Over this opening was a dome in the roof pierced 126 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS by a small window, by which alone the room was lighted. A few doors, kept religiously closed, opened into rooms beyond. A small stairway ran up one wall on to the flat roof, and in one corner a stove had been built for cooking purposes. Hamid's fellow-saint, the second marabout, was nowhere to be seen, but several negro slaves were engaged on various household duties in the room, and two of these came forward as we entered to take off my boots. Here, however, a difficulty arose. Laced boots were clearly objects with which they were totally unacquainted. They first seized hold of the tag at the back, and attempted to pull them off without unlacing them. In this they naturally failed, and for a moment they were nonplussed. One of them knelt down on the ground and poked his head round my ankles as though he were searching for some secret exit. Having failed to discover this, he pro- duced a huge sheath-knife, and was about to cut the lace, when I interfered and, as it would not have done for me to pull them off myself, set Aissa to do so for me. A splendid thick-piled carpet furnished with cushions had been placed upon the floor along one wall for us to sit on. Hamid took me by the hand (an Arab always takes hold of your hand when he gets a chance) and led me to this, propped a cushion against the wall for my back and placed another by my side for me to lean my elbow on. He then seated himself beside me and ordered a nigger to bring some coffee. A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 127 This shortly appeared on a beautiful brass tray, inlaid in silver with texts from the Koran. On this were some half-dozen cups of thick coarse china and three or four little tin jugs of coffee. Aissa, El Haj, and El Ayed sat on the floor by the side of the carpet and came in for a share of the refreshment. Our camels and baggage had been taken charge of by the slaves. When staying with an Arab it is never necessary to trouble yourself in the least about your belongings. That is the business of your host, and any interference on their behalf would be looked upon by him as a slight upon his hospitality. The amount of coffee which amongst the five of us we consumed was enormous, and as each cup required a separate brewing operation, for about ten minutes we entirely occupied the time of two of the slaves in supplying our wants. At length, when we had drunk some twenty cups amongst us, and I, not wishing to spoil my supper, had intimated that I had had enough, the tray was removed, and, Aissa interpreting, we fell into con- versation. Presently one of the slaves damped down the embers in the cooking-stove, gathered up the cups and saucepans and departed, while the others retired to a corner of the room and appeared to compose themselves to sleep. A horrible fear came over me that the coffee which we had drunk represented the whole of our supper. We had lunched at noon and it was then past nine o'clock, and as we had been walking hard all the afternoon I, for one, was ravenously hungry. I remembered that it was 128 A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS Hamid's practice to take only one meal a day, and that he took that in the morning, and it began slowly to dawn upon me that I should be expected to fall in with the ways of my host. My baggage, with the exception of a Gladstone and the hold-all which contained my bedding, was all downstairs in the basement, and I began to speculate as to whether during the night I should be able to slink down the staircase without breaking my neck or waking any- one, and open one of the provision-cases to procure some food. In the meantime Hamid talked glibly on of the beauties of his father's zawia, of the number of palms and camels which he possessed, and of the reforms which he intended to introduce into the order when, on his father's death, he came into the great saintship of his family. He intended, he said, to do up the mosque, and to cover the inside of its dome with arabesques like those at Tougourt. He was going to build a big dar-dief for travellers — he invited me to come to stay there * as long as I liked.' He would use the camels belonging to the zawia for trade, and would not allow them to spend their lives in eating their heads off on the desert scrub. In fact, this very go-ahead young saint intended to reorganise the whole system of the monastery. Aissa, with one eye upon the door through which the slaves had disappeared, translated all this rigmarole in the most perfunctory manner. He was evidently as anxious about his supper as I, and both El Haj and El Ayed shared in his alarm. El Ayed A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS 129 never took his eyes off the door, while El Haj, safely seated out of sight behind his cousin, was surrep- titiously munching two or three dates which he had found in the hood of Aissa's humous. Suddenly the door opened and an enormously stout greasy-looking negro waddled, puffing with the exertion, into the room, slammed the door behind him with a bang, flopped down with a sigh of relief on to the carpet, and, without paying the slightest attention to me, made some remark to Hamid. Hamid introduced him. He was his fellow-saint, our host. He kissed hands with me in an offhand manner, and turned at once and entered into a rather heated discussion, of which I could not catch the gist, with Hamid in a semi-whisper. Aissa, after listening for a little while, tugged my sleeve to attract my attention, and, leaning for- ward, whispered with conviction : ' The fat marabout is very angry with Hamid for bringing us here. He objects to the expense.' Here was a pretty state of things. It was half- past nine at night, and apparently we were going to be turned out at a moment's notice to camp out as best we could in the desert. At this juncture El Ayed, evidently unable to bear the suspense any longer, slipped noiselessly down the staircase, and we heard him softly close the outer door as he went off into the village close by to forage for himself. Hamid saw him go, and in a state of great dis- gust rose up, caught the marabout by the arm, and 130 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS dragged him off into a far corner of the room where, to judge by the tones of his voice, he told him very plainly indeed what he thought about him. Aissa listened eagerly to as much of the con- versation as he could catch, and presently I saw a look of great satisfaction come over his face. ' Hamid is going to pay him for the supper,' he whispered ; ' that man is a good marabout, the other is a pig,' he added contemptuously. ' Fancy refusing to give food and lodging to strangers at this time of the night, and he a marabout, too ! ' Hamid's wigging ended in his opening the door into what were presumably the back premises and pushing the marabout through it. He then closed it behind him, and after listening for a moment to satisfy himself as to the nature of the orders which we could hear him shouting to his slaves, came back and resumed, with a look of great annoyance on his handsome face, his seat on the carpet beside me. He was evidently much put out at the churlish behaviour of our host, and was inclined to apologise for his rudeness. His lecture to him must have been very much to the point, for when, a few minutes later, our host returned, after having given the necessary orders for our supper, he was affability itself, and had com- pletely changed in his manner towards us. He flopped down on the carpet beside me, and plmiged at once into a very forced conversation. I found his attentions rather embarrassing, for he lived in an ' odour of sanctity ' which would have been unpleasant from the other end of the room. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 131 He was distinctly boring in his conversation, and I soon found that, hke many of the smaller Algerian saints, his holiness consisted in the fact that he was, if not half-witted, at all events silly. He kept making the most feeble jokes and going into roars of laughter, which shook him like a jelly, at his own witticisms, and glared at us in a most insolent way if we did not see the point and join in the merri- ment. After a time he began to play jokes of a mildly practical nature upon Hamid, pulling away the cushion just as he was about to lean back upon it, snatching up one of his shoes and throwing it to the far corner of the room, and other tricks of a similar nature. Presently, to our great relief, some of the slaves entered the room, relighted the fire, and commenced to cook the supper ; and soon we had a huge bowl of couscous steaming before us. Hamid, for form's sake, ate two or three mouth- fuls, then handed the spoon on to Aissa and El Haj, remarking in a very sarcastic voice, and with a look at our host as he did so, that if I had only been at his house in Tebessa I should have had a much better meal. The fat marabout disdained a spoon altogether, and, after the preliminary remark that he had already had one supper that night, plunged his filthy paw into the heap and began to shovel the food into his mouth at a most alarming pace. His previous meal did not seem to have had much effect upon his E 2 132 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS appetite, for he ate as much as all the rest of us put together. As soon as we had satisfied our hunger, what little remained of the couscous was handed over to the slaves, who squatted round it in the far corner of the room and very soon cleared the platter. I did not grudge it them, for they were a miserable- looking set, who seemed badly in want of a good square meal. Our host was not the sort of man to be over liberal to his dependants. The inevitable coffee was then produced, and after I had given our host a cigarette, which in spite of his saintship he eagerly accepted, he became more offensively affable and facetious than before. Hamid was suffering from a cold in his head. To alleviate this I, to his great delight, presented him with a menthol inhaler. This was looked upon as a great mystery. It was handed round from one to another, and everyone took a pull at it, and started in surprise at the result. My compass, watch, revolver, and camera were then produced and handed round for inspection. I had been for some time trying in my very best Arabic to explain to Hamid the working of my camera, and was failing very badly to make him understand, when suddenly our host, feeling perhaps that his company was not as much appreciated as it might have been, wished us a gruff good-night, and waddled off sulkily to his bed. We were all glad when he had gone. After sitting up talking far into the night, Hamid rose, and, opening a door behind us, showed me into A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 183 a long, narrow room, some eight feet by thirty, which he told me was to be my bed-room. The room appeared to be a store-room. Pieces of stick had been driven into the walls to act as pegs, and on these hung a varied assortment of articles, huge horse-pistols, goatskin bags filled with dates and barley, while piles of rugs and bales of carpets and cotton stuffs lay on the floor beside two huge green wooden chests heavily strapped and bound with iron. A pile of rugs had been placed at the far end of the room intended for my use as a bed, and on this I arranged my blankets and pillow. There was no window to the room, and as Aiissa insisted upon my closing the door while he and El Haj slept across the threshold, I found it extremely stuffy. I was aroused betimes on the following morning. The fat marabout did not put in an appearance to see us off. He excused himself by stating that he had a headache. I sent the invalid a message of sympathy and thanks for his hospitality ('?), and after taking some coffee with Hamid and arranging a meeting with him on the following day at Wargla — an engagement which with the forgetfulness of an Arab he, of course, never kept — we loaded up the camels and left. The wind grew stronger as we proceeded, and as part of om' way lay over some small sand-dunes we found the flying sand extremely trying. The Arabs wrapped their haihs (head-cloths) like mufflers over 134 A SEARCH FOR THE JIASKED TAWAREKS the lower part of their faces, pulled down the part which covered their heads to shield their eyes, and walked with a crab-like gait, turning their faces over their shoulders away from the wind. On leaving the sand-dunes we emerged on to an absolutely level plain on which no single blade of vegetation was to be seen. On the far side of this lay Wargla. Nothing, however, was to be seen of the oasis, as the clouds of sand made it impossible to see more than a few yards before us. Here we felt the full force of the gale, which had now increased almost to hurricane force. This sandstorm surpassed any we had experienced. The sky was sullen and sunless. Gust followed gust in swift succession, swirling the sand round our legs and sending the camels swaying and staggering with the force of the blast. The wind swept the dust in hissing, stinging clouds across the surface of the soil. We were almost smothered in sand. It was a * howling wilderness,' if ever there was one. One of El Ayed's camels, which was rather heavily loaded, staggered so to leeward when the heavy gusts struck him broadside on that, fearing that he would be blown completely over, we were compelled to make him kneel and to shift a part of his burden to another camel. The wind soon became intensely cold, and a few huge drops of rain spattered up against our faces. Fortunately, before the storm had time to break, a dark mass of palm-trees looming before us through the swirling sand warned us that we were nearing the oasis of Wargla, and we soon found ourselves A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 135 beneath the walls. A huge gateway, with a text from the Koran in large raised letters over the door, yawned before us, and entering through this we passed on through a curious fortified gateway into the streets beyond. 136 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAAVAREKS CHAPTER X Wargla is a town of an entirely different character from Tougourt : the streets, instead of being arcaded, are open to the sky. Some of them, in order to afford shade for pedestrians, have a colonnade running along one or both of their sides. The houses, too, are better and more regularly built ; many of them being neatly plastered and whitewashed and having raised texts, like those over the outer gateway, placed on the wall over their doors. Some of the houses even pretend to an architectural style. The town has much decreased in importance since the arrival of the French. In the ' good old times ' of Algeria, when everyone in the country who did not happen to be a pirate was either a highwayman or a slave-dealer, Wargla was one of the principal centres of the trans- Saharan trade. Several times a year huge caravans, coming from the Sudan, brought slaves, ivory, gold-dust, ostrich feathers, spices, and other rich products of the South for sale in its markets. But since the French have arrived upon the scene, and the slave trade with the Sudan has been abolished, this trans-Saharan trade to Algeria has been almost entirely diverted into Marocco and Tripoli, and Wargla has suffered in consequence. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 137 After passing through several sandy streets we reached the market, a large, colonnaded square with a domed building in the centre lying between the two principal mosques of the town. Here we sheltered for some time while the rain continued ; then, leaving El Ayed and El Haj in charge of the camels, I started off with Aissa to look for a house. House-hunting is always a tedious business. We spent over an hour inspecting various most unde- sirable residences before we found an old Mozabite shopkeeper who told us that he had a new house to let. This house, as far as we were concerned, was practically a flat, for it consisted merely of an upper storey reached, without entering the basement at all, by means of a stairway opening into the street. It contained a large outer room with the usual cooking-stove at one end, and at the other two ' suites ' of rooms, each composed of a couple of small chambers opening into one another. A few small glassless windows, closed when necessary by wooden shutters, opened on to the street, and two large, square openings through the roof served still further to ventilate and brighten the outer room. The place, with the exception of a quantity of sand which had entered through the skylights, was spot- lessly clean. It had hardly been inhabited since the day of its completion, and as the rent demanded for this convenient abode was only two francs a day, I closed at once with the landlord. Before leaving he cautioned me against climbing out through the skylight on to the roof. There was, 138 A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS it appeared, a law in Wargla forbidding any male to mount on to the roof of even his own house during the daytime, for fear that he should look down upon his neighbour's wives ! Here at Wargla, as at Tougourt, we were disap- pointed at not finding the Tawareks. The winter before they had been in the neighbourhood in plenty ; but, for some reason known only to themselves, they had entirely deserted the place ever since. They had moved off to some other part of the desert. ' Here to-day, gone to-morrow ' seems to be the motto of these confirmed wanderers. Vague rumours, however, were in the air to the effect that they had recently been seen near El Wad, and it was there that we were recommended to search for them. With an uncomfortable feeling that we were getting the worst of this game of hide- and-seek, I decided, after resting one day in the oasis, to retrace our steps to Tougourt, and from thence to take the road to El Wad to see if there was any truth in the rumours which we had heard. We spent our day at Wargla in doing the sights of the town. We ascended the minaret of one of the mosques — the regulation as to housetops evi- dently did not extend to these sacred precincts — and obtained from the summit a splendid view over the town to the palm-groves and desert beyond. We then came down and, leaving the city by the gate through which we had entered, made the circuit of the walls. The fortified gates of Wargla are of pecuhar construction. After passing through the door in the A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 139 outer wall, the road turns sharply round at right angles and proceeds for some little distance through a sort of tunnel parallel with the outer wall. The wall which forms the inner side of this tunnel is pierced at intervals with loop-holes, so that an enemy entering the gate would be compelled to run the gauntlet of some twenty or thirty guns before he could enter the town. Formerly Wargla was surrounded by a moat and three loop-holed walls. Two of these walls have now been pulled down by the French and, as its stagnant waters were a source of much unhealthiness to the town, the moat has now been filled up. The space originally occupied by these fortifications now forms a broad roadway encircling the remaining wall. Wargla is one of those fortified posts which the French, in order to obtain some control over the desert, have erected at intervals of some hundred and fifty miles along all the principal caravan routes leading from Algeria to the Sudan. The French fort at Wargla lies just within the wall on the southern side of the town, and three or four small stone blockhouses, built by the French at some little distance beyond the walls, complete the fortifications of the place. A memorial tablet, let into the wall on the southern side of this fort, has been erected to the memory of those officers and men who met their death during the disastrous expedition of Colonel Flatters into the Sahara. The massacre of this exploring party by the 140 A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS Tawareks has been directly traced to the machina- tions of a religious sect known as the Senoussia which has played an important part in the past history, not only of the Sahara, but of many other Mohammedan countries during the last half-cen- tury. The Senoussia sect, though one of the newest, bids fair to become one of the most powerful in all Islam. It was founded in 1835 by Sidi Mohammed Ben Ali es Senoussi — or Sheykh Senoussi, as he is usually called — an Algerian Arab born near Mosta- ganem during the last days of the Turkish dominion of the country. He aimed in the foundation of his sect to free the Mohammedan religion from the abuses which had crept into it, to restore it under one universal leader to its former purity of faith, and more especially to free all countries containing a Moslem population from the rule of the infidel. He insisted upon his followers adhering to the strictest letter of the Mohammedan law, and stretched the interpretation of these laws to an extreme which, in some cases, was almost ridiculous. Some idea of the lengths to which these fanatical Moslems carry their puritanical orthodoxy may be gathered from the fact that they refuse to eat white crystallised sugar on the ground that the animal charcoal which is sometimes used in its refining process may have been made from the bones of some animal not killed in exact accordance with the Moslem law. Sheykh Senoussi enjoined on his followers the greatest simplicity and austerity of life. The whole A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 141 sect, with all its resources, devotes itself body and soul to the attainment of its ends. All the slaves and beasts belonging to it are branded with the word ^]]\ (Allah), to show that they are conse- crated to the service of Islam. On entering the order the novice is called upon to renounce the world. Gold and silver ornaments, rich clothing, and all personal adornments whatever are forbidden to him; his weapons alone may be decorated, as being intended for use in the holy war against infidels. Sheykh Senoussi first commenced his preaching in Mecca, but the success which attended upon his efforts caused so much jealousy in the holy city that he was compelled after a time to leave Arabia, and to retrace his steps to North Africa, where, making Tripoli and Benghazi his field of operations, he con- tinued his teaching with even greater success than before. So rapidly did the sect increase, that in 1886 — only fifty-one years after its foundation — no less than a hundred and twenty-one of its zawias or monasteries, established in almost every Moham- medan country, were known to be in existence. The Mahdi of Khartum, seeing the great advan- tage which the co-operation of this sect would give him, made the most strenuous and repeated efforts to win this powerful faction to his side. Fortunately he was unsuccessful : all his advances were treated with the utmost contempt and disdain. Sheykh Senoussi died in 1859. He was suc- ceeded as head of the order by his son Mohammed, whom he upon his deathbed declared to be the long- 142 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS expected Mahdi — the man who, it was predicted by the prophet Mohammed, should arise shortly before the end of the world to reduce the whole of mankind to the faith of Islam. His son conforms to many of the qualifications which, according to the Moslem prophecies, are to be found in this Mahdi. He is a descendant of the great prophet Mohammed : his parents were respec- tively named Mohammed and Fat ma : he has spent several years as a hermit in solitary contemplation : he has the ' high nose and open face ' which the prophet foretold that the Mahdi should have, and he has, in addition, that V-shaped opening between his front teeth and the purple mole between his shoulders which are said to be the distinguishing marks of those who are highly favoured by Allah. He is clearly a very gifted individual. Mohammed appears to be quite as capable and ener- getic as his father. He is endowed, moreover, with a capacity for organisation which is not often to be met with in an Arab. One of his first acts after his succession was to found, by virtue of a firman from the Sultan of Turkey, the great fortified zawia (monastery) at Jarabub, on the frontier between Egypt and Benghazi, which until recently formed the headquarters of the sect. The vigour and boldness of his policy may be gathered from the fact that in 1861 he passed an edict which practically amounted to the excommuni- cation of the feeble 'Abdu'l Majid, the ruling Sultan of Turkey, and the ' Commander of the Faithful ' himself, on account of the closeness of his relations A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 143 with the European Powers. The fact that 'Abdu'l Majid died shortly afterwards added considerably to the prestige of the sect. It has been under the leadership of Mohammed ^ that the Senoussia has attained to its greatest de- velopment. At Jarabub he established factories for the manufacture of arms, and depots for the storage of war material. He has inaugurated a system of couriers, by means of which he is kept continually in touch with the various zawias of the order. He calls every year a meeting of the mohaddems, or local heads of the sect, to decide upon the policy to be pursued during the ensuing year, and he has caused also registers to be kept wherein the names of all the members of the order are inscribed. Following the example set him by his father during the later years of his life, he lives in the greatest seclusion, and sm'rounds himself with an atmosphere of saintly mystery, which cannot fail to greatly impress his ignorant followers. In accord- ance with the custom of his father before him, he never shows his face, but, like the ' Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,' keeps it concealed by a mask from the gaze of even his most intimate disciples. This same mystery is a notable characteristic of the sect : its members are enjoined to keep as far as possible their connection with it unknown. The members of some Moslem sects can be easily identi- fied. Those, for instance, belonging to the Kerzazia wear an iron ring passed over their rosary, and, as a Mohammedan usually wears his beads round his ' Mohampied is reported to have died since this was writteo. 144 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS neck, this peculiarity is easily recognised. But the members of the Senoussia carry no distinguishing mark of this kind. It is a secret sect, and its members are unrecognisable, and consequently as dangerous and as difficult to deal with as those who belonged to that nefarious Assassin community founded by the ' Old Man of the Mountains.' In Barbary and the Sahara Senoussism, as the doctrine of the sect has been named, permeates the whole of Islam. Its followers are everywhere, and not infrequently whole sects adopt the essential principles of the Senoussia as a part of their doctrines. The Senoussia has obtained a footing in almost every Mohammedan country. In Egypt, in Arabia, among the Somalis, in Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Turkey the followers of Sheykh Senoussi may be found. In Barbary they exist in numbers among the Shaambah Arabs round Wargla, Metlili, and El Golea, throughout the whole tribe of the Welad Sidi Sheykh on the Marocco border, and in all the country as far as El Aghowat and Oran which lies to the south and west of Algiers. Further to the south Twat and Insala are hotbeds of Senoussism, and the Askar and Kelowi branches of the Tawareks living round Ghat and Air are powerful adherents to the sect. Small isolated groups affiliated to the order may be found round Timbuktu and on the Senegal river. But the greatest strongholds of the fraternity lie further to the east round Murzuk, in Fezzan, in Tibesti, in the Kanem district to the north-east of Lake Tsad in Wadai, in Tripoli and A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 145 Tunis, in Ennedi and Borku, round Kufrah and Aujila, in the Libyan desert, and, above all, in Benghazi. The French, perhaps owing to the fact that they are the conquerors of Sheykh Senoussi's native coun- try, seem to have incurred more than any other European power the animosity of this sect. Most of the small abortive risings which of recent years have taken place in Algeria can be directly traced to its machinations. The small outbreak, for instance, which occurred near Algiers in the spring of 1901 was clearly due to this cause, for not only did it take place in a district known to be saturated with Senoussian principles, but the insurgents expressed an intention of joining a man named Bou Amama, who is known to be an active agent of this intriguing fraternity. A glance at any map of Africa will show that the places where this sect has obtained a foothold form a complete cordon round Algeria, entirely cutting off that country from the other French possessions to the south of the Sahara. The rupture of this cordon, which would result from the occupation of the Twat district and the construction of the Trans- Saharan railway, has been a most powerful argument with the French in favour of these schemes. In 1880 Colonel Flatters set out with an expe- dition into the Sahara to explore the country with a view to the construction of the proposed Trans- Saharan railway. He was so far successful in his mission that in the following year it was decided to send him out on a second exploration to endeavour L 146 A SEAECH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS to follow up his success and to penetrate still further into the desert. In the interval between the two missions there is no doubt that the Senoussia sect, the Tawareks, and the other enemies of France in the Sahara, fore- seeing that the advent of the French would mean the destruction of their power and the ruin of their slave-trade, strained every nerve to bring about the failure of the second expedition. The Tawareks for once forgot their feud with the Shaambah Arabs, some of whom had acted as guides to Colonel Flatters during his first explora- tion, made a truce with them, and won them over to their side, with the result that, at a consultation held at Insala between Abd-el-Kader, the local head of the Senoussia sect, Ahitaghel, the chief of the Hoggar branch of the Tawareks, and Si Hamza, the Sheykh of the Ai'ab tribe of the Welad Sidi Sheykh, the destruction of the mission was definitely decided upon. The mission itself, imperfectly organised and badly led, was doomed before its start to destruction, and fell an easy victim to the plot. The French succeeded in penetrating for some eight hundred miles into the Sahara as far as Tadjenout, a well lying to the south-west of Ghat. Here they were betrayed by their Shaambah guides and attacked by a horde of Tawareks, some three or four hundred of whom took them unawares, and, suddenly swoop- ing down upon them from the desert scrub, where they had been hiding, massacred the greater part of the expedition before any resistance could be A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 147 made. Colonel Flatters was one of the first to fall, and the majority of the Europeans were killed in the first attack. The remnant of the party, deprived by the loss of almost all their camels of the means of transport, and short of ammunition, water, and food, were com- pelled to beat a precipitate retreat. Throughout their homeward march they were continually harassed by the Tawareks. The hard- ships which they endured from thirst, hunger, and privation were terrible. Some of the wretched men went mad. Some of them died from the effects of eating poisoned dates sold them during a pretended truce by the Tawareks. The majority of them had to be left to die by the way of thirst and exhaus- tion. The survivors were at length reduced by starvation to such extremities that they resorted to the horrible expedient of murdering their comrades in cold blood in order to make a cannibal feast upon their bodies. A few of the Arabs alone survived ; not a single European returned alive from that expedition. Subsequent disclosures have made it quite clear that though Abd-el-Kader, true to the principles of the Senoussia sect, remained discreetly in the back- ground, he was the prime mover in the conspiracy which resulted in the loss of this expedition. The Tawareks merely appear to have been used by him as a cat's-paw. The triumph of the anti-French party in the Sahara was complete. With the usual exaggeration of all savage tribes, the murder of a few Europeans 14S A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS and a hundred or so of their native followers, was magnified throughout the desert into the annihilation of a whole army of the French. The Tawareks were wildly jubilant, and were not of the kind to keep their success to themselves or to allow that it should in any way be underrated. But though deUghted with themselves for their victory they were considerably afraid of the conse- quences which their exploit might produce. Ex- pecting that the French would send a more powerful expedition to punish them, they endeavoured to raise the whole population of the Sahara to oppose it. To gain this end, ten days after the massacre, Ahitaghel, the chief of the Hoggar Tawareks, wrote the follow- ing letter to the Emir of Ghadames : — ' In the name of God the compassionate and merciful. ' From Sheykh Younes, surnamed Ahitaghel Ben Biska, chief of the Hoggar, to his Highness Bou Aisha, Emir of the Town of Ghadames, greeting. ' If you are good enough to be interested in us, know that we are well and that we enjoy peace, we pray that, please God, it is the same with you. ' I write to inform you of what has happened to the Christians, that is to say to Col. Flatters, who came to us with his soldiers armed with fifteen hundred and fifty cannons (!) with the intention of crossing the country of the Hoggar, to go to the Sudan. They actually came to the Hoggar, but the people of that country fought them in the Holy War A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 149 in the most energetic manner ; they massacred them and made an end of them. Now it is absolutely neces- sary, oh dear friend, that the news of our great deeds should come to Constantinople. Tell them there what has happened, that is to say, that the Tawareks have carried on the Holy War against the Chris- tians in the most exemplary manner, and that God has helped them against the Christians to destroy them. But now if the Christians are permitted to travel among the Tawareks that will be a very bad thing for us, for us who have fought in the Holy War. * They say that the Christians are energetic and warlike ; do then, oh dear friend, send my message to Constantinople, and ask in high places that the Moslems may, by your orders, come to our help to carry on the Holy War in the way which God had laid out. ' If it please God we shall now be the warriors in a Jehad such as God would wish. Greeting. * The 26th of the month of Eabia el Wei of the Prophet, 1298 (February 26, 1881).' The Tawareks gained nothing by this letter, for not a single man was sent from Tripoli to their aid ; but it will be readily imagined that the downfall of this expedition magnified throughout the Sahara in this manner inflicted a most severe blow upon the French prestige, and rendered it more than ever necessary that Twat should be occupied, or that some other decisive step should be taken to deal a counter-blow at this most dangerous sect. The 150 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS taking, however, of this necessary step was obliged for a time to be abandoned owing to the diplomatic course which, in order to shield himself, Abd-el-Kader took of inducing the Sultan of Marocco to incorporate the district of Twat into his dominions. THE RAMPARTS OF WARGLA. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 151 CHAPTEK XI The methods which a marahout will adopt in order to obtain a reputation for holiness are sometimes curious in the extreme. A year or two ago there lived at Wargla an Arab saint, built up in a little cell, where he had spent almost the whole of his life, with only a small hole in the wall for ventilation. By so doing he had gained a reputation for being one of the greatest marabouts in the south of Algeria. Before our arrival at Wargla, however, this saint had died in his den ; this had then been broken into, a door had been built into the wall, the saint had been buried under the floor of the little room in which he had lived, and this had then been white- washed and made quite comfortable for his son, who, acting as his successor, reigned in his stead. But the new marahout had no intention of spend- ing his life immured in a wall, and only once a week — on Friday — did he take up his father's place in his cell. He arrived usually about sunrise, and remained there fasting, with locked door, until sunset, seated on his father's tomb, telling his beads, chanting the Koran, and giving advice to his clients, who whis- pered to him through the hole in the wall. In the evening he collected the presents which had been 152 A SEAKCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS given to him by bis visitors, carried them home, and lived during the following week on the proceeds. He was absent when we reached his cell, but a small boy who was passing by volunteered to search for him. The boy soon returned, bringing with him the reigning marabout, a greasy-looking negro, beaming with delight at the prospect of gaining a profitable client. As soon as he arrived he went straight to the point in the most businesslike manner. What was I going to pay him for opening the door % After a prolonged haggle the price was fixed at fifty centimes. The door happened to be secured by one of those ponderous wooden locks which form the ordinary fastening fitted to house doors in the Saharan oases. It was operated through a keyhole in the wall placed below the opening into the cell, and about a foot or so from the edge of the door. The key was an enormous wooden concern, about the size of a police- man's truncheon, studded at one end with a number of little wooden pegs to correspond with the wards of the lock. When in use these keys are passed along in the thickness of the wall into the lock through the edge of the door. The manipulation of this contrivance was evi- dently an operation of considerable difficulty, for it took two or three minutes and much unsaintly language on the part of the marabout to undo the door. The grave of the departed saint, a small white- washed earthen platform about twelve inches high, A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS 153 covered by the humous of the deceased marahout, occupied quite half the den ; with the exception of this the place was quite bare. The reigning marabout was clearly bent on business, for as soon as he had shown rae the interior of this mausoleum, he untied a comer of his haik, which he had knotted over some small object, and produced a pinch of tangled, greasy hair, which he asserted to have been cut from the beard of his defunct parent. He informed me that it was a sure safeguard against fever, and offered it to me for five francs. One glance at that lock of hair was sufficient to dispel any doubts which I had as to the truth of the story that its original owner in his pursuit of holiness had spent his life in the cell by which I stood. I was almost prepared to swear that he had carried his piety to still further extremes, and, in accordance with a custom sometimes adopted by Moslem saints, had registered a vow never to wash himself during the whole of that time. That pinch of hair was a most undesirable possession. I con- cluded that of the two evils I should prefer to have the fever and declined to purchase it at all. The marabout immediately dropped his price, and finally came down to a franc and a half, but since I remained obdurate, he shrugged his shoulders at my folly in throwing away such a unique opportunity of in- suring my life, and tied the hair carefully up again in a corner of his haik. He then produced a knife and offered for a ' consideration ' to cut me off a small portion of 154 A SEARCH FOR THE MARKED TAWAREKS his father's burnous, which he assured me would protect me from all ill-effects of the 'evil eye.' I dechned that offer too. I never met a man so anxious to conclude a deal. With a little encourage- ment I believe he would have dug up his father's corpse and sold me the skeleton. The people of Wargla are famous for their grass- plaiting. Bowls, platters, funnels for filling gurbahs, and basket-work of all kinds, are turned out by them in endless varieties of shape and pattern. Sometimes the grass is dyed and worked into ornamental designs with very pretty effect. So well and closely do they weave this grass, that when sufficiently moistened to swell the fibre the articles formed from it are practically waterproof. We frequently met in the streets of Wargla men carrjang water from the wells in two baskets of woven grass supported from either end of a pole. We spent the morning before our departure from Wargla in buying provisions for our return jom'ney. Having bought these and despatched them by El Haj to our house, I entered one of the small shops leading out of the market square to buy some ostrich feathers from a gunmaker, who also acted as agent for the Shaambah hunters of the neighbourhood. While I was examining the plumes Aissa em- ployed his time in overhauling the various weapons with which the shop was stocked. From a pile of flint-lock pistols, inlaid guns with barrels five feet in length, and a miscellaneous collection of swords, blunderbusses, and knives, all heaped up in the dust in one comer, he at length unearthed an English A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 155 flint-lock pistol with the name ' H. Mortimer, Gun- maker to His Majesty the King,' inscribed on the barrel. In its day it must have been a very fine weapon. It was beautifully finished and, though considerably knocked about, was still quite service- able. Aissa was very anxious to buy it, as he was certain that he could easily sell it at Biskra on his return for forty or fifty francs. He asked me if I would advance him fifteen francs out of his wages to pay for it, and on my promising to do so, settled down to bargain for it. He commenced by offering ten francs. This was refused, the owner demanding twenty-five. Aissa protestingly raised his offer to eleven francs, the gunmaker in response lowered his price to twenty-three. Aissa then commenced to find fault with the mechanism of the lock, while the owner of the pistol in return pointed out its many excellent qualities, and soon they were in the thick of the argument. Aissa's bargaining was I knew from experience always a lengthy and tedious performance, so I left him to settle the price and returned to our flat to finish my packing. In about half an hour he came in in a verj'^ dejected frame of mind, declaring that the people of Wargla were the hardest at driving a bargain of any that he had met and that that gunmaker was the hardest of the lot. He had reduced his price to sixteen francs and a half, and Aissa assured me that he had done his best to meet him by raising his to fifteen, but as beyond that point neither side 156 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS would budge the negotiations had come to a dead- lock. He had confidently calculated on making at the very least twenty-five francs out of his bargain when he got back to Biskra, and he felt that he was going to be done out of his money simply because that gunmaker was so ' hard ' that he declined to reduce his price another franc and a half. He was terribly disappointed. Fifteen francs was, he considered, the value of that pistol at Wargla, and no power on earth would have persuaded him to pay another centime for it, even on the chance of making a good thing out of it when he got back to Biskra. We loaded up our camels and made a start about midday. As we passed through the market Aissa turned aside for a final haggle with the gunmaker, but, as neither of them would give way in the least, the transaction ended in a good deal of abuse and a fit of very bad temper on Aissa's part. A sandstorm was blowing as we left the town — * bright sunshine, with some sandstorms later,' would always, judging from our experience, be a safe weather forecast at Wargla — and as the day ad- vanced the storm increased in intensity, until by the time that we had reached N'goussa the air was almost as thick with sand as it had been on the day of our arrival at Wargla. Instead of making for the house of the marabout on the outside of the oasis where we had formerly spent the night, we steered for the town itself. Before reaching it we passed a melancholy example of the destructive power of the driving sand A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 157 in the shape of some groves of palms completely overwhelmed by the encroaching dunes, through which the tops of the dead or withered trees of what had once been a productive plantation alone pro- truded. Fever, the scourge of these Saharan oases, has almost decimated the population of N'goussa, with the result that what was once a most fruitful and prosperous little territory is now falling into decay for lack of workers, and will, unless some measures are taken to prevent it, before long have reverted to the desert from which it was reclaimed. In spite of, or perhaps because of, its decay- ing condition N'goussa is a beautiful little place. Viewed from the exterior, the dilapidated walls, with the stagnant moat, overgrown with flowering bushes and reeds, lying at their feet, and reflecting on the still surface of its waters the feathery palms standing grouped around it, give the town a wonderfully picturesque appearance. Like almost all the desert towns, N'goussa is — or, rather, has been — very strongly fortified. We entered through a ruinous barbican, passed over a narrow causeway thrown across the moat, and on into the town through an inner fortified gate, built after the same model as those of Wargla. Here the dilapidated condition of the place became more apparent. Quite half the houses were in ruins. The few people whom we met crawled feebly about the streets in a listless, dejected manner, which told an eloquent tale of the unhealthiness of the oasis. The dar-dief (bouse for strangers) which we had relied upon to furnish us with a night's lodging had 158 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS fallen down a year or two before, and was still lying in ruins. Several dilapidated houses were offered to us for our accommodation, but all these we were compelled to reject, as they were either so dirty or so ruinous as to be uninhabitable. At length, after a prolonged and fruitless search throughout the oasis, we were compelled, in order to procure suitable house-room for the night, to ask for hospitality from the Kaid. The Kaid was away, but his Khalifa, or deputy, who lived with him, a kindly old gentleman, shaking with fever and nearly blinded with ophthalmia, received us, and, with true Arab hospitality, placed at once his house at our disposal. This house was one of the few perfect buildings in N'goussa. It was a solidly constructed mansion, two storeys in height, built round a roomy court- yard. The Khalifa led us to the principal room, a long narrow chamber, extending all along one side of the building, with three arches opening into the courtyard. A door in the inner side of this room led into a windowless apartment of similar size and shape, which was allotted to me as a bed- room. High up on the roof on the opposite side of the court was a sort of piazza, which was used by the members of the family as a lounge during the daytime and as a bedroom for the sake of its coolness when, later on in the season, the hot weather com- menced. As soon as the usual coffee had been served and consumed, I overhauled my host and made him my friend for life by presenting him with A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 159 a few doses of quinine and some wash for his eyes. It was wonderful the way in which the poor old chap brightened up on receiving them. He retired at once to some inner sanctum, where he dosed himself with the quinine and bathed his eyes, and returned after a few minutes declaring that he was cured. A smartly dressed young Arab, who introduced himself as the KaicVs son Abdullah, came in shortly afterwards, wished me ^ Bon jour,'' and shook hands in the European fashion. He followed this up im- mediately by asking, ' Quelle lieure est-il, s'il vous 2)laU ? ' I told him that the sand had got into my watch and stopped it, and then began a conversa- tion with him in French. I soon found, however, that the two remarks which he had made to me con- stituted the whole of his knowledge of that lan- guage, and I was obliged to fall back upon Aissa to interpret. Abdullah produced from under his humous a camel's-hair bag containing a tin clock, the working of which he requested me to explain. I wound it up, and, after a good deal of shaking and thumping, persuaded the machine to start. I then set the alarum so that it should go off in a few minutes, placed it on the floor, and awaited the result. I was not disappointed. Abdullah was stooping over it listening with childish delight to the ticking when the alarm struck. He bounded to his feet with surprise, stood looking at it with intense mystification for a few seconds, and then, bursting into a fit of laughter, picked it up and examined it 160 > SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS to discover the cause of this extraordinary pheno- menon. The clock had for some time past been rather a mystery to the people of N'goussa. It had been presented a few months before by a French officer to the Raid, but, as no instructions had been sent with it for its management, its wonderful powers had remained until then unknown. The Kaid of N'goussa, milike many of the native officials, who are often mere puppets raised to their rank in return for services rendered to the French, was one of the old nobility of the desert who had been confirmed in his position after the conquest of the country. He still kept up to some extent his former state. His house was his castle, and a fairly strong one too. The outer door was a ponderous, heavily barred affair nearly a foot in thickness, and over this, through a sort of machicolation, the defenders could lire down upon any besiegers who attacked it. One of the outer walls overhung the moat, so that the fiat roof of the house formed a part of the ramparts of the town. This roof was reached by a stairway which ran up the wall on one side of the court, and which towards the top was spanned by an arch fitted with a wooden door, so that, in the event of the lower portion of the house being taken, the garrison could retreat to the roof and hold it as a last resort. The surrounding oasis and desert was the Raid's feudal domain. He possessed palm-groves and herds of his own, and was paid besides for each palm and A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 161 camel within his district a centime or two out of the French taxes. In return for this payment he was held by the Government responsible for the good behaviour of his tribe and district. He collected the taxes, selected the camels or men required for the Govern- ment service, and, with the help of a few armed retainers, policed the neighbourhood and arrested the evil-doers. A small door about four feet in height close to the entrance to his house led into a windowless cell, which, so El Haj informed me, served on occasion as a prison. A couple of his liegemen, bearded swarthy-looking ruffians, clad in the Raid's livery, dark-blue burnouses much the worse for wear, each armed with a huge pistol in a red leather holster hanging by his side and a long-barrelled Arab gun slung over his back, lounged about in the courtyard of his house in readiness to perform any commission assigned to them. The remainder of the Raid's retainers were with their lord and master in the desert. At intervals during the afternoon men dropped in to make some report to the Rhalifa or Abdullah. Towards nightfall the great door of the house was opened, and a flock of goats were driven pattering through the courtyard and through a door in the further side of it into what, from the various animals and persons who came in and out from it, appeared to be a combination of goat-house, harem, nursery, and kitchen. An idiot nigger, a blind girl, and a crippled boy, M 182 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS who, being unable to support themselves and having no relatives to fall back upon, were housed and fed by my charitable host, next came in and squatted down on the ground outside our room and waited for their share of the remnants of our supper. At sunset the great door of the house was closed and barred, and one of the armed myrmidons took his seat against the wall beside it, and never moved from his post until the morning. His fellow man- at-arms unslung his gun and climbed up the stairway on to the flat roof of the house, where he took up his position by the wall overlooking the moat, and, to judge from the occasional tramping to and fro which I heard over my head, remained there on guard all night. It was quite like living in the middle ages. When these arrangements for the night had been completed, the door through which the goats had vanished opened, and a little train of servants, headed by the Khalifa himself with a candle in his hand, emerged and marched solemnly across the court with the supper. The desert tribes nearly always retire early to bed. As soon as our meal was finished it was cleared away, and mats and pillows were brought in for my Arabs to sleep on. Abdullah himself went in to inspect my room, and, having satisfied himself that it was ready for my reception, wished me ' Bon jour,'' and retired with the Khalifa into the harem- goat-house wing of the house to bed. We left N'goussa early the next morning. But, early as we were, Abdullah had been before us. WALL AND MOAT OF NGOUSSA. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 163 After arranging for our breakfast, hearing that I was still asleep, he had left a message of farewell for me, and gone off with a couple of men to meet his father, who was returning that day to his home from a visit to some sheykh in the outlying part of his district. The old Khalifa, leaning on a stick, hospitable to the last, insisted on accompanying us to the outr skirts of the oasis before taking leave of us. M 2 164 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS CHAPTEK XII Our route lay over the same monotonous gravelly road by which we had come. The country was therefore to some extent familiar to us. But though it was of no great interest in itself, the journey afforded sufficient incident to prevent us from suffer- ing too much from ennui. We had hardly left the oasis before a most spirited contest took place between our camel and one of those belonging to El Ayed. It commenced by the latter, which was an ugly aggressive beast of a dirty white colour, taking a nibble at our jimeVs hind leg as he walked behind him. Our camel wheeled round immediately, and with a snarling growl rushed at his aggressor with open mouth and bit him severely in the neck. Fortunately he did not get fairly hold of him, or in all probability he would have taken a large piece out — a camel can crush a man's head in his jaws. El Ayed's brute rose immediately to the occasion, reared himself upon his hind legs, and endeavoured to fix his long yellow fangs in his opponent. El Ayed laid hold of the tail of Aissa's camel and, swearing at his owner for bringing such a dangerous beast, attempted to pull him off. Aissa, not to be outdone, caught hold of the tail of Al Ayed's beast A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 165 and returned the abuse with interest — abuse was always Aissa's strong point. El Haj and I in the meantime danced in and out belabouring with all our might the heads of the infuriated combatants. But a camel when he fights usually ' means business,' and it w"as two or three minutes before the united efforts of all four of us were able to get the savage brutes apart. El Ayed was inclined to blame Aissa for the affair, so I told him off to walk by his camel's head to prevent a renewal of the fight. Probably Ai'ssa as he translated my directions added rather strongly to the wording of them, for they, never the best of friends, continued to squabble at intervals throughout the day. A short time after this incident El Haj picked up a kasrullah — a thick knobbed stick — which had evidently been dropped by some passing Arab. After trying the weight and balance of it, and making a few experiments with it upon the body of our camel, he decided to discard the stick that he had been using and to carry the kasrullah in its stead. He then proceeded with this formidable weapon to reduce the unruly camel to order. The jijnel stood his blows for some time with a lamblike meekness ; but it was not in his nature to do so for long, and as after a time El Haj's attentions to his ribs became too pressing to be pleasant, he proceeded to retaliate. He suddenly stretched out a six-foot hind leg, and, catching El Haj in the small of his chest, laid him gasping and crowing on the 166 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS ground, a result which sent the other two Arabs into fits of laughter, and so to some extent restored their temper. Aissa was suffering from a mysterious complaint which he described as ' fire in the throat.' It was probably some form of indigestion, for he had over- eaten his gluttonous self disgracefully the evening before. The remedy which he wished to take in order to effect a cure was a hoopoe's liver ! He saw one of these birds perched upon a small bush. He immediately borrowed my gun and proceeded very deliberately and carefully to stalk it. He succeeded in getting to within about ten yards of it. He then slowly raised the gun from behind a bush, aimed carefully for about half a minute, and fired. The gun happened to be loaded with a buck- shot cartridge, so that it was perhaps hardly surprising that when the smoke had cleared away the bird was nowhere to be seen. Aissa spent the next ten minutes in searching, without success, the neighbourhood for the portion of its anatomy which he required. On our second day from N'goussa we met an Arab riding on a mehari (trotting camel) across country from the direction of El Wad. From the confident way in which he rode it was clear that he was very much at home in the desert. He was, in fact, a Shaambah. As I noticed that he was carrying attached to his saddle a very good specimen of a Tawarek sword, I told Aissa to sing out to him, as I wished to buy it. He rode up at a long bouncing trot, scattering A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 167 the gravel in all directions as he came. On reaching us he pulled up short, and without making his camel kneel down, flung his leg jauntily over the front pummel and dropped lightly to the ground. I asked him where he had got the sword. He laughed, showing a row of dazzlingly white teeth, tossed his head, swung his leg, and generally put on an appalling amount of swagger. ' Oh ! ' he said carelessly, ' I was coming back alone some time ago from Insalah when I met a Tawarek by himself in the desert. I saw he had a good gun, and I wanted it, as mine was an old one, so I shot him ! ' He looked frankly round at us and laughed again pleasantly. He saw nothing unusual in this act of brigandage. I asked him what he wanted for the sword. He unhooked it from the saddle and handed it to me carelessly. * Oh ! I'll give it to you,' he said. ' I don't want it, I've got the gun.' This being the Arab manner of saying that he was not going to be bothered to haggle about the price. I gave him what I considered to be a fair sum for it. He took the money without demur, and put it into a jibeerah (red leather bag) which was slung round his neck, merely remarking casually to Aissa as he did so that he had refused two francs more for it the day before. On hearing this I handed him a few cartridges in addition to the money. In return he unslung a gurbah (water-skin) which was hanging from his saddle, and laid it on 168 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS the ground. He untied the string which closed the end of one of the legs and signed to me to stoop down and take a drink. As I put my mouth to the opening he punched the gurbah slightly in the ribs, or rather where the ribs had once been, causing the contents to overflow. It was sour camel's milk — a most acceptable drink, when you are used to it, on a hot day. He offered my men a drink, and when they had eagerly availed themselves of his offer, he tied up the opening to the skin, and hung it up again in its place. He then swung his foot into the slack of his camel's neck, and so hoisted himself into the saddle. "When in his seat he turned round, wished us a pleasant journey and good-l»ye, and then rode off at a trot. A pleasanter murderer it would be impossible to find ! The squabble between Aissa and El Ayed, though at an end for a time, was only in abeyance, and soon flared out again. I was the innocent cause of its renewal. The camel had been made to kneel in order for me to mount, and I had just got up on to a sort of pad which Aissa had arranged over his hump by means of the tent and a bundle of rugs, when the brute suddenly rose to his feet before I had had time to get hold of the saddle to keep myself in my place, with the result that I fell off, turned a complete somersault and fell, fortunately for me, upon my feet. El Ayed bm'st out laughing at my mishap. Aissa was in one of his most irritable moods, and A ROUARA WOMAN. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 169 had been trying ever since the squabble on the day before to pick a quarrel with his fellow henchman. ■ He turned round upon him furiously, and began to call him every name that he could lay his tongue to. He told him that he was a dirty Bedouin, an ill-mannered pig, a son of a dog, and not fit to associate with such respectable Arabs as himself and El Haj, much less with a European. He then began to criticise, I fear with some truth, his personal character, and to hint, in a most tasteless manner, at certain scandals in his family history which had much better have been left unmentioned. He gradually worked himself up by his own oratory into such a frenzy that at the end he was fairly screaming with rage. El Ayed took it at first in very good part, merely laughing contemptuously at his remarks. But as this only served to add fuel to the fire, with the result that Aissa became more and more abusive, he began at length to become nettled at his words. He ceased to laugh and became ominously serious. I saw his hand go beneath his burnous to where his knife and pistol lay, and he began to creep slowly forward towards his traducer. In a few more seconds the two would have come to blows, but fortunately at that moment El Haj, scenting a fight in the air, and very anxious not to be left out of it, sauntered, hasrullah in hand, casually up in readiness to anticipate any attack upon his cousin by whacking his assailant over the head. El Haj was a person to be reckoned with, and 170 A SEAKCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS his arrival upon the scene caused El Ayed to assume a most innocent air. The two cousins together were more than he felt equal to by himself. At the same moment I called off Aissa to come back and help me re-arrange some of the baggage which was slipping off my camel, and so the incident came to a close. I walked on ahead for the remainder of the day, and kept Aissa by me, leaving El Haj and El Ayed to bring up the rear with the camels. Aissa was very anxious for me to lend him my stick, a thick oaken one with an iron point, and to allow him to give El Ayed a thrashing for his rude- ness. But as his * fighting weight ' was at the outside nine stone and a half, while El Ayed was a brawny ruffian who weighed a good solid twelve, and who, moreover, carried a pistol which must have been first cousin to a fifteen-pounder, I did not consider it advisable to accede to this request. Aissa fumed and abused El Ayed to me for the greater part of the afternoon, and it was not until some hours afterwards that he completely recovered his equanimity. His opponent, on the other hand, appeared to dismiss the matter almost immediately from his thoughts, for he spent most of the remainder of the day in singing gaily, like a man who is entirely at peace with himself and his surroundings, some very lively songs of ' The Prisoner of Kairowan ' type. The sound of his voice did more than anything else to keep up Aissa's irritation. El Ayed was too many for my guide. Aissa was a little man with a tongue and a temper too big for A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 171 his size, and El Ayed delighted in teasing him whenever he got a chance. He had early discovered to his huge delight that he could without the slightest difficulty get a rise out of him, and he never allowed an opportunity of doing so to pass. As the headman of the party Aissa should have kept him in his place, but the task was beyond him. He was not in the least afraid of him, for when his blood was up — and it generally was when dealing with his tormentor — he would have fought the devil himself without the slightest hesitation. If it had ever come to a fight El Ayed would have got the worst of it, for El Haj would have sided with his cousin. But Aissa was rather fond of coming the elder brother over his harum-scarum young relative, and El Haj in consequence rather enjoyed than otherwise hearing him plagued and jeered at. El Ayed, in spite of his annojdng and troublesome ways, was not a bad fellow at heart. He came up of his own accord that evening and apologised for having laughed at me, giving, confound him, as his reason for having done so that I reminded him of his grandmother, whom he had once, when a boy, seen go through the same acrobatic performance while his tribe was making their annual migration from the desert to the Tell. We met one day a negro hunter, the slave of one of the desert sheykhs, who was engaged in hunting gazelle for his master by means of a stalking camel. If gazelle have been at all hunted it is extremely difficult, unless the ground is unusually favourable, 172 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS to get a shot at them from any distance mider a hundred and fifty yards, and at that range the result of a shot with an Arab gun is extremely uncertain. The natives are accordingly compelled to resort to various expedients in order to kill these wary little beasts. In the extreme north of the Sahara the gazelle are driven to the guns, falcons are flown at them, they are coursed by greyhounds, or ridden down and shot from horseback. But further in the desert, where the horse, the greyhound, and the falcon are seldom found, other means have to be resorted to, and the ever useful camel becomes the agent by which they are hunted. The mehari is said to be more intelligent than the ordinary baggage beast, and on this account is the one that is usually trained for stalking. The patches of scrub where the gazelle feed are often those selected by the Arabs as pasturing grounds for their camels. In the morning these are driven away from the tents near which they have passed the night, and, under the charge of one or two men or boys, are allowed to graze at will upon the various grasses and bushes until the evening, when the herd is gathered together again and driven back to the tents. During the daytime their guardians usually lie down upon some convenient knoll and, so long as their charges do not stray out of sight or to any great distance, allow them to look pretty much after themselves. The gazelle thus get so accustomed to the sight of the camels feeding around them that they GAZELLE STALKING. APPROACHING THE GAZELLE. GAZELLE STALKING. THE SIGNAL TO TURN. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 173 pay but little attention to them, and, if unaccom- panied by a man, will allow them to pass within a few yards of them without exhibiting any alarm. An Arab hunter is well acquainted with the spots most frequented by the gazelle. He rides there on his mehari, and on arriving at his destination spies about until he has caught sight of his game. He then dismounts and, slinging his gun across his back, takes hold of his camel by the tail and, with a slight stick in the other hand to guide him, pro- ceeds to drive him in front of him towards the herd. The camel is trained to respond to certain signals. A push from behind is the sign to go on, a pull at his tail and a soft ' Sh-sh ' is the signal to stop, while a slight tap with the stick on his flank and a whispered ' Adda-adda' give him the cue to turn to one side or the other. So long as he proceeds in the right direction the camel is permitted to go pretty much as he pleases, and is allowed to wander about in an apparently aimless manner and to halt for a few seconds occasionally to browse on the scrub, so as to advance in as natural a manner as possible and to convey the impression that he is merely one of the ordinary camels turned out to graze. On first seeing the camel the gazelle start and look up, but after a good stare, as they are not able to see the hunter, who is concealed behind his beast, they come to the conclusion that there is nothing unusual in its appearance and settle quietly down again to browse on the scrub, switching their little 174 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS tails about continuously and tripping daintily from one bush to another as they feed. When the hunter has got to within some hundred and fifty yards of the herd, he turns off to one side and, keeping himself all the time well concealed behind the camel, commences to approach in a sort of spiral, circling round and round his game, edging towards them when they are not looking and turning away again when they raise their heads and glance in his direction. In this manner he has little difficulty in approEich- ing to within fifty yards or so of the herd, and at this range an Arab gun — if it goes off — is fairly accurate. Before taking the shot he halts his camel, and while the gazelle are gazing uncertainly at him, trying to discover what that curious half-hidden object is which has just appeared from behind the mehari, he has plenty of time to single out his beast and take a steady pot-shot. The curious point in this method of hunting is that the gazelle never seem to scent the hunter at all. It appears to make no difi'erence whether he is to windward or to leeward of them. Presumably the appalling smell of a camel is sufficiently strong to overpower even the aroma given off by an Arab. It was on this journey from N'goussa to Tougourt that an accident happened which, if it had occurred a day or two before, might have had serious conse- quences — as it was they were sufficiently unpleasant. On our second day from N'goussa we reached A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS 175 the well of Hassi Mamar. This, owing to the recent storms, had become so choked with sand that, when El Haj descended into it by means of the steps cut in its sides, he found nothing but damp sand at the bottom of the shaft. By scooping out a small hollow in its centre and allowing sufficient time for the water to percolate into it, he was, however, able to collect a small tin-full of muddy liquid which, after we had emptied the little water which remained in the gurhah down our throats, we filtered through Aissa's haik into the goatskin to take its place. By repeating this process several times we managed during the course of an hour to half fill our water- bag. As we knew that the next day we should reach another well, we then decided to waste no more time, but to make a long day of it so as to arrive as early as possible on the morrow at Hassi Messaoud, where we hoped not only to replenish our gurhah, but to water our camels as well. Ugh ! that water was disgusting ! It was warm, salt, and of the colour and consistency of a good pea- soup. It tasted as though a leather portmanteau had been boiled in it, and it had besides a further flavouring of pitch and of Aissa's haik — Aissa's laundry bill was never a large one. However, as there was nothing else to drink we were compelled to put up with it, and consoled ourselves with the reflection that after all it was only for a day. The next morning the water was worse and by midday, to me at any rate, it was almost undrinkable. We were packing up in preparation for the 176 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS afternoon's march, when an exclamation from El Haj drew our attention to the gurbah. The string which confined the opening had somehow managed to become untied and all its precious, if nauseous, contents were emptying them- selves rapidly into the sand. Before we had time to stop the flow the greater portion of the remainder of our supply had been lost. Only a pint or two remained. By a long march Hassi Messaoud — another well — could be reached at nightfall, so we pushed on as rapidly as we could in its direction. Some presentiment of coming evil induced us fortunately to husband our remaining store. It was lucky that we did so, for on reaching the well we found that the sand had drifted into it, and com- pletely filled the shaft to within a few inches of its mouth. As the well was some ten or twelve feet deep, and we had no appliances other than our hands for clear- ing it out, we decided to waste no time in attempting to do so, but to make the best of a bad job, and get forward again as fast as possible. We marched for an hour or two after sunset before camping, then, as our camels showed signs of knocking up, and it was necessary to husband their strength for the morrow, we pitched the tent and spent a miserable night. We set out in the morning before sunrise so as to get over as much ground as possible before the heat of the day began. We divided out what remained of the water before we started. It amounted to a teaspoonful or two a-head. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 177 We calculated that at about four or five o'clock we should reach the zawia or monastery of Tamelath, and Aissa suggested that, as the marabout who was the head of the order kept absolutely open house to all comers, we should ask his hospitality for the night and proceed to Tougourt on the following day. In the meantime we had to get there — and to get there without water. To walk for a day without drinking would not be a very great hardship in a moist climate like England, even if it were necessary to do so in the height of the summer. But we had to do it in the Sahara in April with a scorching sun blazing down upon our backs and the soft heavy sand under foot reflecting back its rays in our faces — and besides we had been on short commons the day before. El Ayed started jauntily off by singing. But he soon stopped that and turned to squabbling with Aissa instead. As the day wore on and the scorch- ingly dry air parched his throat, he ceased even to worry Aissa, and trudged doggedly on in silence. Our camels, who had had no water since leaving N'goussa, began to flag, and to require a liberal application of El Haj's kasruUah to get them along. Aissa picked up a pebble and put it in his mouth, and appeared to derive some satisfaction from sucking it. But after a time even that failed. He threw the stone away, and took instead to munching the fleshy leaves of a little desert plant which we occasionally found by the side of the road. I bit small portions off a piece of tough brushwood which had been given to me for the purpose some 178 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS weeks before and obtained a certain amount of relief from doing so. Tbe desert, which on our southward march had seemed to me so pretty, now possessed no beauty whatever in my eyes. It appeared to be the most arid and horrid waste in existence. I began to hate the very sight of it. As the day grew older the road became worse, and we got on to a sandy patch covered with small dunes which we found extremely fatiguing to traverse. Our eyes smarted from the sand and glare, our throats became too dry for speech, and all the moisture seemed to have gone from our bodies. We made a short halt in the middle of the day to allow the camels to graze and rest — and then set out again over the burning desert. One of the younger camels began to show signs of collapsing, and to display an inclination to lie down, and we were compelled to shift a part of his burden to another beast. With the sun blazing down upon our backs and our throats feeling as dry and rough as sand-paper, we clambered up the soft sloping sides of one of those wretched dunes after another and floundered down again into the hollows beyond, only to be compelled to plough along up to our ankles in soft sand until we reached yet another dune when the performance would be repeated. In our miserable condition that journey seemed interminable. A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS 179 CHAPTER XIII All things, however, come to an end in time, and that day proved no exception to the rule. After floundering about among the sandhills for several hours v^^e reached a dune rather higher than the rest, and, when we had climbed to its crest, we saw before us at a little distance a great belt of feathery- palms looking beautifully green and cool after our long journey over the arid desert, and, nestling by its side, with its domes and minarets sparkling in the rays of the declining sun, lay the monastery of Tamelath, surrounded by a loop-holed wall sur- mounted by a curiously scalloped battlement. I was immediately struck by the enormous area covered by the buildings. We entered through an iron plated gate in the walls and proceeded for some distance into the interior of the monastery without encountering a soul. It was wonderfully quiet. Not a sound was to be heard. The place seemed to be deserted. Presently we passed under an arcade which spanned the street. Here we were met by a respect- ably dressed man, apparently a servant, who inquired what we wanted. N 2 180 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS Aissa explained our needs in a husky voice, and we were bidden to wait where we were while the man went off to receive the instructions of the marabout. I sat down on a seat by the roadside and began to take stock of my surroundings. The zaioia (monastery) of Tamelath is a wonder- ful place. It lies buried in the depths of the Sahara surrounded by a barren and desolate wilder- ness. Yet in the civilised state of its inhabitants, the style of its architecture, and the finish and decoration of its buildings, this desert monastery rivals, if it does not even surpass, some of the most important towns of Algeria and Tunis. The arcades which spanned the streets of Tou- gourt and the other desert towns were coarsely constructed of mud, with rough palm-trunk rafters ; but the one under which we sat in Tamelath had a groined roof supported upon accurately constructed pointed arches. The space between the arches was covered with a delicate lacelike tracery standing out in relief from a coloured ground. In finish and design that decorative work would have been worthy of a place in any of the big mosques of Algiers, yet it merely served to ornament an arcade covering an ordinary street in a small Saharan oasis. Looking through this arcade a second could be seen having the face of the archway covered with a raised geometrical design in small red bricks. On all sides there were signs of a refinement, a luxury, and a wealth most unexpected in a desert town. We were not kept waiting long. In a few A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 181 minutes the Arab who had spoken to us returned bringing permission from the marabout for us to stay the night, and, what for the moment was of more importance, a cup and a jug full of water for us to drink. As soon as we had disposed of this, which we did in a surprisingly short time, we were conducted by our guide towards the great mosque in the centre of the zawia, where the saintly founder of the monastery lay buried. The zawia in size resembled a small town. As we advanced into its interior, the ornamentation of the houses and arcades which we passed became more rich and finely finished. Elaborately carved doors, ornamental brickwork, gilded and painted ceilings, and traceried windows met the eye on every side. Graceful palms waved their feathery tops over the roads and covered the ground with a pleasant shade. There was a wonderfully peaceful calm about those streets. Everyone we met had the same sleek, contented demeanour, which told of a life of ease and security. The children even showed the same peculiarity. Instead of scampering about the streets they walked with a demure going-to-Sunday- school air which offered a great contrast to the uproarious behaviour of Arab children in general. The whole atmosphere of the place was exactly that of a small and very sleepy cathedral town in England. Just before reaching the court in which the mosque is situated, our camels were handed over to 182 A SEAKCH FOK THE MASKED TAWAREKS the charge of El Ayed and some men who had come to meet us, and I, accompanied by Aissa and El Ha], was conducted through a long tunnel-like street towards the house set apart for the guests of the monastery. We entered into a small court shaded by two palm-trees, and passed through a door in one of its walls up a wide and well-built staircase into a room which Aissa whispered to me was the ' Salon.' Here our guide left us. The room was disappointing. It was a bare white-washed apartment with a vaulted ceihng, and was furnished throughout with tawdry European furniture. It contained no less than four timepieces. A huge grandfather's clock, gaudily painted and gilt, ticked solemnly in one corner, with the hands pointing at half-past ten. A cuckoo clock hung on the wall beside it, giving the time as five minutes to seven. The other clocks had stopped. A gilt and marble console table, with a musical-box placed upon it, was fastened against the wall. Photographs of various French officials were scattered about the room, and some artificial flowers in a glass case stood on the floor in one corner. But the place of honour was given to a large green umbrella which hung in a red flannel case on the wall over the mantelpiece. The marabout of Tamelath is a very great man indeed. All these things were presents from various French officials, and must have been sent on camel- back across the desert all the way from Biskra. The A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 183 grandfather's clock wobbling and bobbing about on a camel must have been rather worth seeing ! Aissa was quite overcome by the grandeur and sanctity of his surroundings. He kicked off his shoes outside the door and crept about on tiptoe speaking in an awed and deferential whisper. But the imperturbable El Haj was not a bit affected by the solemnity of the occasion. He walked in his dusty shoes unconcernedly about the room, examining the different objects which it con- tained just as though he had been in his tent near Biskra. He opened the door of the grandfather's clock, peered into its works, and was just about to take down the green umbrella from its place on the wall to inspect it when he was called to order by his cousin in a scandalised voice and told to take off his shoes and behave himself as a respectable Moham- medan should in a holy city. He was commencing an argument on the subject of propriety vdth Aissa when the marahouf s son entered. He was an evil-looking beast, with a cast in one eye, cataract in the other, and an eruption on his face that beat anything they have had in the West Indies. He immediately began to make con- versation in villainous French. Soon after coffee was brought in on a tray. When this had been finished, the marahouV s son rose up and departed to order our supper, telling us that it would be ready in half an hour. By this time, as our thirst had been satisfied and we had had no meal in the middle of the day, we began to feel badly in want of some food. The 184 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS half-hour mentioned by our host stretched itself out to an hour, and we began to fear that we were going to get no supper at all. But at length a servant came in and made the welcome announcement that our meal was ready. He led the way round a sort of piazza in an inner court to a room on the opposite side of it, where we found our supper already laid. That room was a most gorgeous apartment, and probably the show place of the whole zaioia. The domed ceiling was worked in arabesque patterns, brilliantly painted and gilt. All round the room at the top where the walls joined on to the ceiling ran, forming a kind of frieze, a long wooden bracket, curiously carved and gilt and painted in all the colours of the rainbow. The walls below it were covered with hangings — splendid carpets from the Souf, gold-brocaded silks, and flowered satins alternating with cheap European prints and lace curtains. A miscellaneous collection of articles, mostly of European origin — glass decanters and bottles, tea-cups, jugs, paper lamp-shades, and painted tin boxes — stood on the bracket. A splendid silver-sheathed sword, which I should much have liked to have appropriated, and a pair of silver-mounted pistols in elaborately worked leather holsters hung on the wall above a huge box covered with red leather and thickly studded with brass-headed nails. The meal which had been provided for us had clearly been prepared by some desert cordon bleu. First came the unavoidable murger, which, after A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 186 tasting for politeness sake, I sent out to Aissa and El Haj, who were squatting on the floor outside the door. Then followed a couscous flavoured with cinnamon and garnished with raisins and pieces of pumpkin. Next, in deference to my European tastes, came some of the very toughest goat-chops it has been my lot to meet. Buttered eggs, with little flat loaves of sour bread, were then brought in, and afterwards followed an endless variety of Arab sweets — small crumbly cakes flavoured with honey, a sort of nougat studded with walnuts, and various highly flavoured biscuits of a sickly sweetness. The whole meal, which must have consisted of nearly a dozen courses, came to a conclusion with some coffee served in a silver teapot. The chief butler, or whoever it was who acted as waiter, as soon as he saw that I was fairly started on my meal, fetched the musical-box from the ' salon,' set it down on a shelf close to my ear, and, evidently under the impression that he was going to give me a great treat, wound it up and started it playing. That musical-box was too much for me. It played a popular French air of a haunting, jingly, ' white-wings- which-never-grow-weary ' type, which, after it had repeated the dozen bars which consti- tuted its repertoire some fifty times, began to get very badly upon my nerves. It was impossible to get away from it. When- ever the infernal machine ran down, the butler wound it up again, and, with the very best in- tentions in the world, started that horrible tune 186 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS jingling again in my ears, until I wished the miserable thing at Timbuktu or anywhere else but in my immediate vicinity. That butler was, I am sure, a most well-meaning man ; but he was rather importunate in his atten- tions. He pressed every dish upon me, repeatedly informing me that the marabout had told him that I was to have everything I wanted, and that he was to see that I ' ate well.' Unfortunately we had let out that we had eaten nothing since the early morning, and that in conse- quence we were hungry, and I was obliged, much against my will, to eat up to this character. But an Arab's hunger and a European's are two very different things — an Arab can consume, without the slightest inconvenience, several pounds of food at a sitting. My attendant looked quite unhappy if I did not take at least two helpings from every dish which was offered me, and began to ask if there were some- thing wrong with the cooking. When at length, from sheer inability to eat any more, I was compelled to refuse the last dish he looked positively miserable. He could not believe that I had really eaten as much as I wanted. Aissa had said that I was hungry — surely what I had eaten was not enough to satisfy me. Was there really nothing more that he could get for me ? The marabout had said that I was to have everything I wanted. I had merely to ask, and anything I fancied would be prepared for me as soon as possible. A SEAECH FOR THE; MASKED TAWAREKS 187 But as at that moment I required nothing what- ever beyond a stretcher to carry me to bed, with perhaps a small — a very small — slice of hoopoe's liver to prevent an attack on the morrow ' of fire in the throat/ I was reluctantly compelled to declare that I wanted nothing at all. He looked so dejected at my answer that I felt almost inclined to attempt the eating of another half biscuit, but a little deliberation showed me that it would be madness to venture on such a dangerous feat. I was seized, however, with a better idea. Could he get me a cigarette ? He brightened up at once. The use of tobacco, he explained, was forbidden by the rules of the zaioia. But the marabout had said that I was to have everything that I asked for, and his word was law to the whole community. There were, he had heard — the ghost of a smile flickered for a moment over his face — one or two men in the monastery who were so depraved that they occasionally smoked on the sly, and — well, he would try and find out who they were. He must have had some inkling as to the iden- tity of those demoralised persons, for his inquiry did not occupy long. He returned in a very few minutes. He laid a small packet of tobacco and some cigarette-papers by my side, and withdrew his hand quickly, as though it had been polluted. But I noticed that when I had lighted my cigarette he sniffed at the smoke as though it were not a very unwelcome odour. I placed a few coins by the side of my plate, laid 188 A SEARCH FOR TfiE MASKED TAWAREKS the tobacco in a conspicuous position on the table, and rose to depart. I thought I heard — I may, of course, have been mistaken — a muttered * kether keirek, sidi ' (thank you, sir), as I passed the butler, and when I turned round, after leaving the room, I noticed that the tobacco had disappeared. Well, I suppose that after all a butler, whether he serves a saint or a sinner, must have his perquisites ! The house in which it was intended that we should pass the night was a new dar-dief (house for strangers), which the marabout had caused to be erected for the accommodation of the various sheykhs and Arab notabilities who came occa- sionally with their retinues to pay their respects to his holiness. It lay on the far side of the monastery. An Arab carrying a naked candle, which during the course of our walk was several times blown out, led the way through the arcaded streets. He conducted us, on reaching our destination, up a broad flight of stairs to the upper storey of the house, consisting of a broad corridor running the whole length of the building, lighted by a dome in the centre, and with doors opening into different apartments on either side. A rug and some bolsters had been placed in this corridor outside the room allotted to me, which was a small, square chamber, lighted by a window giving on to the stairway, and a smaller one high up in the domed roof. A gaudy French carpet, covered with a pattern of huge bunches of roses tied together A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 189 with blue ribbon, lay on the floor, in the centre of which stood an iron bedstead furnished with a quilt and laced pillow, I declined to sleep in that bed. The zawia was apparently badly in need of a laundry. I covered it over instead with a rug, and had my own blankets spread on the top of it, and then lay down to recover from my supper and to dream the most hideous nightmares in which the Tawareks and the Shaambah, alternately armed with that jing- ling musical-box, chased me about the waterless wastes of the Sahara. At daybreak we went to pay our respects to the marabout. We found him just leaving the mosque. He was a most kindly-looking old gentleman, with evidently a considerable quantity of negro blood in his veins. He walked by the side of his son, leaning on a walking-stick covered with baize of the holy Mohammedan green. Aissa stepped forward and raised the edge of his burnous reverently to his lips. The marabout, in return, muttered a blessing. He then turned to me and, after we had kissed hands, assured me politely that everyone was welcome at the zawia, but that he was particularly pleased to have been the host of a European. He then asked me several questions as to how I had been treated while his guest. To all of which I was able to reply that I had had everything that I had required. Then, as Aissa twitched my sleeve as a sign that it was time to go, with many thanks for his hospitality, I took my leave. 190 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS Aissa turned back soon afterwards and ran after the marabout. He remained for some minutes in confidential conversation with him. Upon his return he told me that he had been to confide in him ' something which he had upon his heart/ and to ask his opinion upon it. The mara- houfs advice upon the subject appeared to have been entirely satisfactory, and to have cleared up the difficulty, whatever it was, for Aissa, who usually seemed to be ' weary of earth and laden with his sin,' was wonderfully cheerful during the remainder of the day. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 191 CHAPTEE XIV The Saharan caravan men, if you can only manage to get on the right side of them, are a wonderfully friendly lot of fellows. If you insist upon regard- ing an Arab as a ' beastly nigger,' he not unnaturally retires into his shell and becomes one of the most inaccessible crustaceans in existence. But if you take him the right way, and treat him as a man and a younger brother, he responds to your ad- vances, and you get a glimpse of a personality which, if not attractive in all its phases, is, at all events, sufl&ciently picturesque and original to be extremely interesting. The Arabs are a much maligned race. French- men and others who have attempted to employ them in some highly civilised capacity, and have failed to make anything out of them, are very fond of condemning the race in toto as a set of useless vagabonds, of whom no good can be made. This is absurd. You might just as well declare that a broad-gauge engine is a useless machine because it cannot be made to run on narrow-gauge lines. You can't make a good bank clerk or shop assistant out of an Arab. He ' isn't built that way.' But put him to the work for which Nature intended him ; employ him as a herdsman, a camel-driver, a hunter, 192 A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS or set him to certain kinds of soldiering, and it will be difficult to find his equal. As we were halting by the roadside in the middle of the day a caravan passed us which we imme- diately recognised as being the one which we had travelled with for part of the journey to Wargla. The men greeted us as though we had been their dearest friends. One of them produced from the usual receptacle — the hood of his humous — a flat cake of bread, part of which he broke off and gave to me as a present. He then sat down with us, while his companions went on without him, and divided the remainder of the loaf among my Arabs. When we had finished this loaf, finding that we had none of our own, he jumped up and ran after his caravan and presently retm'ned with another loaf, which one of the other men had sent me, and a handful of dates, which he had collected for us from the remaining men of his party. He brought back also a message from his fellows to say, that if we were returning to Biskra they hoped that we would travel with them. On hearing that we were making for El Wad, he volunteered to journey with us, ' for the sake of company,' saying that he had a cousin whom he wished to see, and that he could confide the charge of his camels to the other members of his caravan, who would deliver their loads at the conclusion of their journey. But as I did not know enough about the man to be certain that he would get on well with my other Arabs, and had, moreover, as many men with me as I A SEAECH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 193 required, I thought it better not to avail myself of this offer, so I pointed out that if his camels arrived at Biskra without him they would be almost certain to be requisitioned for the Government service, and advised him not to lose sight of them unless he wished them to be taken to Twat. On arriving at Tougourt, El Ayed inquired whether I wished to engage his beasts for the remainder of the trip. As I knew that the French Government were requisitioning an enormous num- ber of camels, I thought it best to engage those that I wanted while I had the chance. El Ayed's camels were good ones : but there still remained the old quarrel between him and Aissa. Since their outbreak, however, a few days before both men seemed to have settled down and to have been upon their best behaviour. El Ayed was a big strapping fellow who would always be useful, and in spite of his harum-scarum ways I could not help liking him ; so, when I had bound both him and Aissa over to keep the peace, and had made the two shake hands — a ceremony which was performed frankly and laughingly by El Ayed and with an assumption of a condescending and rather sulky dignity by my guide — I secured him and his camels until my return to Biskra. From that time both men behaved themselves on the whole fairly well, and, beyond a few small squabbles, I had no further trouble with them. As I did not wish to be followed by a regular caravan, which I had found on some occasions rather an inconvenience, I only took one of El o 194 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS Ayed's camels with me. The remainder of them I sent with the heavier portion of my baggage, under the charge of our friends of the Wargla caravan, by the direct road to Biskra, where I subsequently found them on my return. It was at Tougourt that we got our first definite information as to the exact whereabouts of the objects of our search. While making inquiries in the market among the caravan men, El Haj met a man from El Wad, who told him that when he had left that towm a few days before, some Tawareks were encamped in the desert at a distance of only a few hours from it. We accordingly made no stay at Tougourt, but on the morning after our arrival set out along the road to El Wad with a confident feeling that at last we were going to succeed in our search. Our way lay for about half an hour over soft, heavy sand ; we then emerged into the dry bed of a small sliott. On leaving this we got on to higher ground with a few small bushes scattered about it and an occasional small gravelly hill showing above the sandy level of the soil. By degrees as we advanced these hills became fewer, until, as the sand became deeper, they finally ceased and we entered among the dunes which form such a pro- minent feature of the scenery of this part of the desert. El Wad is situated in that great Erg or sand- belt which stretches right across the western Sahara from the Gulf of Gabes almost to Cape Blanco, on the Atlantic coast. Our road after the first few A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 195 hours lay all along the dunes. These gradually increased in height day by day as we advanced until we reached the great mountain of sand, some three or four hundred feet in height from crest to hollow, which overhangs the town of El Wad. As a sandstorm in this country completely ob- literates all traces of former travellers, special means have to be adopted in order to direct wayfarers on their road. Guemeerahs, or artificial landmarks, consisting of huge pyramids of masonry placed in prominent positions at intervals of about ten miles, have accordingly been built all along the line which the caravans must follow ; and as generally when one guemeerah has been reached, the next can be seen on the horizon, there is little difficulty in finding the way. Our road wound about among the dunes, so as to avoid as far as possible all unnecessary gradients. Aissa, in his capacity of guide, went on ahead and piloted the caravan. Once where the sand had drifted so as to cause a ridge across the path, he hunted about until he found a more level way on the other side of the dune. He marked this important geographical discovery by picking up the thigh-bone of a camel's skeleton which lay close at hand and sticking it solemnly upright by the side of his new path, to act, as he said, as a guemeerah for future travellers. These dunes are most tiring to walk over. At every step, even on the level, the foot sinks in almost to the ankle. When ascending a steep slope o 2 196 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS the sand under foot gives way, and that from above sHps down into the hole thus formed until the leg is buried half-way up to the knee, and at each step the traveller is compelled to drag his foot from the yielding mass. Even the wide-spreading feet of the camels did not seem, heavily laden as they were, to give them much advantage, for when descending the side of a dune they floundered down the slope raising clouds of sand with every step and looking as though each moment they must trip and fall. A curious little burrowing lizard, called by the Arabs the hout-el-erdth, or earth-fish, about five inches long, of a pale straw-colour, marked on the back with transverse bars of dark brown, is very common in these dunes. Little raised lines, showing where they had passed mole-like underneath the surface, were to be seen in all directions. Occasionally a slight movement of the soil would show where one was burrowing. Aissa would im- mediately fling himself upon the spot, scoop out the lizard with his hands, and cut off its head. These heads, he assured me, he would be able to sell as medicine for half a franc a piece. The smooth shiny skin, sharp noses, and the curious web-like construction of the feet of these lizards eminently adapt them for their underground method of life. The rapidity with which the living specimens disappeared when placed upon the ground seemed little short of marvellous. They simply took a header into the sand as though it had been water and were out of sight in a moment. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 197 At midday, even in the spring, the sand is so hot as to be almost unbearable to the naked hand. An Arab when suffering from an attack of fever will sometimes avail himself of this state of affairs to improvise a Turkish bath in a rather ingenious manner. "With his burnous thrown over his head, he bur- rows on all fours into the side of one of the dunes, and remains underground until the suffocation and heat of the sand have thrown him into a profuse perspiration. The Arab medical system must cer- tainly be one of the most drastic in existence. While among these dunes we met a caravan coming from El Wad. Aissa and one of the men belonging to it immediately singled each other out and fell upon each other's necks with every appear- ance of exuberant joy. They then stepped aside, and remained in earnest conversation for some time before running on to catch up their respective caravans. This was Aissa 's cousin from Biskra, whom he had entrusted with the task of squaring the Kaid to spare his camels. His news was entirely satis- factory. He was clearly a man of business, for he had succeeded in his negotiations with an outlay of only seven francs, so that Aissa was three francs more in pocket over the transaction than he had expected. If the amount had been three hundred he could not have been more delighted. One morning El Ayed discovered a donkey hidden in a little brush-covered hollow, and, with the marauding instinct of a desert Ai'ab, calmly 198 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS appropriated it to his own use, declaring that he intended to ride it for the remainder of the day. He rode it for an hour or two, and enjoyed him- self immensely. But at the end of that time, as he was becoming rather liberal in the application of his stick, the donkey rebelled. He suddenly kicked up his heels, jflung his rider off, and scampered braying back again towards the spot from which he had been taken. El Ayed picked himself up and started in pursuit. But though he ran his best he was no match for that donkey in pace. In about a quarter of an hour he returned, breathless, crestfallen, and extremely angry with the other two Arabs for laughing at him. Three small boys, belonging apparently to a douar, or circle of tents, which we could see in the distance, passed by shortly afterwards, and made some slighting remarks about us as they did so. El Ayed turned back at once, and obtained con- siderable relief from his ill-humour by converting them into a scapegoat — or, rather, scape-donkey — and chastising them. With the fiery courage of the desert Arabs, these small brats, the eldest of whom could not have been more than ten years old, instead of submitting calmly to their punishment, flew at El Ayed like little wild cats, scratching, biting, kicking, and hitting out with their puny fists, and doing their very best to pull him down. He took this demon- stration very calmly, and, regardless of their A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 199 struggles, systematically cuffed each one of them in turn. As he left them to return to us, the last one who had suffered at his hands scrambled, squealing with rage, to his feet from the ground where he had been rolled, and looked round for something to fling after his chastiser. But as he could find nothing, with a final scream of impotent fury he snatched up a handful of sand and threw it at him. In spite of the diminutive size of his victims, El Ayed by no means got off scot-free. His gandourali was torn, his lip was slightly cut, and for some time afterwards he continued to rub a place where he had been bitten in the calf of his leg. We found the caravanserais between Tougourt and El "Wad larger and more commodious than any which we had seen before. The greatest difficulty is experienced in erecting any building on the unstable foundation offered by the shifting sands of these dunes. Even when a house has been completed, the fabric is a source of continual anxiety. Either the sand falls away from under the walls and causes them to collapse, or else it drifts up against them and threatens to overwhelm the entire structure. Against the sides of quite a new caravanserai in which we stayed the sand had drifted until it reached almost to the base of the barrel-shaped roof. The horj at which we slept on the night before our arrival at El Wad had been built since any of my Arabs had passed along the road, so we could only estimate its position from the information 200 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS which we gathered from the Arabs whom we en- countered on our way. During the course of the afternoon before our arrival there we met the camel postman who acts as mail-courier between Tougourt and El Wad, and learnt from him that this caravanserai was only some three hours further on ; so when shortly after- wards we passed a small intermediate horj, as we all felt in good going order, and expected about night- fall to reach the larger and more comfortable one of more modern date, I decided not to stop. Probably the camel postman had misunderstood our question, and, instead of stating how long it would take us to reach this place on foot, had informed us of the length of time which it had taken him to cover the distance on his mehari — a very different matter. At all events, whether owing to this cause or not, there was clearly a mistake somewhere, for at sunset, when we had calculated upon arriving at our destination for the night, we found ourselves already rather done up by an extra long day's journey through the heavy sand and still floundering about among the dunes, with no cara- vanserai to be seen. As the horj was not in sight, we made a halt to take some food, and then continued leisurely on, expecting every minute to sight our destination . At eight o'clock no caravanserai was to be seen. Fortunately the moon was nearly full, and, as the sand was almost white, the night was all but as light as the day. Nine o'clock came, and still no horj. At ten A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 201 o'clock we began to feel that something must be very wrong indeed. We had been walking nearly fourteen hours over the heavy sand, and as the sun had been unusually powerful we all felt that we had had quite as much exercise as we required for the day. Aissa, who suffered from varicose veins in his leg, flung himself down on the sand and moaned that he was ' hyen ' (tired), and could go no further. I was obliged to dismount from my camel and give him my place. It began to occur to us that we had passed the caravanserai without seeing it ; but, as we knew that we had followed the track all the way, it seemed hardly possible that we could have done so. But how else were we to account for its non- appearance ? We were debating among ourselves the advisa- bility of retracing our steps or camping where we were for the night, when a furious barking, pro- ceeding from a point at a little distance to one side of the road, attracted our attention to two or three small tents among the dunes. I sent El Ayed, who was the freshest of the party, to make inquiries. He returned in a few minutes with the information that the caravanserai had not been passed, but that it lay by the side of a well a mile or so ahead of us. We were all by this time feeling pretty well done ; but as we concluded that it would be less trouble to reach the horj than to pitch the tent, we whacked up the camels, and eventually arrived at our destination shortly after eleven. 202 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS Visitors at that time of night were clearly not expected. The inmates of the horj had retired to sleep, and it was some time before we could arouse them. At length, after shouting and kicking at the door for some time with no effect. El Ayed, becoming exasperated, took the law into his own hands, and hammered on the gate with a huge stone which lay beside it, threatening to break it down, and making a din sufficient to arouse the Seven Sleepers from their cave. This had the desired effect, for presently a door opened in the interior of the building, and a very querulous voice demanded what we wanted, and declared that he was not going to admit anyone at that time of night. He did not know who we were ; we might be robbers, and, in any case, it was contrary to the regulations. Aissa, who had somewhat recovered during his ride, at once flew into a passion, called the man every name that he could think of, and concluded by declaring that it was a Boiimi (European) who demanded admission, and promised the guardian that if the gate was not opened at once he should be reported to the authorities. This threat removed the guardian's scruples. We were at once admitted. Aissa, having abused the guardian into a be- coming humility, demanded the best room for my accommodation. The horj keeper, however, who was in a very sulky temper owing to his having been aroused from his sleep, objected to giving me this, and wanted to A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 203 give me a small and very dirty one instead. But Aissa was firm, and as my other Arabs backed him up, being anxious to get the matter settled as soon as possible so that they could get to sleep, he finally carried his point, and the door was opened. The reason of the guardian's objection to my using this room was at once apparent. It contained a bed, and in the bed, contrary to all the rules and regulations of the place, was a nigger. Even the noise which we had made at the gate had failed to arouse him, and he lay still fast asleep and snoring loudly. El Ayed seized him bj'' the shoulder and shook him vigorously, but only succeeded in extorting a grunt of disapproval. As these gentle means failed to have any effect he took El Haj's kasrullah from him, and dealt the recumbent form, with no light hand, a blow on his back which brought him with a yell to his feet. He then kicked him promptly through the doorway. The bed was pushed into one corner of the room, and my own erected in its place. Almost before my head was on the pillow I was fast asleep. Soon after our start on the next morning we met a couple of wild-looking Arabs, both armed to the teeth, who told us that they came from Tripoli, and were travelling hot-foot on the track of some Shaambahs, who had stolen thirty of their camels. They asked us if we had met them on the road, and on our answering in the negative, hurried off again at a long tireless trot in pursuit. Shortly before reaching El Wad, Aissa pointed 204 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS out to me what at first sight looked like a belt of some sort of huge bracken, growing on the top of a neighbouring dune. ' There,' he said, ' that is how they grow palm- trees in the Wad Souf. Come and see.' I climbed up to the crest of the dune, and from thence was able to command a view into the hollow beyond. I found myself looking down into a huge, irregularly-shaped basin in the sand, in the level bottom of which were planted the palms of a plantation of considerable size. The fernlike growth that we had seen from the road was the tops of the palms, just showing above the crest of the dune. A donkey, bearing panniers filled with sand, closely followed by a man bearing a basket similarly loaded, came staggering up a pathway in the yielding sides of the pit. When they reached the top the baskets were emptied of their contents, and the man seated himself upon the back of the donkey and rode him down again into the plantation. He then repeated the performance. The plantations round El Wad are placed among the very dunes themselves, where it would appear utterly impossible that any plant could grow. The sandhills, driven by the wind, are perpetually though imperceptibly in motion, and a spot now occupied by a hollow will very likely, a generation or two hence, be covered by one of these huge mounds of sand. It can easily be imagined that the cultivation of such a district is attended by enormous difdculties. A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 205 El Wad is situated over the bed of a great underground river, known as the Wad Souf. In pre-historic times there is no doubt that the Sahara was a very fertile land, and supported a con- siderably larger population than at present. The old theory that this desert is the dry bed of what was once an inland sea is now discredited, and though the cause which led to its having lost its fertility has not yet been satisfactorily explained, there is no doubt as to its original condition. The rivers which now traverse it in their underground beds originally flowed upon the surface, and probably formed huge tropical streams, for unmistakable traces of the existence of still living crocodiles have been discovered within recent years in a small lake in the very heart of the Sahara. In forming a palm-grove in the neighbourhood of El Wad one of the deepest of the hollows between the dunes is chosen, and a well is sunk in its centre to find the water-level. The bottom of the hollow is then excavated, if necessary, so as to bring the surface of the sand down to within a few feet of the water-bearing stratum. The sand thus excavated is carried up and de- posited at the edge of the basin, along the rim of which a thick hedge of palm leaves, planted upright in the ground, is sometimes built, to prevent, as far as possible, the wind from drifting the sand back again into the pit from whence it was brought. But this fence proves only a partial protection, and in order to prevent the palms and other plants growing in the hollow from being smothered and 206 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS killed by the all-pervading sand, the owners of these oases are compelled to wage incessant war against the ever-encroaching dunes. To save the land which they have so hardly won from the desert from being lost and becoming again a part of the wilderness, they must from day to day continue the toil of collecting the sand which drifts into their gardens, and carrying it up the steep yielding sides of the basins to the surface above. The labour entailed in the construction and maintenance of these oases is enormous, but the reward of that labour is almost proportionately great, for these plantations are among the most productive in the Sahara. The most usual kind of well employed in this neighbourhood, and in fact throughout the greater part of the Northern Sahara, is known as a khotara. It consists of a vertical shaft over the mouth of which projects a long beam with a bucket and cord attached to one end. To the other extremity a counterpoise weight is fixed. The beam is pivoted near the centre to the top of an upright pillar, so as to swing vertically up and down, after the manner of a see-saw. A pull on the cord depresses the beam and lowers the bucket into the well. When full this is raised again to the surface by releasing the cord and allowing the counterpoise to tilt the beam back again to its normal, almost vertical, position. In the Twat depression and in some other parts of the Sahara, another and equally ingenious kind of well, called a foggara. is in use. This is designed A KHOTARA. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 207 to give a permanent flow of water. It is usually constructed in a small branch ravine with a view to irrigating an oasis situated at a lower level. Its structure is somewhat complicated. A series of vertical shafts, of a number depending upon the area to be irrigated, are sunk until water is reached. These are then connected with each other by under- ground tunnels about six feet in height. The whole system of shafts and tunnels, which may extend to over a mile in length, communicates with a main tunnel which, in its turn, conducts the water to the segias of the oasis which it is intended to irrigate. Wells on a similar principle are found, I believe, in Baluchistan and Italy. 208 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS CHAPTEK XV Unlike most Saharan towns El Wad is unfortified. It is a city with a character peculiar to itself. Wood in this district is far too scarce to be used for rafters, so the flat roofs to be found in other desert towns are quite the exception at El Wad. Almost all the houses are covered instead by a series of little hemi- spherical domes, about eight feet in diameter, neatly constructed in stone. Nearly all the buildings are very low, hardly any of them being built with more than one storey. One of the most striking peculiarities of El Wad is its extreme quiet. The soft sand of the streets muffles every footfall, and this same quietness seems to have laid its hold upon the population, for the shouting and bawling continually to be heard at Tougourt, Wargla, and other desert towns, are very rarely audible in El Wad. The musical call to prayers of the muezzin, from the minaret of the mosque, rings out with a startling clearness over this city of silence. The dar-dief (house for strangers) to which we first made our way was in a filthy condition ; fowls, goats, and camels thronged its courtyard, which looked as though it had not been swept since the day on which the building was completed. One A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS 209 glance at the place was sufficient. We at once gave up all idea of lodging there and set out in search of a suitable Arab house, which we eventually found situated next door to the Hammam or Turkish bp.th. This house, which was roofed over with three little hemispherical domes in a row, merely consisted of two small, windowless rooms, each about seven feet high and eight feet square, opening one out of the other from the comer of a large enclosed yard which looked a convenient place in which to stow our camels. It really seemed as though ' he we daurna mention ' was at work preventing our meeting with the Tawareks, for here at El Wad, when we confi- dently imagined that we had them almost within our reach, we were told that, only two days before our arrival, they had broken up their camp and departed from the neighbourhood in a northerly direction and had settled themselves again in the desert near a little oasis called Edemeetha. The desert to the immediate south of El Wad is the home of the Trood branch of the Shaambah Arabs, some of whom we had already met while they were confined in their camp near Tougourt, and as the members of this tribe are among the most active opponents of the Tawareks, and we were now practically within the Trood territory, it was only natural that we should hear nothing but abuse of their hereditary enemies. The people of El Wad were at that moment particularly bitter against the Tawareks, for news, a day or two before, had come in that they had P 210 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWARERS retaliated upon the Trood and made a most success- ful foray upon their camps lying in the desert to the south, and carried off a large amount of camels and other loot. As to the exact amount of damage which they had inflicted upon them, the various reports were most conflicting, and, since the inhabitants of El "Wad were, perhaps naturally, not very willing to discuss the subject, we could get no very definite information. But from what we heard there seemed to be no doubt that the Tawareks had taken a very good equivalent for the spoils which the Shaambah had taken from their two camps a month or two before. The Tawareks had struck their blow in their usual sudden and heavy-handed manner and had vanished away, as usual, into the unknown before any measures could be taken to apprehend them. The Trood were very sore upon the subject. This was news of considerable importance to us. Edemeetha lay at a distance of only a day's journey from El Wad, and it seemed extremely probable that, owing to the irritation caused by this successful foray of their marauding tribesmen, the objects of our search would shortly find the neighbourhood too hot to be pleasant. It was therefore advisable that we should follow up their trail at once while it was hot and endeavour to find them before the feeling in the neighbourhood became so strong against them as to force them to retire from the proximity of their neighbours into the inaccessible deserts to the south. I was in favour of an immediate start ; but, as A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS 211 Aissa declared that the camels were completely knocked up by the heavy travelling across the dunes, I was reluctantly compelled to allow them a little grace before taking again to the road. I determined, however, that our stay at El Wad should be as short as possible, for we were now fairly on the scent of the Tawareks, and, having experienced such difficulty in finding them, I made up my mind to allow them as little time for getting away again as possible. I limited our stay to one day, and chose this opportunity of setting my Arabs to the very neces- sary work of washing my clothes. An Arab is not a good hand at laundry work. Aissa sent El Haj to fill our gurbali with water, and then went out into the town and bought for two sous a lump of brown sticky-looking stuff, which he assured me was the kind of soap that the Arabs always used for washing clothes. The operations commenced upon his return. El Haj poured a little water into the bowl that we generally used for making couscous, soaped my clothes thickly all over, and then proceeded to knead, slap and roll them in the water, until he and every- thing in his immediate vicinity were smothered in soap-suds. He then, leaving El Ayed to take a turn at the bowl, wrung out the clothes and hung them in the sun to dry on a cord which Aissa had stretched for the purpose across the corner of our yard. The results were not satisfactory. Those clothes which did not fall off the line on to the unswept floor of the yard certainly did look less dirty than F 2 212 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS before they had been operated upon ; but they were so saturated with that disgusting soft soap as to be quite un wearable for the remainder of the journey. The coloured things were quite unrecognisable by the time that they were dry. A pair of red woollen socks, which had so taken Aissa's fancy that he had made me several most advantageous offers to buy them off me, and which had been the envy of every Arab whom I met, were completely spoilt. El Ayed washed one and El Haj the other. El Ayed's sock emerged from the operation as hard as a board, and of a mottled strawberry colour, while that which El Haj took charge of came out of the ordeal in the shape of a sticky twisted bunch of wool of a most artistic shade of terra-cotta. They were no longer a pair. At the conclusion of our journey, I, to his great delight, presented them to Aissa, and I have no doubt that they are now an heirloom in his family. Leaving El Ayed and El Haj engaged on this work, I set out under the guidance of Aissa to see the sights of the town. We first turned our steps towards the market. This, which seemed to be small in proportion to the size and importance of the town, was bounded on one side by a grove of palms planted in the bottom of one of the usual deep basin-like hollows in the sand. Seeing a man engaged in collecting leghvii from the palms of this plantation, I sent Aissa down the steep sandy path which ran down the side of the pit to buy some from him. This leghvii, or palm-sap, is collected by boring A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 213 a hole into the centre of the tree and inserting a small tube to collect the sap from it as it rises into a vessel secured to the exterior of the trunk to receive it. This bleeding process, so far from being injurious to the tree, is said to have a very beneficial effect upon the crop if not carried to excess, and is a remedy frequently employed by the Arabs to restore a sickly palm to a healthy condition. The liquid thus collected is a very favourite drink in the desert. In taste it bears a strong resemblance to the so-called 'cocoa-nut milk,' and, though thicker and slightly sweeter, is a very refreshing drink on a hot day. In the market I bought from an Arab of Gha- dames, who had come in the day before with a caravan, some Tawarek curios in the shape of a mehari rein of plaited hide, ornamented with a fringe and large tassels of red and black leather, and a camel scourge, consisting of a slender rod of iron about a foot and a half in length, having about an inch at the end turned round at right angles and brought to a sharp point. It looked an instrument capable of inflicting very severe punishment when- ever its services were required. In addition to the French coinage. El Wad possesses a currency known as flous, which is peculiar to itself and the surrounding district. This consists of all the small coins formerly current in the country. Flous must be one of the most non- descript coinages in existence. Small copper pieces from Tunisia, Uttle silver ones minted by the old 214 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS sultans of Wargla and Tougourt, and even Roman coins are found among them. The majority of the pieces are so battered and worn as to be quite de- faced, but now and then a good specimen can be found, and as seven of them of whatever description go to a single French sou, anyone interested in numismatics would be able to make a collection of them at a very slight cost. Aissa, who in his capacity of guide always seemed to take the greatest delight in dragging me to the highest available point in order that I should admire the landscape, insisted upon my ascending the minaret of the principal mosque so as to get a view from above of the domed housetops of the town. In this particular case the scene from the tower was certainly worth the slight exertion which it cost us to reach its summit. The minaret was of consider- able height, and the view from the top was an extensive one, and one which gave a better idea of the curious nature of the town and its surroundings than could possibly have been obtained from below. It was impossible not to be impressed with the enormous extent covered by the houses. Most of the desert towns which we had hitherto seen were so small that they hardly exceeded in size an ordinary English village. But though the population of El Wad is very little larger than Tougourt or Wargla, owing to the single-storied character of its buildings the town covers an area which, when viewed from above, gives the impression that it contains a far larger number of inhabitants than is actually the case. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 215 Having descended from the minaret, we con- tinued our ramble through the town, and finally dropped into an Arab cafe, to endeavour to pick up some information as to the exact position of Ede- meetha and the Tawarek camp. We were told that we should probably not be able to find any house- room at Edemeetha, as it was only a very small oasis, but that it lay only some ten miles away from a town called Gomar, which, as it contained a caravanserai, would make a convenient headquarters from which to visit the camp. Our informant, however, was very doubtful whether we should find the Tawareks there at all, for a large party of them had been seen that morning on the march with their women and tents retiring towards the deserts to the south. It seemed probable that what we had feared had already come true — that the Tawareks had found that even their secluded position at Edemeetha had not proved sufficiently sequestered for the safety of such a small party from the outraged Shaambah of the neighbourhood, and that they had been com- pelled to beat a retreat to safer quarters in their rear. We returned at once to our house and made our preparations for as early a start as possible on the morrow. We arrived at Gomar soon after noon on the day of our departure from El Wad. As soon as we were installed in the caravanserai, I sent out Aissa into the town to inquire into the truth of the rumours as to the departure of the Tawareks. We had experienced to the full the elusive 216 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS character for which this race are notorious. The stories which we continually heard about them had aroused my curiosity to the utmost, and I was ex- tremely anxious to see these men. But the ill-luck which had dogged our steps had hitherto frustrated all our efforts to find them ; and now, just when we were beginning to think that we had fairly got them within our reach, it appeared that they had slipped once more through our fingers and retired into their home in the inaccessible depths of the Sahara. If so, our last chance of seeing them was lost. We should never have been able to have obtained permission from the French Government to follow them, and as I knew that all my movements were being most carefully watched by the authorities, who seem to imagine that every Englishman who appears in Algeria must necessarily be either a spy or a Government agent engaged in urging the natives to revolt, my chance of giving these officious officials the slip was a very small one indeed. If the Tawareks had retreated into the depths of the Sahara, there remained nothing for us but to own ourselves defeated and to take the shortest road back again to civilisation, for any attempt to follow them would merely result in our being ignominiously brought back again in the charge of a party of Spahis. Aissa, who, being an Arab, was a fatalist by birth, had declared that he considered it to be mecktoub (foreordained) that we should never succeed in our search, and I began almost to fear that he must be right. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 217 At Biskra we had been told that we should possibly find some members of this race at Tougourt. On our arrival there, however, we found that, so far from any of them being in the neighbourhood, none had been seen there for many weeks, and we had been recommended to repair to Wargla, where, however, we were again disappointed, as they had, contrary to their usual custom, abandoned the district for nearly a year. And so things had gone on until on our arrival at El Wad, just when we had thought ourselves to be fairly on the right scent, our evil destiny had still pursued us, for we had found that the Tawareks had left the neighbourhood and re- tired to Edemeetha ; and now, as we had been told that a large party of them had the day before been seen migrating southward in the direction of Ghadames, and as there seemed to be every pro- bability that they were the men whom we were endeavouring to find, it seemed as though they had already got beyond our reach. It was intensely disappointing. I began to feel as though we had been hunting some kind of human will-o'-the-wisp which had no real existence, and that we had been following this phantom about the desert, lured on by its ever-retreating form. Our journey had certainly been in its way an interesting one, but we seemed to have failed in the main object of it. But, no. I was lying half asleep on my bed, for the day was a scorchingly hot one, when the door opened and Aissa looked in. Seeing that I was in the room he, without a word, flung the door wide 218 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS open, stepped to one side, and beckoned to someone outside to enter. His manner impressed me, and I sat up with a vague feeling, as they say in ghost stories, that something unusual was about to happen. * What is it, Aissa ? ' I asked. Aissa said nothing, but beckoned again. There was a lurking smile about his face, and his manner was so mysterious that I began to wonder what was going to happen. I turned towards the door. There came from outside a sound of slow heavy footsteps, and then a black shadow fell across the patch of brilliant sunlight by the entrance and stayed there motionless. Someone was standing in the doorway. Aissa crushed himself against the wall to allow him to pass, and beckoned a third time. I expected to see something extraordinary, but I was by no means prepared for the uncanny creature which actually entered. There was a pause, and then a huge black-masked figure, stooping his head to avoid the lintel, stepped over the threshold and stood for a moment grim and forbidding by the entrance. He was enormously tall. He towered literally head and shoulders over my little guide. From the crown of his head to his feet he was dressed, even in this country where everyone for the sake of coolness clothes himself in white, entirely in black. A pair of remarkably well-shaped hands and a few snaky-looking locks of black hair pro- A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 219 truding from above his head-coverings were the only portions of his person to be seen. His face was entirely concealed by a black mask consisting of a strip of black cotton wrapped twice round his head in such a manner that the edges of the two folds met over the bridge of his nose. A pair of loose black trousers concealed his legs, and a long black robe, worked over his chest in a sort of smocking, which reached down to below his knees and covered a body as supple and sinewy as a ferret's, completed his attire. A rosary hung round his neck, and a profusion of charms sewn up in leather packets and little talismans and amulets of metal and coloured glass covered his breast. His hands at once arrested my attention. They were white, whiter than many Sardinians and Italians that I have seen. I tried hard to catch a glimpse of his face through his mask, but was un- able to do so. The occasional glint of an eye between its folds was all that there was to be seen. In his hand was a slender eight-foot lance of iron. A huge broadsword hung from his shoulder by a black camel's-hair cord and banged against his thighs as he moved. A murderous-looking dagger, secured to his wrist by a leather ring, lay in its sheath along his left fore-arm with its cross-shaped hilt concealed in the palm of his hand. ' He's a Tawarek,' said Ai'ssa triumphantly, ' I found him wandering about in the town, so I brought him here for you to see.' He spoke about him exactly as though he had 220 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS been a wild beast that had somehow managed to stray into the haunts of men. ' I told you,' added Ai'ssa with a little laugh, ' that you would be surprised when you saw one.' I was. I knew of course that these men, like the Arabs when they fear the ' avenger of blood,' or are acting in that capacity themselves, were masked ; and I had heard too that they were much above the average of ordinary mortals in height ; but the reality when I saw it far exceeded anything that I had ever pictured from the accounts that I had heard. I signed to my visitor to approach. He did not at first respond to my invitation. He stood for a minute or two in the doorway, slightly raising with his long slender fingers the upper fold of his litham or mask, and casting quick furtive glances round him at my belongings. When our eyes met he dropped his mask immediately. He was without exception the most shifty-looking customer that I have ever seen. At length, having satisfied himself that there was nothing in my room more formidable than a kodak and a Gladstone bag, he came stealthily forward, and, at a word from Aissa, coiled up his long legs beneath him and squatted down on the ground by my bed. The man, in addition to his own language — Tamahak — spoke Arabic as well, so with Aissa to interpret, I found no difficulty in carrying on a con- versation. I asked him why he had hesitated to enter. He A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 221 answered, speaking with that slow musical intona- tion often heard among the desert tribes, but with a queer thick mumbling of his words which, muffled as they still further were by the folds of his mask, gave Aissa some little trouble in understanding them, that he had never been in a house before. "With the caution of a man whose life is spent in continual danger, he had evidently wished to inspect my room before he trusted himself inside it. With Aissa translating I began to ply him with questions, his answers always coming in the same slow mumbling voice in which he had first spoken. There were, he said, some half-dozen of their tents still pitched near Edemeetha. He laughed contemptuously at the suggestion that the Tawareks had been made uncomfortable on account of the recent raid of their fellows. He said that there had been no unpleasantness at all. The Tawareks who had been seen going south were the other half of the camp who had departed to their usual summer quarters, as the pasturage in the neighbourhood was not sufficient for their flocks. He himself expected to follow them with the remainder of the camp in a few days' time. I showed him the Tawarek sword which I had bought and requested him to give me his opinion upon it, and to explain the meaning of some lettering which appeared upon the blade. He said that the sword was of fair quality, but it had probably been made for a slave. The Tawareks, , he explained, had all extremely small hands, and as they always had the grip of their swords made to fit 222 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS exactly to their grasp, he could tell from the large size of the hilt that it had not been made for one of them. The word written on one side of the blade he said was ' Noser,' which he translated to mean ' May God give me courage ! ' That on the other side he said was ' Tablok.' The meaning of this word he did not know. He said that it was probably the name of the maker of the weapon. Aissa then began to question him, on my prompt- ing, as to the Saharan routes and wells. He illustrated his remarks by rough sketch maps drawn with his forefinger in the dust of the floor. He seemed to know the exact distance in days' journey from each well and oasis to the others, and had moreover apparently an accurate knowledge of the quality and quantity of water to be found in each well. Such and such wells, he explained, now contained a certain amount of water, but in a month or two, as the weather grew hotter, they would dry up. His knowledge of the desert appeared, too, to be up to date. At Bir el Gharama, for instance, which he described as a pool in the desert, he said that the water, though usually good, was at that time bad, as a dead camel had been floating in it all the winter. On the subject of Saharan geography he was clearly an expert. After remaining with us for some time he rose to take his leave. I told him that I intended to visit him in his camp on the following day. He bowed gravely on receiving this information, and replied A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 223 that he would be pleased to see me. He then picked up his iron lance from where it leant against the wall and stalked majestically from the room. We had at last succeeded in our search. But it yet remained to visit the Tawareks' camp, and to take those photographs of their faces which had been the main object of our journey. But though we had found these people I felt considerable doubt as to whether we should be able to induce them to unveil, for a Tawarek practically never removes his mask. He considers it grossly immodest to show his face even to members of his own family. He accordingly keeps it continually concealed by his litham. He lives in it, sleeps in it, and never even removes it while eating or drinking, he merely pulls it away from the lower part of his face, and passes the food or cup up to his mouth from beneath it. 224 A SEAECH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS CHAPTEE XVI The Tawareks may, roughly speaking, be said to hold, with the exception of the Twat depression and a strip of desert along the Atlantic coast, the whole of the Sahara from Timbuktu in the south right up to the southern boundary of Algeria, and to extend as far east as the western frontiers of Tripoli and Fezzan. The French lay claim to the whole of this immense region, and of late years have been poach- ing upon the Tawarek preserves, and, by establishing a few small outposts in the oases, have attempted to obtain some control over the trade routes and to protect them as far as possible from the attacks of these marauders. They will, there is little doubt, succeed in controlling the trade, but they have as yet no power to protect the routes, for though the French publishers may issue maps in which the Sahara is painted red to mark it as a French possession, this does not by any means constitute them the rulers of the country, and no greater mis- take can be made than to suppose that it is they who rule the Sahara. The Tawarek rules it. The French may obtain a precarious footing in some of the oases, but the open desert is, and probably will for many years A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 225 remain, to all intents and purposes the Tawarek's. He has a more intimate knowledge than the French of the geography of the Sahara, and though he ' paints it red ' in a less civilised way, for all that he rules the desert, and has hitherto regarded the French attempts to take his country from him with derision and contempt. He blackmails or waylays the Arab caravans, recklessly attacks the French military convoys, and does not care a battered flous for the little French expeditions that are sent out to chastise him. His methods, though primitive, are none the less effective. He raids and runs away, and so lives to raid another day. Mounted on his swift mehari, armed with his sword and iron lance, he is monarch of all he surveys. He rules the desert literally with a ' rod of iron.' Before considering the Tawareks themselves, it is necessary that the nature of the country in which they live should be realised in order that their habits and method of life may be clearly understood. The Tawarek country covers about a million and a half square miles ; yet in the whole of this vast area there are, it is estimated, less than three thousand acres of cultivated land. Perhaps the resources of this country may be increased in the future, for it is believed that in several districts artesian wells can be successfully sunk and fresh oases created ; but at present there are only some half-dozen commercial places in the whole Sahara to which the Tawareks resort. These are the centres from which the trade routes radiate, and the only markets for the Tawareks. They are Wargla and Timbuktu on the Q 226 A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS northern and southern edges of their territory, Ghat, Ghadames, Murzuk, and the Air district on their eastern border, and Insalah near the middle of the Sahara on the verge of the Twat depression. The rest of their country is desert in the strictest sense of the word — a desert in which a man might travel for a year without seeing a single tent or a single tree, and hardly a human being. At its best this is thinly covered with scrub, like the country we passed through on our road to Tougourt. But the greater part of it is composed of stony plains, where the traveller will often be unable to see more than a few small bushes or clumps of grass in a whole day's journey, or of bare rocky hills and mountains contorted into fantastic shapes, and scorched and blackened by the burning sun ; or, more deadly still for the traveller, of huge areas covered with sand-dunes — 'fields of death' the Tawareks call them — such as we had met with on the road to El Wad, where hardly a blade of grass or a leaf is to be seen. Yet appalling in its ghastly barrenness as this great desert is under normal conditions, after rain it springs to life in a marvellous manner, and a fall of only half an inch of water will, in a few days, cover huge tracts of it with a scanty herbage dotted here and there with brilliant flowers ; but it is rarely that such spots are found, for in many parts of the Sahara rain falls only once in twenty years. It is only in the Twat district and the Hoggar mountains, both lying a few days' march to the south of Wargla, that anything approaching to A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 227 fertility can be found. The Hoggar mountains rise in places to six thousand feet in height, and some of their peaks are said to be covered for three months in the year with snow. Our information as to this mountainous district is very scanty, for the Tawareks will not allow any strangers to visit their stronghold. But it is said that a veritable forest exists there, and that an occasional fertile patch is found in their valleys. Even here, however, on account of the rocky nature of the soil, it is rare, it seems, to find any ground that can be cultivated. These mountains appear to contain a considerable mineral wealth, for iron, lead, antimony, and even coal are said to be found among them, and alum, saltpetre, and natron are known to exist in considerable quantities. The last is much sought after by the Arabs, for it is used by them as a medicine, and also plays an important part in their dyes. Twat is much more fertile. As it is the home of a large population, and as it plays an important part in the life of the Sahara, and has recently been annexed by the French, it deserves a more detailed description. Twat is a name which is used in two distinct senses. It may either refer to a particular group of oases or to the whole of an immense depression in the Sahara, containing in all between three and four hundred small towns and villages, and including, besides the before-mentioned group, two others known as Gourara and Tidikelt. This great basin lies near the centre of the great belt of sand-dunes in which El Wad is also situated. Q 2 228 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS The oases in the Twat depression are frequently alluded to by the French writers as the ' Twat Archipelago.' The name is a most appropriate one, for these little islands of verdure lie dotted about in the desert exactly like a group of islets in the sea. Some of the oases are situated to the south of the belt of sandhills, but a great many of them are placed, like El Wad, among the dunes themselves. The country when covered by these dunes resembles nothing so much as a stormy sea, with billows per- haps three hundred feet from crest to trough, turned suddenly into sand. The likeness is almost perfect ; the sandhills represent the waves, and the hollows between them the troughs between the seas ; the wavelets even on the sides of the swell are repre- sented by similar markings on the slopes of the ridges. Nor is it here that the likeness ends, for, as before mentioned, these sand-dunes, like the waves of the sea, are perpetually, though imperceptibly, in motion, and a spot now covered by a dune may a generation hence be occupied by a hollow. It is a veritable sea of sand. The oases themselves seem to differ little from those which we ourselves visited, for an Arab coming from Twat, whom we met near Wargla, assured us that all those that he had seen were exactly similar to those to be found round El Wad and in the Wad Khir district. The only difference seems to be that the villages are, as a rule, more strongly fortified, some of the larger ksars, or fortified towns, having apparently walls sometimes thirty feet in height. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 229 The inhabitants of Twat are a very mixed race. The Sahara — and especially this particular district of it — has for centuries been the harbour of refuge to which all the defeated tribes, disaffected persons, and outlaws of the North of Africa have fled. It was into the Sahara that the Berbers are supposed to have driven the aboriginal race which they found in possession of Barbary ; it was into the Sahara that many of the Berbers, in their turn, retreated when the Komans, the Arabs, and other powerful peoples, took their country from them ; and it has been into the Sahara that most of the criminals and rebels of Algeria have, during the last fifty years, retreated from the justice of the French. Arabs from Morocco, Algeria, and elsewhere, have settled there for trade or other purposes. The ubiquitous merchants of the Mzab cities have set up their shops within its oases, and the members of the dif- ferent Sudanese tribes imported as slaves into the country have still further contributed to the mixture of races ; the Arab, the Berber, and the Sudanese elements are all largely represented in the country. Some of the races have, however, types so clearly marked that they are defined by distinctive names. The most important of these, from the point of view of the future development of the country, are the Harratin. These represent nearly one-third of the total population ; they are a vigorous, peaceable race, who, from their numbers and industrious character, must prove a valuable factor in the future development of the district. These Harratin and the Zenata, who are said to 230 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS be a degenerate race of Berbers, perhaps allied to the Rouara whom we found in the Wad Rhir district, form the greater part of the population of the ksars. The Arabs, who appear to own most of the property in the district, are to be found encamped in the midst of their flocks and herds in the surrounding deserts. The Harratin and Zenata of the oases act as their agents in the ksars and as the overseers and cultivators of their palm plantations. The Arabs are the most numerous of all the tribes of Twat. It is perhaps worthy of note that the Shereefs, or Arabs who claim descent from Fatimah, the daughter of the prophet Mohammed, look upon themselves in this district as a race apart from their brother Arabs. The only pure-blooded Berbers to be found here are the Mzab merchants and a few Tawareks of the Hoggar tribe, who, to the number of about two hundred, are usually temporarily resident in Insa- lah — the principal place of Twat. The latter can- not, strictly speaking, be counted among the inhabi- tants of the country at all, for they are confirmed nomads like all the rest of their race. But Insalah is their great centre for trade, and thither they bring — or rather brought, for the slave trade is now suppressed in Twat — their caravans of slaves and other Sudanese produce to exchange for cottons, dates, grain, firearms, powder, and the other few necessities of their simple life. They possess at Insalah a few warehouses and palm-groves which they confide to the care of their serfs, and occa- sionally it is necessary for them to pay this place a A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 231 visit ; but as soon as they have transacted their business they retire again to the desert whence they came. Besides the classes already enumerated there are the negro slaves who, it is estimated, number quite a sixth of the total population. Slavery is a servi- tude of varying degrees of severity, and these Saharan bondsmen are on a very different footing from the old plantation niggers of the West Indies and America. In the slave raids on the Sudan and during the terrible journey across the desert to Twat the most barbarous cruelties were, without doubt, frequently perpetrated upon them ; but as soon as they had reached Twat, and been sold to some pur- chaser, their lot was by no means an unpleasant one, for under the patriarchal family system of these desert tribes the slaves are admitted into the house- hold and become, to most intents and purposes, members of the family circle. They are well treated, fed, and clothed, and their life, in many ways, is a much easier and more comfortable one than it would be had they remained in the less-civilised country from which they were brought. Under the circum- stances, it can hardly be wondered that, with the happy, easy-going nature of the negro, they soon forget their own kin and country and settle down contentedly to their new life, and would not, even if they could, return to their former homes and existence. Before the arrival of the French there was no central government at all in the district. Each little Tisar, under its sheykh, if the population happened 232 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAKEKS to be of Arab descent, or its jema'a or council, if they happened to be Berbers, was a separate little state of itself, and though they occasionally banded together for the defence of their country against some common enemy, this association was only temporary, and as soon as the danger was past they reverted to their former independent position, and lived in a state of intermittent warfare with their neighbours and the nomadic tribes of the desert. The population, as a whole, was divided into two rival soffs or confederations — the Ihamed, in- cluding the inhabitants of Arab descent, and the Soffian, composed of the members of the different Berber tribes. This system of soj^s is a very ancient one in North Africa. Originally each soff consisted of a federation of tribes of the same origin for the defence of their tribal grazing-ground from the incursions of marauding nomads ; but by degrees their action became extended to the furtherance of any other interests which they might have in common. The rivalry and jealousy of these soffs was one of the principal causes of the perpetual anarchy that existed in Twat. Besides being divided into tribes and soffs, these people were nearly all members of some Moham- medan brotherhood. In most of these fraternities the political and religious are so closely connected that practically they may be regarded as political divisions, and as such have played a most important part in the past history of Twat. Some of these fraternities, if not actually in favour of the French occupation of their country, A SEAECH FOR TITE MASKED TAWAREKS 233 at all events took no active part in opposing it. The head of one of these sects — the Taibia — was the powerful Shereef of Wazan, who not only caused his son to be educated at the Lycee at Algiers, but was so friendly to the French that at one time he wished to become a naturalised French subject. Another neutral sect was the Kerzazia, one of whose objects is to protect the people of the ksars, from the attacks of the nomads of the desert, and who saw in the arrival of the French upon the scene the most effective means of accomplishing their object. But the most influential sects — the Welad Sidi Sheykh, the El Bakkay, and, above all, the Senoussia — opposed with all their power the ad- vance of the French into the Sahara. In annexing this territory there is no doubt that the French were as much influenced by the desire to reduce it to order, and so remove a standing menace to Algeria, as by the wish to add these oases to their other possessions in North Africa. Twat, however, apart from its strategic impor- tance, is of considerable value in itself. Gourara is estimated to contain a resident population of 75,000 inhabitants, and to be planted with 3,000,000 date- palms, Tidikelt to contain 25,000 inhabitants and 1,500,000 palms, while Twat itself is said to have 150,000 inhabitants and 3,500,000 palms. This gives an estimated total for the whole district of 250,000 inhabitants and 8,000,000 palms. The dates of Twat stand almost without rivals in the Sahara, and dates are not the only produce. Most of the plantations bear a triple crop. In the shade 234 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS of the palms are planted fruit-trees — figs, apricots, apples, quinces, pomegranates, peaches, and vines ; under these, again, are grown melons, tomatoes, carrots, cabbages, beans, onions, turnips, pumpkins, melons, cotton, tobacco, henna, lucerne, anise, madder, and senna. The last-named plant grows wild in several districts. A certain quantity of wheat, maize, and barley are also cultivated. Water is, perhaps, more plentiful in Twat than in any other part of the Sahara, for into this huge basin flows not only the slight rainfall from the surrounding desert and the Hoggar Mountains, but the waters of the Wad Saura, bringing down into this barren land part of the rainfall of the Atlas Mountains. This, like all Saharan rivers, is a sub- terranean stream ; but by sinking wells into the water-bearing stratum its waters can without diffi- culty be raised to the surface. There seems, too, to be good reason to suppose that artesian wells can be successfully sunk throughout the greater part of this already productive territory. The French have shown in the oases which by this means they have created in the Wad Ehir that, when sufficiently irrigated, the soil of the Sahara is of extraordinary fertility. If an abundant supply of water can be obtained by this means in Twat, its productiveness may be increased almost indefinitely, and it will probably in time become one of the greatest date-producing countries in the world. The great difficulty which the French will have to cope with in developing the country is the lack of A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 235 workers. The oases of Twat, owing to the continual state of warfare among the inhabitants and the un- healthiness of the chmate, have for many years been in a decaying condition. Whenever one of the ksars was captured, its fortifications were rased to the ground, and the village was sacked by its captors. Its inhabitants, in order to save their lives, were compelled to fly Some took refuge in friendly ksars, but others preferred to leave the district altogether, and migrated to Tripoli, Marocco, Algeria, or the Sudan. Many, too, of the Harratin and Zenata, owing to the miserable condition in which they were living as servants to the wealthier inhabi- tants, have migrated of their own accord, finding themselves unable to procure a living in their old homes, and thus large numbers of the most useful class have been lost to the community. It is esti- mated that of recent years the number of emigrants from Twat has averaged nearly a thousand per annum, and this, when added to the mortality due to the climate and the number of men yearly killed in the inter-tribal fights, has caused a very serious drain upon the population. The result of this gradual depopulation of the country has been that some of the Jcsars have been wholly abandoned, and that in almost all of them a large percentage of the houses have fallen into ruins. This in itself is not a very important matter, as a few months would be sufficient to rebuild them. A much more serious aspect of the case is the de- structive effect which the lack of workers has had upon the palm-groves, for those of the oases which 236 A SEAKCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS are planted among the dunes if left uncultivated are totally destroyed by the sand in a very short time. How is this lack of population to be remedied ? It has been proposed that the Government should take over the deserted houses and gardens, and should offer them as free grants to the time-expired native troops ; but it is doubtful whether this offer would be readily accepted. The majority of the tirailleurs indigdnes are of Kabyle origin, and they, like most mountain races, are too much devoted to their native hills to be willing to settle elsewhere. The Spahis, or native cavalry, are nearly all re- cruited from the land-owning stock, who naturally wish to end their days in their hereditary homes in the midst of their tribe. The sedentary Arab, too, has an aversion to the Sahara, and a saying is current among them that * no one lives in the Sahara if he can live elsewhere.' A more practical suggestion is that these deserted holdings should be offered to their former occupants as an inducement for them to return. The majority of these emigrants belong to the poorer classes, who, owning no property of their own, were compelled to gain their living by working for others, and would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity for ac- quiring a few palms of their own by which to support themselves and their families. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of Twat to the State aspiring to be the paramount power in North-West Africa, for not onlj^ is it an important market for European manufacturers and A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 237 the chief entrepot for the desert trade, but its posses- sion carries with it the control of nearly all the caravan routes of the Western Sahara. Twat lies near the centre of the Sahara, and so forms a con- venient resting-place for the merchants engaged in the trans-Saharan trade. The great belt of sand- dunes in vi^hich it is situated crosses the desert from east to Yfe^i, and must be traversed by every caravan bringing goods from the Sudan to the Barbary States, or vice versa. Two rivers only — the Wad Saura to the west and the Wad Igharghar to the east —traverse entirely this belt of dunes. The Wad Saura, formed by the junction near Igli of the Wad Zusfana with the Wad Ghir, flows across the sand- belt down the western side of Twat, until it loses itself in the desert sands beyond. To this great stream the Twat oases owe their importance, and to a large extent their very exist- ence, for not only does it bring down a very large part of the water which fertilises and renders habit- able the desert in which they are placed, but its valley forms an easy natural highway, plentifully supplied with wells, through the dunes by which they are surrounded. Anyone who has ever travelled in the sand-dune districts of the Sahara knows the enormous strain which the continual climbing and descending over the alternate ridges and hollows of such a country imposes upon the heavily-laden camels of a caravan, and will easily understand that the majority of those crossing the Sahara readily avail themselves of this easy road for conducting their camels, already partly exhausted by a lengthy 238 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS journey across the desert, over this most difficult country. The presence of this Wad Saura has caused Twat to become the point of concentration for most of the principal trade routes that cross the Sahara. Caravan routes from Twat consequently stretch in all directions — to Marocco, Algeria, Tunis, Tripoli, Fezzan, Air, Gando, Socoto, Bornu, Timbuktu, Senegal, and to all parts of the Western Sudan. Owing to the recent French occupation of Twat the trade is in a process of transformation, and so must be spoken of as a thing of the past. How much of the merchandise brought by these routes into the country formerly passed through on its way to Marocco, Tripoli, the Sudan, or elsewhere, it is impossible to say, but probably a great part of it changed hands in the district. The trade was carried on almost entirely by barter ; the goods from Marocco and the north — the grain, oil, European goods, firearms, and ammuni- tion — were exchanged for the commodities coming from the south — for gold, ivory, ox hides, lion and panther skins, ostrich feathers, rhinoceros horns, spices, bowls and other utensils manufactured of wood, slaves, and bekhour (a costly sickly perfume of which the Arabs are inordinately fond). It is impossible to get any reliable estimate of the quantities in which the articles of this traffic were brought into the country. The trade appears to have been a rich one, but the presence of such costly merchandise as slaves, gold, ivory, and ostrich plumes in the list of commodities indues it at first A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 239 sight with an Oriental splendour which an accurate knowledge of the quantities in which the goods were actually imported might perhaps to some extent dispel. Probably the gold and the 1,200 slaves who are said to have been yearly brought to Twat repre- sented more than half the value of the entire import. A considerable quantity of gold, however, seems to have passed through the country, Duveyrier states that as much as five camel-loads of this metal was sometimes brought by a single caravan along the route from Insalah to Ghadames, and he esti- mates the total value of the gold which traversed this road alone at over three and a quarter million francs per annum. This route, however, on account of the security which it enjoyed owing to its being under the protection of the marabouts of the zawla of Temassinin, who are a branch of the powerful Tijani order, whose principal monastery we visited at Tamelath, was the favourite one adopted by merchants journeying from Timbuktu and the neigh- bouring States to Tripoli, and so probably carried more merchandise than any other. It is not easy to determine what the effect of the French occupation will be upon the Saharan trade. One thing is certain — the routes between Marocco and the Sudan which are not already within the power of the French will very shortly become so, and what traffic in future traverses the Sahara will be entirely diverted into Algeria and Tunis, It is difficult to over-estimate the political importance of this fact. There exist still a few little-used routes to the west of the present French position in Twat, 240 A SEAECH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS by which occasionally caravans reach Marocco from the Sudan, but they are not very suitable ones for the trade ; the dangerous character of the Tawareks and other desert tribes renders the merchants ex- tremely unwilling to travel across the desert in small parties. The trans-Saharan caravans conse- quently consist of hundreds and even thousands of camels. The camel is a wonderfully enduring beast, but neither he nor his almost equally enduring master is capable of crossing the Sahara without an occasional rest of several days' duration. A camel can no more do without water than a human being, and the common idea that he drinks very little is entirely erroneous. He is a large beast, and the quantity of water that he consumes is in proportion to his bulk. He possesses, however, in common with some other desert animals, the faculty of absorbing at one draught a sufficient supply of water to last him for several days ; but the quantity that he imbibes in that draught is enormous. With a large caravan, therefore, a halt can only be made in an oasis or at a well where a correspondingly large supply of water is attainable, and from what can be gathered of the nature of these western routes they seem to be unprovided with such suitable halting-places. In any case, as most of them lie within the French sphere of influence as defined by the agreement with England of August 5, 1890, there is little doubt they will before long share the fate of Twat, and pass under the French control. It is probable, however, that before long the A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 241 Trans- Saharan trade will be to a great extent abandoned. Hitherto the disturbed condition of the Sudanese States has prevented merchandise from being brought to the coast towns of the Gulf of Guinea ; but these states are now being reduced to order, and probably, when the proposed new routes by river and rail have been opened through them to the sea, an entire revolution in the trade will follow, for transportation by steamer and rail- way cannot fail to be cheaper, quicker, and safer than the slow and dangerous method of camel portage across the Sahara. The greater security of the routes in Senegal, caused by the French occupa- tion of that country, has already induced some of the more cautious merchants to adopt those roads to bring their goods to a market, and many others will follow their lead in favour of the new facilities afforded for bringing their goods to the coast. As soon as the French have become firmly established in the Sahara, transport in that region will, of course, become less risky. But owing to their enormous length, and the deserted nature of the country through which they pass, the Saharan roads, however well they may be policed, must always be liable to the attacks of such active and well-mounted marauders as the Tawareks, and a cautious race like the merchants engaged in this trade may well be expected to hesitate before trusting their goods upon them when they can reach a market to their south by much safer and probably cheaper means. The abolition of the slave traffic, too, has been a B 242 A SEAECH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS severe blow to the Trans-Saharan trade, for not only M'ere these negroes valuable commodities in themselves, but they were extremely useful as beasts of burden to take the place of the numerous camels which died on every journey across the Sahara. If only for strategic reasons, the French are certain before long to continue their railway, which runs along the Marocco border, as far as Twat, and so to bring a European market into the centre of the Sahara. Probably a certain amount of goods, especially those of high value in proportion to their bulk and weight, will continue to reach Twat from the Sudan, and so find their way into the Barbary States, but the bulk of the produce of the Sudan that in former days would have crossed the Sahara is almost certain, when the new routes have been opened, to go southward by steamer and railway to the coast. The right of the French to annex Twat has been somewhat questioned, and as their action in doing so very nearly led to a war between them and Marocco, some account of the events which led to this move on their part may be of interest. The treaty of March 18, 1845, between France and Marocco, which fixed the boundaries of the two States after the French conquest of Algeria, con- tains no clause relating to Twat. The value which this district might have in the future for France for the development of her colonies and the con- solidation of her African dominions did not until long after the conclusion of this treaty suggest A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 243 itself to the French diplomatists, and the omission to include this district in the terms of the treaty left matters in a rather unsatisfactory condition. The French maintain that Twat has never been an integral part of Marocco. It is not easy to estimate the exact relationship that has existed in the past between Twat and the Sultans of that State. The subject is an intricate one, made all the more complex by the difficulty of obtaining accurate information as to the past history of such an uncivilised and remote part of the world. The Sultans of Marocco have in 1315, in 1540, in 1588, in 1667, and even so recently as in 1808, sent expeditions into the Sahara, and occupied this district to some extent. Probably, as is usual in similar cases in the refractory districts of Marocco, some tribute was collected, a few individuals were beheaded, and then the expedition returned whence it had come, and, as soon as it had gone, the inhabitants returned to their normal condition of internal strife and general anarchy, and paid no tribute or acknowledged in any way the authority of Marocco until the next visitation occurred. While after the massacre of the Flatters expedi- tion the Tawareks were applying for aid from Tripoli, Abd-el-Kader, the head in Twat of the Senoussia sect, and one of the principal agents of the loss of the expedition, was endeavouring, in order to protect himself, to persuade the Sultan of Marocco to formally annex Twat to his dominions. He appears at first to have met with no response to his letters. But when, in 1882, the French, by B 2 244 A SEAECH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS taking possession of the Mzab cities, advanced in his direction, and so renewed his fears, he made a second attempt to place himself under the protection of Marocco : this time he must have met with more success, for in 1884 he commenced to describe himself, in his letters to the French, as a ' subject of the Emperor of Marocco,' and the same attitude was taken up by the inhabitants of many oases in Twat. Before the prestige of the French could be restored after the massacre of the Flatters expedi- tion, a second catastrophe occurred to lower still further their reputation throughout the Sahara. In 1885 Lieutenant Pallat, a j^oung French officer, set out with a small caravan on a journey of exploration into the desert. He reached Tabelkosa, in the northern part of Gourara, without encounter- ing any difficulties. Here, however, he was detained and deprived by various means of his horse, his weapons, and most of his money. His body servant was taken from him and sold as a slave. The inhabitants then finding that nothing further was to be got from him, and not wishing that the blame of his murder should attach to themselves, found him guides to conduct him, as they said, to Tim- buktu. Pallat foolishly availed himself of what he evidently considered to be a unique opportunity, and set out to cross the Sahara. A few days after- wards he was murdered by his guide in the open desert. Abd-el-Kader disclaimed all part in this affair. He collected a few articles belonging to tl^e un- A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 245 fortunate officer and sent them to the French with many assertions of his innocence, and a calm request that they would recompense him for some camels and a slave which had been stolen from him by some Algerian Arabs. But, in spite of his denial, the indisputable fact remains that the man who committed the actual murder was Abd-el-Kader's own nephew — Ahmed — and there can be no doubt that the Senoussia sect were, as in the case of the massacre of the Flatters expedition, the prime movers in the plot. The Twat depression had been, as before, the nest wherein the intrigue against the French had been hatched, and it became necessary, for the restoration of their prestige and the safety of their southern borders, that the wrongdoers in this district should be punished. An almost immediate advance was made in its direction. El Golea was occupied, and three advance posts — Fort MacMahon, Fort Miribel, and Fort Inifel — were pushed out almost to the borders of the Twat depression. This fresh advance of the French caused con- siderable alarm in Twat. The inhabitants became dissatisfied with their state of semi-allegiance to Marocco, and, in order to put matters on a more definite footing, sent letters to the Sultan from all parts of the country, in which they declared them- selves to be his subjects, and requested him to appoint officers to act in his name in the principal places throughout the district. This appeal met with a definite response, and shortly afterwards a profusion of letters, written in 246 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS the name of the Sultan to all the principal men and villages, arrived in response. Some of these letters, by means of a spy in the employ of the French, came to the hands of the authorities in Algeria. The general purport of all these documents was practically the same. They are too long, and in parts too irrelevant, to be quoted in extenso, but the following extracts from one of them will be sufficient to show the tenour of them all : — ' To our well-beloved servants of the jema'a (council) of Timimoun, a ksar of Twat, shereefs, maraboids and others, and more especially to that virtuous man, whom God assist, to Sheykh Moham- med es Salem ben El Haj Mohammed Abd er Rahman. . . . We have received your letter. It shows that you have drunk of the abundant and fruitful springs of obedience and duty, and that you have chosen the good rule and have entered into the right way. You say that that which has reached us as to the submission of Twat to the French Govern- ment is false, and you protest against this imputa- tion. You assert on the contrary that Twat belongs to us, and that it is necessary that we should assert our authority over this country by occupying it. . . . ' Your letter is a precursor announcing the arrival of all your notabilities to our Majesty exalted before God — an embassy charged with obtaining our consent and provided with those excellent recom- mendations by which the slave obtains the goodwill of his master. ' As for being under our protection and forming A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 247 an integral part of the Empire of Marocco, that is indisputable ; the primary truths cannot be ques- tioned by anyone, and there is no need of proofs to establish them. You say that Twat belongs to us. Certainly it belongs to us. You are our subjects and are counted among those confided to our care. As such you have rights and duties as regards us, and we have them as regards you. You are ours and you are our servants, as you have been from generation to generation those of our ancestors. . . . ' You propose that I should appoint among you, or that you should appoint for me, a Khalifa in order that the authority of the jemaa should be centralised in the hands of one man who sheds the perfume of submission. Choose then him whom you agree upon ; if you prefer to be under the Amel of Tafilalet or of that of Oujda, decide the question among yourselves and enter into a definite engage- ment. . . . 'The 17 Shawwal, 1303 (July 19, 1886).' The discovery of these letters created such a sensation in Algeria that the French Minister at Tangier was instructed by his Government to demand an explanation from the Sultan. After some negotiation he succeeded in extracting the following curious repudiation, which the Sultan caused to be written by his Secretary for Foreign Affairs : — ' We have received your letter in which you tell us that the peoples of the Sahara, such as the Tawareks and others, moved as they are by the 248 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS jealousy which the friendly relations existing be- tween our two Governments have inspired in them, wish to bring discord into those regions, and that in order to do so, they have mendaciously circulated the report that the tribes of the Sahara have had audience of the Sultan and have brought back a letter from his Majesty, copies of which, published among the population of the Sahara, are read every- where, to such an extent that some of them have reached the hands of the Governor of Algeria, who has sent us the one which you enclosed in your letter. You add that you immediately wrote to your Government that this letter, as calculated to destroy the friendly ties existing between your Government and the Sultan, appeared to you to be apocryphal. * I went to the Sultan armed with your letter and with the copy which it enclosed. His Majesty, after having turned his attention to the facts exposed by you, directed me to reply to you that this letter is absolutely false, and that neither in the writing nor in the manner of expression does it conform to the established custom of the Sultan. The date is written in Indian characters, and never is a docu- ment emanating from his Shereefian Majesty dated otherwise than in Arab figures. ' During the month of Shawwal, which is the date placed upon this letter, the Sultan was in the most remote part of Sus. '21 Eabi'u'l Awwal, 1304 (December 18, 1886). (Signed) ' Mefaddal Gamit.' On the Sultan being asked whether he had come A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 249 to any agreement with the inhabitants of Twat, he gave an evasive reply, merely stating that he had never had any dealings with the Tawareks. The matter was then allowed to drop ; but the French from that time completely ignored Marocco's claim to Twat. Considerable pressure must have been put upon the Sultan to force him to repudiate these letters. The French themselves beheve them to have been authentic. There is no doubt that they were so, for, in spite of the Sultan's disclaimer, the deputation mentioned in them left Twat in June 1887, and arrived at Mekinez about the middle of the following August, and the twenty male and fifteen female slaves, which it brought as presents to the Sultan, irresistibly suggest * the excellent recommendations by which the slave was to obtain the goodwill of his master,' which are mentioned in these ' apocry- phal ' letters. For some time after this episode the French took no further steps towards the occupation of Twat. The Sultan in the meantime asserted his right, in spite of his disclaimer and the continued representa- tions of the French, to appoint governors in the district. The local head of the Senoussia was given the sheykhdom of Insalah, and pashas were ap- pointed to Timimoun and Timmi. The agents of Marocco continually impressed upon the inhabitants of the Sahara the danger of allowing themselves to be conquered by the infidels, and circulated reports among them of the barbarity of the French towards their Moslem subjects. The influence of Marocco 250 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS thus rapidly increased throughout the desert, and the inhabitants, ignorant of the real power of France, firmly believed that the Sultan was pre- paring a huge army and intended to attack Algeria and drive the French from the North of Africa. In the beginning of the year 1893 rumours of a French expedition, on a large scale, into the Sahara began to reach Marocco. The Sultan, in response, took a journey to Tafilet and into the south of his dominions. The policy of the French with regard to Twat has always been pursued in a vacillating and half- hearted manner. This move of the Sultan checked for a time their advance, and allowed him so to strengthen his position in the country that when, in the winter of 1900, the French at length arrived upon the scene, one of his officials, Ed Driss ben Naimi — the Pasha of Timmi — considered his power sufficiently established for him to send the ulti- matum, of which we had heard while at Tougom-t, to an officer commanding some reinforcements coming from Algeria, giving him twenty-four hours in which to leave the territory of his master. It is needless to state that this ultimatum was disregarded, and the French, after a few fights with the Tawareks and the inhabitants of the ksars, even- tually took possession of the entire country. A few of the Sultan's ' subjects ' and officials were killed, that, of course, was unavoidable; but the Sultan seems to have taken this in very good part, and, finding that the ultimatum that had been sent had no effect in deterring the French, made no further A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 251 serious attempt to oppose them. In taking this course there is no doubt that he was well advised, and, as M. Waldeck-Eousseau patron isingly re- marked in a speech which he made on the subject in the French Chamber, that he ' gave proof of considerable wisdom ' in the matter ! If this young Sultan continues to give these signs of his precocious wisdom, Marocco as an inde- pendent state will probably cease very shortly to exist. The French, by their agreement with the Sultan, have secured the right to enter his country ' to arrest criminals.' Neither party to this agree- ment seems to have considered it necessary to limit the number of troops that may be sent for this purpose, the distance beyond the frontier that they are to be permitted to go, or the length of time that they are to be allowed to stay in the country. These Moorish criminals, when fleeing from justice, sometimes travel enormous distances and are very hard to catch. The French might find it necessary to stay with a large army for years in the country to arrest an unusually slippery customer, especially if he hid himself in Marocco city or Fez ! 252 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS CHAPTEB XVII The Tawareks are a Berber race. This is evident from the fact that their language, in its various dialects, is nearly related to the^«^oi5 spoken by the Kabyles, Eiffs, and other Berber tribes, and that they call themselves Imoshagh — the ' noble people ' — the name being merely another form of Amazigh, Mazigh, Masix, and Maxys, as it is variously pronounced by other Berber races. As a whole these people are divided into five main tribes, or rather confederations of tribes — the Askar, living in the deserts about Ghat and Ghadames ; the Kelowi, dwelling round Air ; the Hoggar, in the mountains of that name and in the centre of the Sahara ; the Awelimmiden, living in the desert to the north and east of Timbuktu ; and the Arrerf Ahnet, a recently formed section split off from the Hoggar tribe and domiciled in the Adrar Ahnet region to the west of them. Formerly the Hoggar and Askar tribes were both ruled over by one amanokal, or sultan, who belonged to the Imanan family. This family was a very influential one, being not only of noble descent among the Tawareks, but also sliereefs or descendants of the prophet Mohammed, and so members of the religious aristocracy of the country as well. A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 253 Some two hundred and fifty years ago, however, the reigning sultan became so overbearing towards his subjects that they revolted and declared them- selves independent. The sultans entirely lost their temporal power over the two tribes, but their rank of shereefs causes them to be still treated with considerable respect and gives them a certain influence among the more religious of their former subjects. But, powerless though they now are, they still, with the aid of a small fraction of the Askar tribe who have remained faithful to them, keep up a parody of their former state in a manner that recalls the comic incidents of one of Mr, Gilbert's operas. These Tawarek sultans have adopted a sedentary life, residing usually in the oasis of Ghat. They have somehow managed to retain possession of their ancestral drum which in their palmier days was the symbol of their sovereignty, and now whenever one of these dummy kings perambulates the town he is preceded by his hereditary drummer, announcing by the thunder of his instrument to all whom it may concern that his majesty is taking his constitutional walk ! Each of the two tribes formerly under the rule of this sultan is now ruled over by an aristocracy of nobles presided over by an hereditary amghar or king. The rights of these kings are entirely un- defined, and as they are little more than chairmen of the tribal councils, their authority depends mainly upon their personal influence and the number of men that the holder of the title for the time being is able to put into the field. 254 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS This amgliar is, in theory, elected, and, if necessary, dismissed by popular vote, but practically the chieftaincy, and, in fact, nearly all property among the Tawareks, descends, in accordance with the rules of a curious law of heredity, almost in- variably from one member of the ruling family to another. The Tawareks trace their descent through the female line. On the death therefore of a chief the office goes, with the approval of the people, to the eldest son of his eldest sister. In no case does it go to any of his sons. Mohammedanism is nominally the religion of the Tawareks. But their faith in the jinns and other spirits of the Moslem world is so strong as almost to eclipse the idea of the supreme Allah — they might almost be called devil- worshippers. The Arabs say that the Tawareks have no religion at all. They profess, however, to adhere to the Malekite section of the Sunnis. Senoussism, as has already been stated, claims a very large number of adherents among them. Their prayers, when they ■ say them, are said in Arabic. The only time we saw a Tawarek praying, Aissa, who, though very slack in his own religious observances, was very much down in any slackness in others, declared in great disgust that he was going through the prostra- tions and flexions which play such an important part in the Moslem ritual all wrong, and suggested to me that he should turn mar about for the occasion and give that ungodly Tawarek a lesson in saying his prayers 'i !i A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 255 A few of them perform, by way of Tripoli, the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, adopting on their return the title of Haj or pilgrim. But these pilgrims are very rare among them, for as a rule they are either too poor or too indifferent upon the subject to incur the expense which this pilgrimage entails. The fierce fanaticism with which they are usually credited takes more the form of intense hatred of infidels than of any very strict adherence to the rules of their religion. Except in the big oases and in the Zawia of Temassanin there are no mosques in the ordinary acceptation of the word in the Sahara. The mosques to be found there are merely small stone enclosures a few inches in height, with a niche at one end to indicate the direction of Mecca. They are usually erected where some marabout has died or performed some important act during his life. Though there are no mosques among the Tawareks there exist a few zaivias. But these desert monasteries, with the exception of that at Temassanin, are not by any means of the elaborately built and highly decorated type to be found in Algeria. The zawias of the Sahara are huge camps consisting of perhaps twenty or more large tents pitched all round the circumference of a circle. Here, when at home, the marabout, surrounded by his followers, holds his court, moving his monastery from place to place to meet the requirements of the flocks of sheep and goats and herds of camels upon which the inmates of the tents largely depend for food. In these Saharan monasteries many of the 256 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS children of the upper classes among the Tawareks receive their training. The marabouts attached to them are chiefly recruited from the members of one of the Tawarek tribes who almost to a man live a life devoted to their religion. These men play a most important part in the life of the desert. They are more like missionaries than monks. Unlike the Arab mara- bouts, who can always be found in their zawias by those who wish to consult them, the Tawarek missionaries are obliged to seek their flock in the hidden recesses of the desert. The monastery is only the centre from which they start to visit the different camps. A rich Tawarek will frequently add one of these men to his etitourage as a private tutor for his family. The marabout lives at his employer's expense, accompanying his camp in its migrations from place to place, employing his time in instructing the children and women. He teaches them reading and writing, the Koran and Moslem law. He instructs them in the traditional history of their race and country, in geography as far as he understands it, and in botany, astronomy, and in making elementary calculations on the beads of their rosaries. He may perhaps teach them as well some Sudanese language, and to speak and perhaps to write in Arabic in addition. A great many members of this race speak Arabic fluentlj^, and a considerable percentage of them can read and write it. As Arabic is written in entirely different characters, and in quite a different way from Tamahak, this shows a A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 257 surprisingly high standard of education for a nomadic race, for Arabic must be as difficult to a young Tawarek as Greek to an English schoolboy. Intimately acquainted as the Tawareks are with their own country, they know practically nothing of the world which lies beyond the continent of Africa. They know, however, that England is a small island, where, so my Tawarek visitor gravely informed me, the inhabitants live upon fish and spend a large part of their time either in the water or in boats. I think he was rather surprised, when he saw me, to find that I was not web-handed and did not wear scales. France, Germany, Turkey, Arabia, and India, he had also heard of ; but there his knowledge ended. He had, however, a vague idea that the rest of the world was water. But if the information of the Tawareks in history and geography is limited, their knowledge of botany and astronomy is encyclopedical, and of course a necessity owing to their method of life. They know the name and use of every plant in the Sahara, and can tell at a glance if it is safe for their beasts to eat. Their nomadic life, during the course of which they travel much by night on account of the coolness, has compelled them to study the heavens, and they know, and, curiously, in many cases call by the same name as ourselves, all the constellations and principal stars. Nor is this all that the marabouts teach, for they are the doctors and medical instructors of the whole community, and during their stay in a camp nurse and prescribe for every case of sickness. The office of doctor, however, must be rather a S 258 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS sinecure, for these nomads are a wonderfully long- lived race. The most fatal disease in the Sahara is the sword, * Unless a man is killed,' the Arabs say, ' he lives for ever in the desert.' Our Tawarek visitor at Gomar told us that Ikhenoukhen, the late head of the Askar tribe, who had just then died, was nearly a hundred years old, but added that there were several members of his tribe who were older even than that. Duvejrier met a man who was said to be nearly a hundred and fifty years of age ! The climate of the Sahara, on account of the dryness and purity of the air, is one of the healthiest in the world. But though the climate is healthy enough, the life that the Tawareks lead is sometimes very trying indeed ; for occasionally they are com- pelled to pass within the space of a few weeks from the dry cold of the Hoggar mountains in winter to the damp heat and enervating atmosphere of the Sudan, and back again, and the thin cotton clothing which they wear is most unsuitable for such extremes. They live too in a state of almost chronic starva- tion when not resident in a camp ; even then their camels and other beasts are only killed for food on rare occasions. When on a journey it is no unusual thing for a Tawarek to spend two or three days without any food or water at all. ' Locusts and wild honey ' form regular articles of his menu, and in fact are regarded by him as almost luxuries. A swarm of locusts, so dreaded by the settlers of Algeria, is hailed by the members of this frugal race as a Godsend, A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 259 Enormous swarms of these insects are occasionally met with in the Sahara and Algeria. Incredible as it may seem, a big flight of locusts will sometimes cause the greatest inconvenience to the railway officials. A train in which I once was travelling from Algiers to Constantine was actually stopped by a flight of these insects. The locusts had settled in millions on the ground, and the wheels of the engine, from continually crushing the bodies of those that had alighted upon the rails, had become so greasy that on reaching a slight incline they ceased to have any hold at all upon the metals. The whole train consequently gradually slowed down until it came to a standstill, and after a slight pause glided slowly back again on to the level behind it. It was not until all the passengers had alighted from the train, and the rails had been well sanded all up the incline, that it succeeded in reaching the top of it. Locusts are by no means to be despised as food at a pinch. When boiled in oil and salted they taste not unlike a rather insipid prawn. To judge, however, from the results of a lunch, which, by way of experiment, I once made off them, they are not very well adapted to the European constitution. When even these luxuries fail the Tawareks are sometimes reduced to living upon the seeds of the desert grasses, the aquatic grubs and worms to be found in the salt lakes, or the honey-like resin that exudes from some of the Saharan trees. It is a hardy race that can thrive upon such rations as these. Besides being the schoolmasters and doctors of s3 260 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS the desert the marabouts are in continual request in their spiritual capacity. If a marriage is to be celebrated a marabout is usually sent for from the nearest monastery, though this may be three or four hundred miles away, to officiate at the ceremony. If there is a quarrel to be patched up, which is too serious for the head of the family to negotiate, the ubiquitous marabout is again in request, for these men are the professional peacemakers and, to some extent, the judges of the community. In the role of peacemakers the marabouts take sometimes enormous journeys, and a big saint will sometimes travel a thousand miles to try and settle an important tribal dispute. They even occa- sionally act as mediators between the Tawareks and other races and nations. Othman-ben-el-Haj-el- Bekri-ben-el - Haj-el - Fakki- ben-Mohammed-Bouya- ben-Si - Mohammed - ben - si-Ahmed- es- Souki- ben- Mahmoud, or Sheykh Othman, as he was usually, and perhaps more conveniently, called, even went as far as Paris to try and bring about an understanding between the Tawareks and the French. The Tawareks, though a most warlike race, are greatly adverse to bloodshed among themselves, and always avoid it if possible. If a marabout, when called in to do so, fails to bring about an under- standing between the contending parties, resource is usually had to a mia'ad, or palaver, in order, if possible, to settle the disputed point. The Tawareks, on account of the huge meal with which they commence and terminate, are very par- tial to these palavers. These meals play no small A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 261 part in ^bringing the parties to an understanding, for these hungry Tawareks have a saying that ' When the belly is satisfied the head is inclined to be satisfied too.' In arranging beforehand the details of a 11110" ad the greatest precautions are taken by each side to ensure that neither party shall have any advantage in the event of the discussion ending, as not unfre- quently happens, in hostilities. The exact number of armed men which each side is to be allowed to bring to the debate is fixed, and then after much discussion the spot upon which it is to be held is decided upon. The first day of the meeting is entirely taken up in consuming an enormous meal and in an exchange of the most fulsome compliments between the two sides. On the second day the actual palaver commences. The debaters squat on the ground in parallel rows, with their swords beside them and their spears stuck upright in the ground behind. In their rear are seated those of their party who are to take no part in the verbal discussion, and who are only present to see fair play for their side. Each black-masked orator gives his opinion on the subject of discussion with the utmost solemnity and deliberation. He is heard in dead silence, broken only by an occasional muttered invocation to Allah to keep off the devil and his evil counsels, responded to by a murmured ' Amen ' from the re- mainder of the crowd. If the debate ends amicably the proceedings 262 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS terminate in another enormous feast, and a pile of stones is erected to commemorate the happy result. If not, the party who can spring to their feet the more quickly and gain possession of their weapons first usually wins the day, though sometimes the two sides will agree to each select a champion to meet in single combat, and allow the matter to be decided by the issue. The marabouts derive a considerable part of their income from the sale of amulets and charms. These, to judge from one that I bought from a Tawarek, consist of a piece of paper covered with texts from the Koran, with a margin of cabalistic signs, sewn up in a flat leather packet, which is hung by a cord of plaited leather round the neck. The Tawareks, who are very superstitious, sometimes wear seven or eight of these charms. When dealing with natives who have seldom or never come in contact with Europeans it is always as well to remember that they have in many cases a profound superstitious dread of 'white man's magic' It is probably this fear on their part that has been the motive that led to many of the unaccountable murders of European travellers. Few natives, unless prompted by fanaticism or greed, will resort to murder unprovoked. A white man, however, when dealing with one of these races, with whose customs and superstitions he is unacquainted, will sometimes in his ignorance do some trivial act which may be construed by them into an attempt to cast a spell over some member of the race, who, in order to prevent the spell from having effect, will A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 263 take the opportunity when his visitor is off his guard to stab or spear him in the back. Dead men cast no spells. Socially the Tawareks are divided into five classes — the Ihaggaren or nobles, the iiiarahouts, the Imghad or serfs, the Iradjenaten or cross-breeds, and the slaves. The nobles are all pure-blooded Tawareks, belonging to those families that have been strong enough to retain their independence. It is from this class that the chiefs are invariably chosen. They are not often to be found in their tents, for they spend a great part of their time in the saddle, acting as guides and guardians to those caravans which have paid to their tribe blackmail for protection in order to pass safely through their territory, or else in patrolling their tribal district in order to protect their routes and guard their flocks and camps from the attacks of their enemies. At other times they make flying raids upon the rival trade routes with the double object of capturing a caravan using them under the protection of some other tribe and rendering them so insecure that the merchants in future adopt their routes in preference to those belonging to their rivals. Occasionally they will go still farther afield in search of loot, and make a raid upon the Arabs lying outside their own territory ; before the French occupation they some- times carried their forays into the very heart of Algeria and Tunis. Two of the Tunisian tribes for a long time paid a yearly sum to them to ensure that they should not be molested. 26 i A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS When absent from his camp a Tawarek confides the care of his family and belongings to his neigh- bour, who regards it as a point of honour to defend them as though they were his own. Each tribe claims the monopoly of deriving what benefit it can from the routes that traverse its territory. Besides levying blackmail upon all mer- chandise that passes through its country, it claims the exclusive right of hiring what camels may be necessary to the merchants using the roads that belong to it. The Tawareks own a considerable quantity of live stock. Besides herds of camels, goats, and sheep of a peculiar leggy black-and-white variety, usually furnished with four horns, they have a few humped oxen which they use as beasts of burden, a breed of very fine asses, and a few small but excellent horses. Being largely dependent upon their flocks and herds for their livelihood, their life is mainly regu- lated by the requirements of their beasts, and their camps are continually changed in order to find the necessary food and water for their consumption. They thus wander about the desert changing their abode every few weeks as the resources of the neigh- bourhood become exhausted. When the season of the date harvest comes round many of the nobles return to their camps, which are then pitched near Ghat, Ghadames, or whatever the particular oasis is that their tribe protects and frequents. There they remain to guard the crops and the inhabitants until the former have been gathered in ; they then move off in charge of the A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 265 caravans that carry the dates to Timbuktu, Wargla, Murzuk, or some other market where they can be sold. Occasionally a noble will vary this life by going upon a trading or slave-dealing expedition on his own account, or by indulging in a little relaxation in the shape of a hunting-trip. Like most nomadic races, the Tawareks are great hunters. Their method of chasing ostriches is peculiar. The height of the summer, when, after the breeding season, the pairs have come together again in large flocks, is the time chosen for this sport. The hunters, all mounted upon meharis, set out in search of their quarry, carrying with them pro- visions for several days. As soon as they have found a flock they separate into two parties. The one set of men start in pursuit of the birds, and, while keep- ing them moving at their greatest speed, avail them- selves of the habit of their game to run in a circle when pursued, so as to bring them back again towards the second party, who follow leisurely in their rear. As soon as they have succeeded in doing this, the parties change places, the fresher group taking up the chase, while the other follows slowly on after them so as to rest their exhausted camels. And so the hunt goes on, sometimes for two or three days, until the game either escapes altogether, or is run literally to a standstill, captured and strangled. In this way a whole flock will sometimes be bagged without the sHghtest damage having been done to their feathers. As the skin of a good cock 266 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS ostrich in full plumage will fetch as much as a hundred and twenty douros, or nearly twenty-five pounds, in the market, the hunters are well repaid for their exertion. The nobles do no manual work. They consider that to be beneath them. They leave the care of their flocks and the cultivation of what palm-groves they possess to their serfs and slaves. They form, in fact, the mounted police and stand- ing army of the Sahara. They consider that in return for their services to the community they are entitled to be supported by contributions levied on the oases and caravans which they protect. A cara- van is always obliged to supply its guides with food during the whole of the time they are with them, and if one of these guardian Tawareks takes a fancy to the knife, burnous, or some other trifle belonging to one of his proteges, it is almost as much as his life is worth to refuse to give it to him. When acting as one of the guardians of an oasis, a Tawarek obtains his meals by casually dropping in to the houses of the various inhabitants of the town, and, when the meal is over, carries off enough of the scraps to feed his whole famil}-, serfs and slaves included. But if the price which the merchants and in- habitants of the oases pay for the Tawarek protec- tion is high, they get a very good return for it, for a guide will fight to his last gasp to protect the caravan to which he is attached, and without the guidance of men so skilled in desert craft the trans- Saharan trade would be utterly impossible, for the A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 267 safety of the caravan depends entirely upon the guide. The life of the marahouts has already been described. They are mainly recruited from the Ifoga branch of the Askar tribe, who have given up their political rights as nobles in order to devote themselves to their religion. This tribe exploits the important caravan route from Insalah to Ghadames, and derives the greater part of its income from the dues levied upon the caravans that frequent it. The serfs form a most important, and probably the most numerous, section of the Tawareks, for whole tribes of this race are vassals to the nobles. The condition is hereditary and arose in several ways. Some of the serfs are the descendants of those weaker families or tribes who have either been conquered by their present masters or have placed themselves under their protection, agreeing to render them certain services in return. Others are descended from slaves who have been given their freedom, and who, being either unable or unwilling to return to their former homes, have stayed on with the family to which they belonged as servants. Others, again, are the offspring of rich women of noble blood, who, having had no relations of their own to turn to before they were married, have of their own accord sought the guardianship of some powerful tribe in order to ensure the safety of themselves and their belongings, and have afterwards married, with the result that their children have inherited their con- dition. These serfs cannot be sold or freed like slaves, 268 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS though they may be inherited or given. In most other respects these serfs are theoretically in the position of slaves, for they are bomid to obey their master, and any property that they may acquire is, if h'3 requires it, absolutely at his disposal. Practically, however, the majority of these serfb are almost independent, and not infrequently are much more wealthy than the nobles to whom they belong, though, of course, at any moment their masters may seize upon everything that they possess. The serfs, in fact, derive much more benefit from their master's belongings than their real owners do themselves. If left in charge of a noble's property in an oasis, the serf lives in his master's house, and supports himself upon the gardens which he culti- vates. He pays a certain proportion of the crop to the owner of the plantation, and makes what he can out of the rest. The serf who is in charge of a noble's flocks and herds in the desert lives on the milk which they produce, and even occasionally kills one of the beasts for the sake of its meat. A noble when patrolling the country to ensm-e its safety spends a great part of his time in the encampments of his serfs, and .when not so engaged frequently brings his tent and family with him and encamps among them. When starting on a journey he calls in on his nearest camp of Imgliad and selects one of them to accompany him as his squire ; a Tawarek noble seldom travels alone, it adds more to his dignity to have a servant with him. So great, in fact, is the liberty accorded to these serfs, that a number of them will frequently band together in A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 269 order to make some foray on the herds or caravans of their neighbours. The serfs, in fact, though they have no voice in the government of the tribe to which the}'- belong, have far the best of the game, and have as a rule a much easier life than the v/andering nobles. They have their herds and plantations and their slaves to assist them in their vt'ork, and if their masters do occasionally levy a slight contribution upon them it is not a very heavy price to paj'^ for the security that they enjoy under their ever watch- ful guardianship. The only nobles who own no serfs are the mara- bouts. Their place is taken by slaves and by their khoddayn, or followers, who give their services volun- tarily, considering themselves sufficiently repaid by being permitted to minister to the wants of such holy men. Though the Tawareks as a rule live a wandering pastoral life, they are, like all the Berber races, very handy craftsmen when they turn their hands to manual labour. A few of these people resident in the oases have taken up various industrial occupations. Some are potters, manufacturing the coarse earthenware vessels which the Tawareks use at their meals ; others are leather workers, tanning the skins or making the camel saddles, sandals, and the numerous sacks and pockets which the Tawareks wear upon their persons or use to pack their belongings in when on a journey. But the most highly honoured trade among this warlike race is naturally that of the blacksmiths and armourers. These seem to be most skilful workmen, for one of 270 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS them actually succeeded in manufacturing a chrono- meter key to replace one which Duveyrier had lost. Intermediate in rank between the serfs and nobles come the Iradjenaten, or cross-breeds. These are the descendants of mixed marriages between the nobles and their vassals. The offspring of these unions follow the status of their mother. Thus, if she be of noble caste the children rank as nobles, and if she be a member of some vassal family her children will rank as vassals too. These Iradjenaten, though they are exempt, on account of the noble blood in their veins, from the duties and taxes owed by the serfs to their pro- tectors, and are sometimes allowed to take part in the tribal councils, can never be elected to any office, and are not entitled to some of the other privileges enjoyed by the nobles. Large numbers of Sudanese slaves are ovmed by all classes of the Tawareks. These are invariably very well treated by their owners, and, being a source of strength to the community, are very seldom sold out of the camp to which they belong. One of the great evils of slavery — the separation of these negroes from their vnves and other members of their families — is thus done away with, and the slaves become to all practical purposes junior members of the Tawarek family circle. Some- times, as a mark of special favour, a slave will be liberated. In this case, though he usually con- tinues to live in the camp to which he formerly belonged, he becomes his own master, and can, if he wishes, return to his old home in tlie Sudan. This, A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 271 however, is a privilege of which he seldom avails himself, for, even if he has not been actually born into slavery, he has, as a rule, been captured while at a tender age, and has consequently little recollection of his former home and family, and no inclination to return to them. Having, on the other hand, had an easy life and been well treated during his servi- tude, and having, as is often the case, become much attached to his former masters, he becomes a serf and continues to live with them almost as one of themselves. Unlike the members of other desert tribes, who frequently take their slave women to wife, the upper classes of the Tawareks never intermarry with these negroes. This exclusiveness has an important effect in maintaining the purity of type in their race. The country of the Kabyles and the Shawias — the other two main branches of the Berbers in Algeria — has been so often overrun by the various races which have conquered the north of Africa, and these tribes themselves live in such close proximity and have so much intercourse with their foreign neighbours, that they present nothing approaching to a pure type. But the Sahara is such a barren country that it has not hitherto been thought worth the while of anyone to take it from such a warlike race as the Tawareks. The Arabs, and latterly the French, have settled themselves in some of the oases, but the desert itself is, and has been for many centuries, the exclusive domain of these Berber nomads, and, as their isolated position and the state of continual warfare in which 272 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS they have always lived vi^ith their neighbours has cut them off from all intercourse with other tribes, they must at the present day be by far the purest bred of all the Berber tribes. The Tawarek arms consist of a straight two- edged sword about four feet long, a dagger, which they wear affixed to their left forearm by a broad leather ring attached to its sheath, and a slender iron lance about nine feet in length, furnished for about a foot behind the point with small barbs at short intervals. This weapon they sometimes use to hurl at an enemy like a javelin. The bows and arrows which they formerly carried are now almost discarded, as many of them have guns instead. These guns are of the long-barrelled Arab pattern, and most of them are furnished with flint locks. One which I saw had the stock tastefully inlaid with brass wire, cut probably originally from a French telegraph line. Firearms, however, are seldom used by the Tawareks in their fights among themselves. They are not regarded by them as sporting weapons, and so are forbidden by the * Queensberry rules ' of the desert. The Tawareks call them ' traitors' weapons.' The same sporting spirit prohibits them from poisoning their arrows and spears. A few of the Tawareks still carry a shield of antelope hide, on which the nobles paint a sort of armorial device ; but the introduction of firearms is causing these to fall more and more into disuse in their encounters with the Arabs. In addition to his other arms a Tawarek usually wears a heavy stone ring on his right arm above the A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 273 elbow. This weapon, if such it can be called, is intended to give increased weight to his arm when wielding a sword or lance, and is also used, when he gets to close quarters and enfolds his enemy in a kind of bear's hug, to press against his head in order to crush in his temples. The Tawarek method of conducting their raids differs somewhat from that of their Arab neighbours. The latter, who seem to lack the almost fireproof constitution which characterises their opponents, prefer to make their expeditions during the colder months of the year, and, being more luxuriously in- clined, carry as a rule their tents and camping impedimenta with them. The Tawareks, on the other hand, take as little baggage as possible. Each man carries his own provisions and all necessaries for the expedition on his mehari. They move in smaller parties and choose the height of the summer in which to make their forays, well knowing that at that season the scarcity of water and grazing in the desert will have caused the Arabs' herds to be broken up into small sections, affording an easy prey. Their method of procedure is well illustrated in the razzia in the disastrous fight at Hassi Inifel, Shortly before this raid took place a truce had been concluded between the Tawareks and the Mouadhi branch of the Shaambah. The former, true to the proverbial treachery of their race, fore- seeing that this armistice would probably cause the Shaambah to be off their guard, deemed the oppor- tunity a favourable one to make a raid upon the T 274 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS camels which they knew during the mopth of August would be found grazing in the deserts lying between El Golea and Wargla. Forty-five camel-men accordingly, all mounted upon meJiaris, gathered together at a point in the desert over five hundred miles from their quarry, and started one 22nd of July to harry the country of their hereditary foes. Each day's march was commenced at dawn. At noon they halted to rest their camels during the great heat of the day, and then again pursued their march, and continued it until nightfall. Some ten days after their start one of their number, owing to a fall from his camel, broke his leg, and was taken back to his tent by three of his fellows, thus reducing the party to forty-one. Before, however, this happened the raiders had been seen by an Arab, who, judging from their numbers, equipment, and method of march that they were up to no good, returned to Insalah, and told a Shaambah spy of what he had seen. The Shaambah immediately set out to follow up the traces of the raiders, in order to discover for what part of the country they were marching. Having satisfied himself that the neighbourhood of El Golea was the point for which they were making, he set off immediately to endeavour to reach that oasis so as to give the alarm in time. The Tawareks, however, had a considerable start, and though the Shaambah travelled with hardly a halt for three consecutive days and nights, and accomplished nearly two hundred miles during the A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 275 time, he yet failed to prevent the raid from taking place. He, however, gave the alarm, and all the available Shaambah in the district at once set out in pmrsuit of the marauders. The Tawareks succeeded in capturing a hundred and thirty camels which they found grazing un- guarded in the desert, and then, not being satis- fied with this prize, determined, if possible, to increase it. The party split up into two divisions. One, numbering twenty-five men, returned with the cap- tured camels as rapidly as possible to their homes, while the others, to the number of sixteen, went on in quest of further loot. The former were discovered by the scouts of the pursuing Shaambah, who immediately made for the well of Hassi Inifel, on which the Tawareks were also marching, in order to cut off their retreat. The Shaambah arrived some two hours before their enemies, who, though worn out by a forced march of a hundred and fifty miles during the hottest season of the year, were compelled, in order to supply themselves with water, to attempt to take the well. Worn out by their long march, and greatly out- numbered, they failed in their attack. They imme- diately abandoned their captured camels, and scat- tered and fled in all directions. The Shaambah, after pursuing them for some distance, returned to the well, bringing with them two of the fugitives as prisoners, and awaited the arrival of the second portion of the raiding party, T 2 276 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS of whose existence they had learnt from their captives. Very few of the defeated Tawareks succeeded in reaching their tents, for before they could do so they were met by a body of Shaambah who were wander- ing knight-errant-like in the Sahara in quest of adventure. These promptly attacked them, and, being considerably the larger party, killed several of their number, and took most of the remainder prisoners. But, as soon afterwards they found these rather an encumbrance to their movements, they disposed of them by the simple but effective method of putting them to death. In the meantime events were proceeding rapidly at Hassi Inifel. It so happened that the second body of Tawareks, returning from an unsuccessful foray, had almost reached the well by the time that the Tawarek attack took place. Hearing the shots they realised at once what had happened, and imme- diately fell back without disclosing their presence. They passed the night in the desert^ and when morning broke, hoping that the Shaambah would have left the well, marched down to it to refill their gurbahs. The Shaambah, however, were waiting for them, and on seeing them approach immediately advanced to the attack. At some little distance from the well stood a koubba, or domed tomb of a Moslem saint, such as are not infrequently to be found in the Sahara. The door of this little building stood invariably open, for the purpose of allowing wayfarers to enter A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 277 and rest, and it had been the custom of wealthy travellers to leave in it donations of food and water for the use of their less fortunate brethren. Into this building the Tawareks, abandoning their camels, flung themselves, knowing that, owing to the sacred character of the place, it would afford them an inviolable sanctuary from their enemies. They trusted that the water and food that it con- tained would be sufficient for their immediate wants, and hoped that, during the night or at some other time, a favourable opportunity would present itself for making their escape. The supply of water in the koubba at the time happened to be small. No opportunity was given to them for escape, and eventually they were, one by one, compelled by thirst to emerge from their sanctuary, and give themselves up as prisoners. The Shaambah immediately set out with their captives for El Golea. One of the Tawareks succeeded in escaping during the night. The Shaambah, incensed at his flight and already furious with the Tawareks for the faithless manner in which they had kept their truce, shot eight of their principal prisoners in cold blood. One of these, however, was only wounded, and by feigning death managed to save his life, and even- tually succeeded in regaining his tent. Two of the surviving prisoners, being negroes, were sold as slaves. The remainder of them were brought in triumph to El Golea, and ultimately were handed over to the French authorities, by whom they were taken 278 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS to Algiers, and kept in confinement in one of the forts of that town. It is owing to the information gathered from these prisoners that a great part of the knowledge which we have of the Tawareks is due. TENT FOR LADY ON CAMEL. A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 279 CHAPTEE XVIII In their treacherous raid on Hassi Inifel, and in similar forays, and in the infamous attempt made by them to destroy the retreating remnant of the ill- fated Flatters expedition by selling them poisoned dates during a pretended truce, the Tawareks are seen in their traditionally treacherous disposition. But there is another, a less known and perhaps more interesting side to their character — they are, as has been already seen, an educated race, and, in some respects, it might almost be said that they are a civilised people. The Arab social system is practically patriarchal ; that of the Tawareks is almost matriarchal in its form. This fundamental distinction causes an im- mense difference in the position of the women of the two races. An Arab girl is practically sold by her father to her husband, and has very little voice in the choice of her spouse. After her marriage she does nearly all the heavy manual labour of the family, and, especially among the poorer classes, is treated by her husband as very little better than a domestic animal — she is even occasionally harnessed to a plough. But among the Tawareks such a state of affairs 280 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS is absolutely unheard of, for these ' brigands of the Sahara ' treat their women with a consideration quite equal to that found in the most civilised of European countries. A Tawarek woman seldom marries much before she is twenty — the early marriages that have such a baneful effect upon the Arab race are quite un- known among these Berber nomads. She disposes of her hand, provided that she does so to a man of her own class, to whom she pleases. She retains her property after her marriage, and, unless she choose, need not contribute to the family expenses. Her property thus accumulates, with the result that, as a rule, the wife is much more wealthy than her husband. By the laws of their religion, a plurality of wives is allowed to the Tawareks, yet polygamy is an unheard-of thing among them. The unmarried girls are usually alluded to by the gallants of their tribe under the picturesque title of the Tamenoukalen, or ' little queens.' The title is not altogether a fanciful one, for on more than one occasion a Tawarek tribe, when no male member of its ruling family has been available as its chief, has elected a queen as its head. A Tawarek girl comes and goes unquestioned, according to the dictates of her own sweet will. If the whim seizes her to pay a visit to one of her admirers, she will mount her camel and ride un- attended for fifty miles or so across the desert to his camp, where, if necessary, she will be put up in the tent of one of his relations. Occasionally two or three women will join together and make long A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 281 journeys unaccompanied by any of their male rela- tions. Sometimes the unmarried girls of one camp will join with those of another and hold a * court of love,' in which those young men who are anxious to receive favours at their hands are put through their paces and made to take part in a sort of tournament. They file past before the critical eyes of their fair judges, at a gallop on their meharis, hurling their lances, firing their guns, and performing other war- like exercises after the manner of an Arab fantasia. A young warrior, before starting on an expedi- tion, goes to pay his respects to his lady-love, and to beg from her, as a mark of her favour, some token to protect him from the risks of war. This usually takes the form of a finger-ring or one of the stone bangles, which his adored fastens on his right arm. On this ring or bangle the girl inscribes either her name or some short sentimental motto, suitable to the occasion. But these souvenirs are not lightly given, and if the gallant who receives one does not show himself to be worthy of the gift, his ' little queen ' with- draws at once the light of her countenance from him. Woe betide that warrior who disgraces himself by returning unsuccessful from a raid ! Not only has he to submit to the derision of his companions and the sarcasms of all the other women of the camp, but he forfeits for ever the favour of his lady- love. It is not only by their influence in this manner 282 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS over the men that the women exercise their power, for they frequently take an active part in the tribal councils. The women appear to regard their husbands as necessary, but rather inconvenient, adjuncts to their establishments. The mother is the head of the family. A Tawarek father is regarded as rather a nonentity by his children. The male parent is of so little account that one of the greatest insults that can be offered to a Tawarek is to mention his dead father in his presence by name. The reason being that by so doing his spirit is likely to be invoked, and may answer to the call ! The social supremacy of the female over the male Tawarek is no doubt largely derived from their peculiar law of succession, and from the greater riches possessed by the women ; but not a little of it is also due to the fact that the education of the children is conducted, in the absence of a viar about, entirely by their mothers. The women are the more highly educated sex, for the daughters remain with their mothers, con- tinuing their education, until their marriage, while the sons at the age of fourteen or thereabouts com- mence to follow their fathers in their occupations, tending the flocks, joining them in their hunting and trading expeditions, and even occasionally taking a part in the desert raids and warfare. The young men, as a rule, continue this mode of life and remain single until they have nearly reached the age of thirty, by which time they have probably been able, during the course of their trading and A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 283 marauding expeditions, to amass sufficient wealth to supply the ' six camels, the wedding-dress, and the negress slave,' which is said to be the minimum marriage settlement which is likely to be accepted by their rather mercenary brides. Having decided to set up an establishment of his own, the young Tawarek waits upon the principal man of his acquaintance, and requests him to make the formal proposal to the father of his intended bride. If his offer be accepted, the dot is handed over on the day of his wedding. The marriage ceremony takes place in the pre- sence of a marabout, if one be available, and if not, of three chiefs or other leading men of the tribe. After the couple have exchanged their vows in public, the bride is conducted to her future house, which for the occasion is decorated with ostrich plumes, rich brocades, or any other finery that may be available. If the tent forms one of the same camp as that of her parents, she is led thither by the womenkind of the two families. But if, as is usually the case, it is situated in another camp, she and her mother and sisters are placed on camel-back in hassoors and escorted by the men of her camp, on foot and all armed to the teeth, across the desert to her husband's tent. The march is so timed that the bridal party arrive at their destination about midday. As they approach the camp the bridegroom and his friends rush forward with their weapons to meet them, and engage in a sham fight with the bride's escort for 284 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS the possession of her person. Eventually they are allov/ed to prevail. The bridegroom then seizes the camel which bears his bride, leads it to the door of the tent, springs into the hassoor, and, picking up his wife, carries her bodily into her future home. On one occasion, I was told, an unfortunate bridegroom in the excitement of the moment took possession of the wrong hassoor, and it was not until he had got its occupant inside the tent and removed her veil that he discovered that he had got hold of his bride's mother instead of the bride herself. The woman happened to be a widow, and, as this sham fighting seems to form the culminating point of the marriage ceremony, there was con- siderable dis^ssion among the elders of the tribe as to whether this miserable fellow should not legally be held to be married to his mother-in-law instead of his real bride ! It was a nice legal point, but eventually it was decided in his favom", and he promptly turned his mother-in-law out of doors and took possession of her daughter as his lawful wife. As soon as the marriage ceremony has been con- cluded, the unmarried girls, dressed in all their finery, hold a tournament in which all the men who have taken part in the sham fight participate. When this is over the proceedings for the day terminate in an enormous feast. If the bridegroom be a chief, or rich enough to entertain on a large scale, this feasting and sham fighting are kept up for several days after the actual wedding. Though the Tawareks are an educated race, and A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 285 though, almost without exception, they can read and write in their own tongue, and many of them in Arabic and some Sudanese language in addition, it is very doubtful if such a thing as a book of any kind exists in Tamahak. They have, however, a few fables of the ^sop type, of which the following is a fair example of its kind : 'A lion, a panther, a hyena, and a jackal were friends. One day they found and killed a sheep. * "Who is to divide this flesh? " the lion asked. ' " It ought to be the jackal," answered the others, " for he is the smallest among us." ' The jackal, when he had made the division by separating the flesh into four parts, said, ' " Let each one come and take his share." ' " Which is my share ? " asked the lion. ' " They are all the same — take which you choose." ' " Jackal," replied the Hon, " you do not know how to make a division," and with a blow from his paw he killed him. ' Seeing that the jackal was dead, they looked round for someone else to make the division. ' " I ought to do it," said the hyena. ' He mixed the flesh of the sheep with that of the jackal, and was beginning to divide it into six parts when the lion interrupted him. ' " We are three. Why six parts ? " he asked. ' " The first part," answered the hyena, " is for the lion, the second is for you, and the third is for ' Bed Eyes ' " (the Tawarek nickname for a lion). * " Who taught you how to divide like this ? " asked the lion. 286 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS * " The blow that killed the jackal," dryly remarked the hyena.' Duveyrier, who is one of the very few, if not, in fact, the only European, who has lived among the nomadic Tawareks, speaks in high terms of their character. ' Lying,' he says, ' domestic theft, and abuse of confidence are unknown among the Tawareks. ' If a Tawarek has committed a crime he will fly ; but, if he is taken, he will own. to it, even if the avowal costs him his life. ' A Tawarek may arm himself and ride five hundred miles to go and lift from their pasture the beasts belonging to a hostile tribe ; but if on the road he comes across merchandise or food left by a caravan he will not touch them. ' Confide goods or money to a Tawarek to carry from one town to another, and, though he may find it convenient to stop on the way in his tent, neither he, nor his wife, nor his children, even if they are in the greatest destitution, will touch them. ' Lend money to a Tawarek on his bare word, even without witnesses, and he will pay it, though it be twenty years afterwards and it has taken him all that time to save the sum lent ; and he will spend, if necessary, three months on the road to go and return it. If the lender be dead, the debt is paid to his heirs, and if the borrower die insolvent his children will consider themselves bound in honour to pay as soon as they can.' Duveyrier, however, saw the Tawareks under the most favourable circumstances ; for not only did A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 287 his stay among them take place before the spread of Senoussism had roused their anti-foreign feelings to their present pitch, but he was under the protection, not only of the head of the Askar tribe, in whose camp he lived, but of our mar about friend of the zaioia of Tamelath and the leading marabouts of three other of the most powerful Moslem sects in Africa. He consequently saw the Tawareks at their best, and is rather inclined to represent them as ' noble Red Indian ' types of mankind. His esti- mate, too, of their character, which has just been quoted, relates only to the comparatively peaceful Askar tribe, and in many points does not tally with the opinions of more recent travellers or accord with their character as seen in the raid on Hassi Inifel or their recent murder of the Marquis de Mores. Of the bloodthirsty Hoggar tribe even Duveyrier can hardly find a good word to say. But he speaks mainly from hearsay. He describes them as haughty, overbearing, quarrelsome, and simply revelling in bloodshed. He speaks, however, in the highest terms of their fidelity to those caravans that they undertake to conduct, and of their hardi- hood and marvellous endurance, quoting the Arab saying that the Hoggar Tawareks must be children of the genii to endure the fatigues and privations which their life in their desert homes entails. But, treacherous and unrelenting a scoundrel as a Tawarek is to his enemies and those infidels who attempt to enter his territory without his consent — or even with it — he yet has in him, when the occasion demands, the makings of a very pretty carpet knight. 288 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS One of the Tawareks, named Mastan, who was taken after the combat at Hassi Inifel as a prisoner to Algiers, fell ill, while confined there, of small-pox, and was removed to the military hospital in the town, where he was nursed by a nun named Sister Joseph, who had also attended on a former occasion one of his fellow-prisoners named Moumen. When, after his recovery, Mastan was restored to his fellows, he, together with Moumen, concocted of his own initiative the grateful little epistle, shown on the opposite page, to their nurse, whom they had been accustomed to address by the name of ' Fatma.' It is inserted in facsimile ' as a specimen of Tawarek writing. Translated into English, it reads as follows : * I, Mastan, salute Fatma who tended me. May God prosper thee ! All we prisoners salute thee — thee and thine. The good that thou hast done to me thou hast done to us all, and we shall not forget it when we get back to our own country.' ' I, Moumen, salute Fatma. May God prosper thee ! I thank thee.' General Hanoteau once succeeded in inducing one of these men to accompany him as his guest to Algiers. During his stay there the Tawarek seems to have had to submit to a certain amount of * lionising.' For a time he put up with it ; but soon he became bored by the festivities that were thrust upon him. He grew tired of being obliged to conform to the ' Takeu from Le Sahara Fj-an^ais, by Commandant H. Bissuel. A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 289 290 A SEAUCH POK THE MASKED TAWAREKS usages of polite society. He objected to stuffy drawing-rooms, and began to long for the free life of the open desert, where he could make love to the 'little queens,' raid the Arab caravans to his heart's content, and hack his victims over the head if they objected to his methods of amusement. The man belonged to a race that prefers to ' die in its boots.' He was by nature a fighter, a herds- man and a hunter, and he seems during the pursuit of these various occupations to have studied natural history, and come to the conclusion that the society ' lion ' and the common or society ' tame cat ' not only belong to the same familj^ but that they very frequently bear to each other a most striking family resemblance. He objected to being trotted out and put through his paces at the receptions of the French officers' wives. He became moody and restless, and eventually took himself off to his native vdldemess, where, no doubt, he astonished his companions by his account of the wonders of civilisation as understood by the French. While, however, his ordeal lasted he appears to have played his part with sufficient dignity and courtesy. On one occasion he was taken by his cicerone to an evening function at a French house in Algiers. The daughter of the house — who rejoiced in the extremely appropriate name of Angelina — was possessed of one of those instruments of torture by which a certain class of young lady is wont to vex the souls of her male acquaintances. She had an A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 291 album. She requested — no doubt with the conven- tional simper — her outlandish guest to inscribe in it some * appropriate sentiment ' in his native tongue. It was a request which must have been expected to completely stagger her visitor. But not a bit of it ! He was quite equal to the occasion and entered at once into the spirit of the thing. The man was a poet, and this is a translation of the verse that that desert Byron wrote : ' Thy name, Angelina, has inspired my soul with a love that will never be extinguished. ' For love of thee I would go even as far as France. ' Thine eye kills by its brilliance and deprives the heart of man of wisdom. ' If it were possible to assess thy value I would give for thee six thousand pieces of gold. ' For thee I would give my best camel. * Before this damsel attained to womanhood we thought that the gazelle never took the human form, but now we have seen this prodigy. ' If this young girl were to come to our country of the plain, there is not a single man who would not come from far or near to see her.' It must have been a curious sight to see in that salon, with its electric light, its European furniture, and its little crowd of French men and women in evening dress, that huge black-masked ' Saharan brigand ' inditing in the fair Angelina's album his little scrap of verse ! o 2 292 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS CHAPTER XIX On the day following that of the Tawarek's visit to us at Gomar we set out, in accordance with my promise, to visit his camp. As El Ayed's presence seldom conduced much to the harmony of the proceedings I decided to leave him behind with El Haj in charge of my belongings and to proceed to the camp alone with Aissa, who for some reason was very anxious to come, and an Arab of Gomar, whom I engaged to act as guide to the place. Before starting I changed half a franc into fious. The proceeds of this transaction, when emptied out of the hood of El Haj's burnous on to the bed, made quite a respectable pile. There were seventy of these little coins — for fivepence. I filled all my available pockets with them and then confided the remainder to the keeping of Aissa. I engaged donkeys for the journey, and on these we shuffled along at a very fair pace. On the way we passed a tract of land under cultivation for tobacco. The inhabitants of the Wad Souf show much greater ability and take far more pains than the ordinary denizens of the Saharan oases in the cultivation of their land. The ground was divided A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 293 up into little plots each about the size of a small room, each little plot being surrounded by a hedge of palm-leaves about a yard in height, so as to pre- vent the sand from drifting over it. The young plants were pricked out at mathe- matically equal distances over the sandy surfaces of these squares, and the whole place was as tidily and neatly kept as possible. The plots were watered by means of a number of khotaras, the beams of which, sticking up in all directions from among the palm- leaf hedges, bore a striking resemblance to the j'^ards of a fleet of lateen-rigged fishing-boats. We found the Tawarek camp pitched in the desert about a mile from a very small oasis, which our guide informed us was Edemeetha. The camp consisted of six tents. We were in luck for once. Tawarek tents are very seldom to be met with. Duveyrier, though he travelled among these people for nearly eight months, declared that during the whole of that time he only remembered to have seen ten — and here were six all together. The Tawareks when on the march with a caravan sleep in the open, merely using the baggage as a protection from the wind. The serfs when in charge of their masters' herds in the desert build huts for themselves of thatch, scrub, or palm-leaves, and if the district is well supplied with water and food for the beasts, and consequently one in which they are likely to stay for some time, enclose with a brush- wood hedge a small garden at the side of the tent. Unlike the bayt-esh-shaars, or hair houses, as 294 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS the Arabs call their homes, the tents in the Tawarek camp were made entirely of leather, tanned and dyed to a dull red colour. Five of them were quite small, but the sixth, which we afterwards found to be the abode of the chief, was a most palatial erec- tion. The owner of this tent was absent at the time of our visit on a trading expedition. We were not, however, denied the honour of making his acquaintance, for we met him one day in the desert. To see a Tawarek in his true character you must see him on his mehari. A Tawarek on foot is like a fish out of water, and seems to have lost the whole of his spirit. The chief appeared all at once in sight over the top of a dune, about a hundred yards away from us. He seemed to have sprung out of the earth, for a minute or two before Aissa and I had been scanning the neighbourhood through my glasses from the summit of a sandhill, and had not seen a soul in any direction. He was accompanied by his squire — a serf or slave riding upon a mule. Aissa accosted him as he approached with the customary ' Peace be with you.' To this the Tawarek, beyond a slight inclination of his head, made no reply whatever. He was proceeding to ride deliberately past us when I, feeling annoyed at his manner, which was a distinct breach of desert eti- quette, told Aissa to stop him and ask if he would sell any of his weapons. The chief pulled up on reaching us, hesitated for a moment, and then, the natural cupidity of his race A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 295 getting the better of his pride, asked Aissa what he would give him for them. He recovered himself, however, immediately, and, before Aissa could reply, added that he would not sell them to him, as they were much too good for any ' dog of an Arab ' to possess. Aissa bristled up at once like a little bantam cock, and retorted hotly with the most stinging insult that on the spur of the moment he could think of. This was received by the Tawarek with a gruff contemptuous laugh, and without a word he rode on, followed by the curses of my Arabs, and leaving us with the uncomfortable feeling that we had got the worst of the deal. ' Aneshareg hound Ahaggar' — haughty as a Hoggar — is a proverb even among the Tawareks. Oar gigantic visitor of the day before was saying his prayers as we approached the camp, but on seeing us coming he knocked off from his devotions and came forward to meet us. He touched hands and led us to where the remaining male Tawareks — seven in number — were sitting in a circle on the ground. All of them wore their characteristic Utham, but several of them had adopted the white Arab humous and liaik, which they had put on over their ordinary clothing. Two of the men, who were negroes, were clearly slaves, for instead of the black mask they wore a white one to mark their degraded position. As their foreheads and eyes were exposed they seemed to have far less scruples about showing their faces than the members of the higher classes. The 296 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS features of the remainder of the group were all rigorously hidden, and I was seized with an intense desire to see what kind of face lay behind those coverings. The Tawareks seemed rather to resent our intrusion. They made no effort to greet us, but maintained instead a stony silence, turning their masked faces very slowly from side to side as they looked about them in a way that was positively uncanny. It could not be described as a cordial reception. I felt that they were all waiting for me to commence the conversation, but for the moment every idea had gone out of my head, and for the life of me I could think of absolutely nothing to say. This trying silence lasted for some minutes, and then one of the Tawareks, feeling perhaps that as a good Mohammedan he ought to offer me some hospitality, turned to the man next to him and mumbled something in thick guttural Tamahak. The man addressed scratched himself, groped for a moment in his clothing, and then produced a snuff- horn, which he handed to him in response. The recipient took a pinch, and, having handed the box on to his neighbour, pulled his litham away from the lower part of his face and transferred the snuff to his mouth. His neighbour followed suit and passed the horn on, and so, each taking a pinch, the horn came round till it was my turn to partake of its contents. I would willingly have refused, but to have done so would probably have been to have insulted my hosts. So nolens volens I was compelled A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 297 to take my pinch and to transfer it to my mouth like the rest. I don't know what that snuff was made of, but it was very nearly as hot as mustard. I did not know what to do with it. I dared not spit it out, and as I was afraid to swallow it, there I sat with the confounded stuff burning my tongue like a red hot iron, while my hosts sat round me munching and evidently enjoying immensely their share of this ' light refreshment.' At last the stinging on my tongue became un- bearable. I stood it as long as I could, but at length, when the burning sensation began to extend to the back of my throat, I was compelled to open my mouth with a gasp. This not unnaturally had the effect of causing some grains to fly down my throat, and threw me at once into a paroxysm of choking. The gravity of my hosts was not proof against the humorous side of this incident. My neighbour broke into a gruff but most appreciative chuckle, in which the other members of the circle joined, as, completely overcome by this pungent compound, I rose gasping and spluttering to my feet and with- drew to get rid of it as best I might. It took me some minutes to do so, but I had at all events the consolation of knowing when I was again able to take my seat in the circle that I had put an end to that appalling silence. The ice was broken. They all, even the slaves, spoke Arabic more or less fluently, so that with Aissa to interpret there was no difficulty in carrying on a conversation. My former acquaintance, who seemed to be the most 298 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS conversant with Arabic, acted to some extent as spokesman for the rest, though occasionally one of the others joined in with a remark. They were not a prepossessing lot, and they had no manners at all. When addressed they glanced shiftily at the speaker, moved uneasily on their seats, scratched their filthy bodies with their still more filthy paws, took snuff, slightly raised their black masks and spat. They then mumbled some evasive reply, muttered an aside in their thick guttural speech, and in one or two cases rose to their feet and stalked lugubriously away. What they lacked in manners I very soon found they more than made up for in ' side.' They never raised their voices to the ordinary conversational pitch — that they consider to be undignified. When they moved about they did not walk ; they stalked very slowly about with the air of a leading tragedian playing ' Hamlet.' When I offered to buy a charm off one of them he refused to sell it — mercantile transactions were evidently considered to be vulgar. He gave it to me — for a suitable equivalent. It is only when a Tawarek gets upon his mehari that he really seems to wake up. Then he will ride two hundred miles or more at a stretch, if necessary, to cut off a caravan. They were all filthily dirty. A Tawarek never washes. Even the ablution necessary for his religious observances is performed with sand, or a stone ; for he not only considers it a waste to use water which might be drunk in this manner, but thinks it abso- lutely unsanitary to do so, as washing the body A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 299 renders him more susceptible to the violent changes of temperature of the Sahara. He rubs himself occasionally instead with indigo, which has the double effect of protecting his skin and making him look cooler, and consequently, in his opinion, more beau- tiful. The Tawareks belonged, they said, to the Hoggar tribe, and had come up out of the desert to buy some things at El Wad. On remarking that they seemed to have wan- dered a long way from their own country, one of them replied grandiloquently that the whole of the Sahara belonged to them, adding, when I questioned him, that the desert round Ghadames and Ghat, where they had been camping before they came to El Wad, was the peculiar home of the Askar Tawareks, but that it did not belong to them any more than to the Hoggar branch. The Tawareks, he explained, were all one tribe. He allowed, how- ever, that the Askar sometimes fought with the Hoggar and that they occasionally took each other's camels ; but all the same, he said, they were ' very good friends.' This mild rivalry between them was evidently looked upon as all a part of the day's work and the natural result of the close proximity of the two tribes. With the exception of the two slaves, they all looked wonderfully alike in their black masks. It was difficult to distinguish one from the other. They all had the same thick, purring voices, the same shifty manner, and the same large, lustrous, furtive eyes, that I could feel were watching me 300 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS when I was not looking, but which turned away im- mediately when I glanced in their direction. They were a most impressive lot, and it seemed to me that by their subdued and solemn manner they were intentionally doing their best to make them- selves still more imposing than their already suf- ficiently uncanny appearance made them. As soon as the first stiffness between us had worn off, some of the men raised the upper half of their litliams sufficiently to expose part of their faces round their eyes. I then saw that, though several of them were white-skinned, one or two of them were very dark indeed, though their aquiline noses showed that no trace of a negro stain was present in their blood. On our entrance to the camp, the women had all hurried out of sight into the big tent of the chief, where they remained concealed during the whole of our visit. This bashfulness on their part rather surprised me, as I had always understood that the Tawarek women went unveiled and, unlike their husbands and brothers, had no objection to show their faces. Among the other Berber tribes of Algeria — the Kabyles and Shawias — the females of the family are not secluded in this manner, and even with the nomadic Arabs of the desert, though they keep somewhat in the background, the women move about among the tents unveiled. Aissa was quite disappointed at their behaviom*. He was rather a Don Juan in his way — or, at all events, he liked to think himself one — and his A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 301 anxiety to visit the camp had, I fear, been largely produced by a desire to inspect the women which it contained. A few little children were running about among the tents. One of them, a charmingly pretty, but very dirty httle girl of about six years of age, with a large cowry on her forehead, came up and, with her finger in her mouth, stared solemnly at us for some moments. ' Give her some Jlous,' whispered Aissa. Flows is a delightful coinage to be generous in — you can do so much at such a very small expense. I gave her six coins. Their value was only a little more than a halfpenny, but they looked quite a respectable sum. Cowries and beans were probably the only money which she had seen before, and she was immensely pleased with her new playthings. She ran off at once to the tent to show them to her mother. Aissa followed her with his eyes. The folds of the tent opened for a moment as she passed in and apparently he caught a glimpse of the interior, for he turned away with a sigh. ' There are some very pretty women in that tent,' he remarked wistfully. My generosity had rather an unwelcome result. The tent was almost immediately opened and a number of children came running out and swarmed around us, holding out their hands and shyly begging iox flous. Their manner was entirely different from that displayed by Arab children, who are always the most 302 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS clamorous and insistent of beggars, and in majiy of the Algerian towns are a perfect nuisance. With the exception of one boy, a nigger, the son evidently of one of the slaves— who, being rather bigger than the other children, was inclined to take advantage of his strength and to push them out of the way so as to get the front place — they were all of ihem singu- larly quiet and well behaved. At length the negro boy became so unruly in his efforts to get first place that one of the men rose to his feet, pushed him quietly aside, and mildly rebuked him for his behaviour. He then laid his hand on the shoulder of a small girl who had been timorously hanging on to the outskirts of the throng and brought her forward, asking me to give her something as she was too shy to ask for it. When I had given a few coins to each of the children, he examined the number which each one had got, and asked me to give one or two more to some of the smaller ones who had come off rather badly in the distribution, and then, having satisfied himself that their shares were all equal, he despatched the whole lot to the tent with a wave of his hand. There was a refinement of manner and a quiet — almost gentle — dignity in his bearing towards these children, and towards the slave-boy in particular, which was a most pleasant contrast to the brutal, domineering manner which an Arab usually adopts towards his family and slaves. As soon as the children had been dismissed, Aissa asked, more, I fear, with the object of getting a nearer view of those beauteous females who had so A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 308 captivated his susceptible heart than with any inten- tion of furthering my ends, whether I might be permitted to inspect the tents. He was met at once with a gruff refusal — ' the women were there.' After a moment, however, feeling, perhaps, that he had been unnecessarily curt, the Tawarek added that we might, if we wished, inspect some of the smaller ones, which were empty, but that he could not permit us to enter that belonging to the chief. With the exception of the one which was for- bidden to us, these tents were all small compared with those of the Arabs. They were all made pretty much upon the same pattern, the general appearance of which will be best gathered from the illustrations. One side was always left open. Two movable wings, one projecting from each edge of the opening, could be arranged, when necessary, to meet, so as to form a semi-circular enclosure open to the sky, com- pletely hiding the interior from those outside. A stake with a forked top, on which were sup- ported gurbahs containing water and sour milk, was driven into the sand in front of several of the tents, and by the side of one of them stood an enormous wooden pestle and mortar, quite three feet in height, which appeared to have been used for pounding coffee. The furniture of the tents was in every case extremely scanty, consisting only of a few cushions, some very dirty rugs, and one or two simple cooking utensils, obviously of European manufacture, which, from their new appearance, had probably been bought a short time before at El Wad. 304 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS While we were making the circuit of the camp, and inspecting all that we were permitted to see, I managed, by getting Aissa to stand in front of my camera and to step aside just as I made the expo- sure, to procure a few snapshots without attracting the attention of my hosts. One of them, however, hearing the clicking noise that my camera made as I reeled up the film, inquired suspiciously of Aissa what I was doing. My guide was quite equal to the occasion. He was an Arab, and consequently never hesitated, if he considered it necessary to do so, to lie Hke a company promoter. Fearing that there might be some un- pleasantness if the Tawareks realised that I had been taking their portraits without their permission, he gravely informed them that my camera was a machine for telling the time, and that occasionally it had to be womid up to prevent it from stopping ! This put me in a most uncomfortable position. The Tawareks said they had all heard of such machines, but they had none of them ever seen one, and they were very anxious to have the working of them explained. They asked me to allow them to inspect my camera. That was the drawback to Aissa. He was an experienced and most careful guide, but he was an inveterate and most careless liar. He had several times before got me into minor difficulties in this way, and while attempting to get me out of a scrape had landed me fairly on the horns of a dilemma, and left me, having completely lost his own head as soon as he felt that he was cornered, in the unpleasant A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 305 position of having either to back him up in some thundering lie, or to get out of the difficulty as best I might. In this case, however, he had done me a service, for as soon as I had had time to recover from the first shock of the staggering request which had been made to me, it struck me that I might make use of the thirst for knowledge of those Tawareks to obtain before their faces those very photos which I had sur- reptitiously been trying to take behind their backs. I told them that I could not show them the interior of the box, as that would necessitate taking it to pieces, and, as it was a delicate machine, would probably spoil it, but that if they would stand in front of it they would be able to see how one part of it worked, and I told them to look at the shutter. Two of the Tawareks, with one of the slaves and some of the children, immediately placed themselves in front of the camera, all agog to see the working of that wonderful machine. I was not, of course, able to pose them, but as one of them laid his hand upon the shoulder of the child next to him to turn her round to look at the shutter just as I made the exposure, he fell into an attitude which did much to relieve the stiffness of the group. They were, perhaps naturally, not quite clear from what they had seen as to the way the machine worked, but as I told them that it was impossible to explain it any further without taking the thing to pieces, they were reluctantly compelled to be content with what they had seen. X 306 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS I succeeded in this way in getting a second photograph of them, and then, as my film had un- fortunately come to an end, after buying a few curiosities from them, and promising to come again on the morrow to see some weapons which those of their number who were absent in the neighbouring desert, guarding the flocks belonging to the camp, possessed, and would probably be disposed to sell, I took my leave, and returned to Gomar. On our arrival we found that El Ayed and El Haj, instead of sta5ring, as I had told them, in the caravanserai to look after my things, had locked the door of my room, and gone off on the spree into the town, taking the key with them. We returned probably rather sooner than they expected, for we found them still absent from their posts. As they possessed the only means of opening the door, we were compelled to wait in the courtyard until they put in an appearance. It was not for nearly an hour after our arrival that they did so. They had evidently been up to something disreputable, for they were both in most excellent spirits. El Ayed in particular appeared to have been in his element. One side of his face was covered with scratches, his knuckles were bleeding, and he had a magnificent black eye, of which he seemed to be extremely proud. He seldom went into an oasis without gratifying his pugnacity, and gene- rally emerged from the ordeal more or less mauled. I blew them up on my return until my Arabic came to an end, and then deputed Aissa to continue the operation for me, well knowing that I had A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 307 placed the work in competent hands. Ai'ssa, nothing loth, entered into the task, and performed it with such good will that I was kept awake far into the night by the sound of the wrangling be- tween him and El Ayed. The following day opened with such a blinding sandstorm that, as I knew it would be impossible to take any photographs in such an atmosphere, I decided to postpone my promised visit, and to spend the day instead in some very necessary mending of my clothes. Edemeetha lay only a short distance off the road to Biskra. My time was limited, and as I did not wish to spend another night in the caravanserai at Gomar, which, owing to the number of sand-lice which infested the floors, was rather an uncomfort- able one, I on the morrow sent the camels slowly on towards Biskra in the charge of the now penitent El Haj and El Ayed, and started with Aissa for the Tawarek camp, intending as soon as we had con- cluded our visit to hurry after the other members of the caravan and catch them up before nightfall. On approaching the camp we were at once struck with its deserted appearance. A few small children, who, recognising us, came running up begging for fious, and one or two women, who on seeing us immediately bolted into the big tent, were apparently its only inhabitants. Not a man was to be seen. As we drew nearer, however, a young Tawarek, wearing a white Arab humous over his black clothing, came forward to meet us, and soon a 308 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS couple of slaves emerged from behind one of the tents and joined him. These we discovered were the only men which the camp contained. We had been expected the day before, but, as we had not turned up, the Tawareks had concluded that we did not intend to come again, and accord- ingly, hearing that an Arab of Edemeetha had died, had gone off some time before our arrival, for want of something better to do, to attend his funeral. It was not known how long they would be away. It was, in one way, rather annoying to find the camp so deserted, as I had been counting upon being able to buy from the men some arms and curios, and their absence, of course, made this im- possible. But at the same time their very absence opened up a possibility of acquiring some photo- graphs of their womenkind and of the interior of their tents, which I had reason to suppose would be unique. I entered at once into negotiations with a view to doing this. After some difficulty I succeeded in carrying my point and gaining access to the interior of the tent which contained the women. I took Aissa with me to interpret, and placed one of the slaves outside to keep a look-out for the return of the funeral party. As I had little doubt that the slave would be severely punished if it were discovered that he had betrayed his trust by allowing us to enter the tent and make the women unveil, I felt I could rely upon his proving a vigilant sentry, and on our not being caught on forbidden ground by any irate husband or brother. A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS 309 The open semi-circular enclosure outside the tent into which we first passed extended for some eighteen or twenty feet beyond the body of the tent itself. It was surrounded by walls about eight feet in height, thus ensuring complete privacy for the inmates of the dwelling. The main body of the tent measured, perhaps, twenty feet square at the ground level. The sides rose perpendicularly for about four feet, and then sloped up until they met to form the roof at a ridge- pole some ten feet above the floor. The part of the enclosure nearest to the tent was shaded by a broad piece of striped cotton, which during the daytime served as an awning and at night was let down, if necessary, to act as a curtain to close the open end. All round the interior of both tent and enclosure ran, so as to form a dado, a long strip of yard-wide matting, neatly woven of driyin, halfa, or some other coarse desert grass. This for a great part of its length was trimmed along the top by a fringe of very narrow strips of red and black leather. The furniture of the tent, though simple, was of rich appearance, and quite sufficient for the primi- tive wants of its inhabitants. Compared with the diminutive erection in which I had spent my nights while on the Wargla road, the Tawarek tent pre- sented an appearance of homeliness, comfort, and even luxury which made me envy this desert chief his home. At the far end, spread on the soft white sand which formed the floor, were two or three thin 310 A SEAKCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS mattresses, covered by a sort of blanket, and some thick, richly coloured rugs, woven with the three- inch pile of the desert looms — the spoil, probably, of some Arab camp. Scattered on these lay cushions of soft leather, coloured and cut into geometrical patterns. A few long, bolster-like sacks, made of the same material as the cushions and ornamented in the same manner, containing food, clothing, and other odds and ends, lay along the side walls, their open ends closed by a metal ring and spring brass pad- lock, brought, so I was told, from Timbuktu. On the ground beside them were an earthenware lamp, one or two small mirrors, and a sort of violin and bow, to which the women sing in the evenings, or chant songs of victory to welcome the members of a successful raiding party on their return to the camp. The framework of a bassoor stood in the outer court, and in one corner of the tent lay various household utensils, consisting of a few gourds and cups of china and wood, an iron pot or two, some large wooden bowls and spoons, and a large square of tanned leather for use as a table-cloth. The tent was still further provided with a few small wooden boxes, a clay doll, and a pet lamb ! I noticed a small white board with a handle attached, which was covered with Arabic lettering, and inquired what it was for. This I was told was used as a sort of ' horn-book ' for the instruction of the children. This tent appeared to be used as a sort of club, or common meeting-house, during the daytime for the inhabitants of the camp, for at no A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 311 time during the course of our two visits did we see anyone in the other tents. Three women were seated upon the rugs in the back of the tent, each woman holding the end of the shawl-like garment that covered her head and shoulders across the lower part of her face so as to entirely conceal her features. As in order to obtain their portraits it would be necessary to get the women to unveil and to bring them out of the tent into the sunlight, I was com- pelled to explain to them the real nature of my camera, and to tell them exactly what I wished to do. When I had assured them that the operation would be painless, and that my only object in per- forming it was to take back to England their por- traits in order to show the people there how extremely beautiful they were, they ceased to regard me in the light of a suspected person, and became quite amenable to reason. They were intensely tickled, and rather flattered, at the idea of having their likenesses exhibited in Europe, and kept laughing together over the notion, as though it were a most excellent joke. But they evidently regarded my camera with the profoundest distrust, and, before they would consent to unveil, I was compelled to submit to a regular catechism, and was requested to explain exactly what I intended to do to them, and how by means of a black box I could succeed in procuring their portraits. This question was rather a * poser.' The Ta- warek's scheme of education, though fairly ad- vanced in some respects, does not include in its 312 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAKEKS curriculum such modern sciences as chemistry and optics, and I was for some time completely at a loss how to explain the secrets of the photographic art — especially as I was not quite clear on the subject myself. Fortunately I happened to have in my pocket a small lens. By means of this I was able to show them how the rays of light falling upon the glass could be brought to a focus so as to throw a minia- ture picture of the object towards which it was turned upon a piece of white paper, held at a little distance behind it. I then pointed out that their hands and faces, if exposed for long to the sun, became tanned, and explained that in the same way the light thrown by the lens in the front portion of the camera upon the paper in the hinder part of the box would tan the surface of the film so as to form a small picture of the object towards which the camera was presented. I gave Aissa this lucid and highly scientific ex- planation in French. He translated it into Arabic for the benefit of the woman who spoke that lan- guage the most fluently, and she, in her turn, translated the rigmarole into Tamahak for the benefit of her sisters in ignorance. These, curious to relate, were entirely satisfied with the explana- tion. Having appeased their curiosity upon this point, I told Aissa to arrange the three women in a com- pact group in the sun under the wall of the outer enclosure. Having got them in their places, I endeavoured A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 313 to induce them to 'think of 'im,' and assume a proper photographic attitude and expression. It was hopeless. My explanation seemed to have removed their fear of the camera, but now that they felt the actual ordeal was at hand, a fit of nervous restlessness, coupled with an intense desire to laugh, seemed to seize possession of them, which made it almost impossible for me to get them to keep still for a single moment. They behaved, in fact, exactly like the ' three little girls from school ' in ' The Mikado.' Never had a photographer more refractory subjects to deal with. I got them into a good position, and was just about to make the exposure, when one of them sud- denly hid her face with her shawl and burst into an uncontrollable spasm of giggling, in which of course the others immediately joined. As soon as this attack had passed off, and I had reduced the group again to stillness, the woman on the right, feeling that her shawl was tickling her ear, put up her hand, thereby completely hiding her face, in order to arrange it more comfortably. I put her straight, got her still, and was focussing her again in the view-finder, when a movement caught my eye on the other side of the group and drew my attention to the fact that the girl on the left had turned her face completely away, and was playfully arranging the third girl's shawl so as to entirely conceal her face. My discovery of this trick set the whole three into a fresh fit of giggling, from which it took them two or three minutes to recover. 314 A SEAKCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAREKS As soon as this had subsided, the girl in the centre, growing tired of sitting still for so long, heaved a great sigh of boredom, turned suddenly round, and called out a question to someone outside the tent ; and so they went on. All this time I was expecting every moment to be disturbed in my occupation by the news that their menkind were approaching the scene. It was enough to try the patience of a Job. I succeeded in getting one snapshot of them, and then, in order to obtain a full-face view and to arrest for a few moments their attention, I told them to look at the shutter and watch it jump when I pressed the lever. This plan succeeded ; for a moment they were motionless, and before they had time to turn away again I was able to get a second photograph of the group. A very noticeable peculiarity in these women was the extreme smallness and neatness of their hands. They had the prettiest arms and hands imaginable. Their wrists were beautifully rounded, and their hands, with their long tapering fingers, would have formed most perfect models for a sculptor or a painter. Some bracelets which I bought from them, and which they slipped over their hands with but little difficulty, look almost ridicu- lously small. They could hardly be made to pass over the hands of an ordinary English girl of ten years old, and yet these women, though they were short in height in comparison with the men, were rather above the average stature of an ordinary English woman. ^^1 A TAWAREK NOBLE. A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 315 A Tawarek woman, of course, never uses her hands in the way that an Arab woman does. The slaves do nearly all the manual labour, and beyond perhaps a little ' fancy work ' in the shape of a fringe for the dado of her tent, some embroidery for her clothes, or a little cut-leather work on her cushions, she never employs her fingers for any useful work at all, and this, of course, would tend to preserve their fineness. The women, in the absence of the marabouts, are the teachers of the children, and their education is their most serious occupation. Occasionally, too, the men who happen to be resident in the camp, if not satisfied with their learning, drop in and join the children in their lessons. Duveyrier owed nearly all his knowledge of Tamahak to the teaching he received from a woman while resident with Ikhen- oukhen in his camp. When not engaged in teach- ing, a Tawarek woman spends much of her time in reading some Arab book, in writing letters to her friends, which are afterwards despatched by the hands of a slave or one of her male friends, or in playing and singing to the violin. Having succeeded in procuring my photographs of the women, I determined to make an attempt to secure a likeness of the young Tawarek whom I had left outside the tent. He was extremely unwilling to remove his mask. I had, in fact, far greater difficulty in making him expose his face than I had in getting the women to unveil. No sooner was it off, than his demeanour entirely changed. All his dignity and haughtiness 316 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS were gone. He kept, in spite of his obvious efforts to repress them, breaking into httle nervous sniggers. He looked as shamefaced and confused as an ordinary Englishman would if he were compelled to appear in public in the airy costume of his morning bath. That ' brigand of the Sahara,' great strapping fellow as he was, positively blushed a deep, ruddy brown, at the indignity which he was made to undergo in exposing his face to a stranger. He hung his head and turned his face aside in a torment of outraged modesty and bashfulness which, though extremely ludicrous, was almost pitiful to see. So confused was he that, though he could not prevent us from seeing his naked face, he evidently made up his mind that he would, at all events, prevent himself, by closing his eyes, from seeing that we saw it. And this he did, keeping his eyes closed during the whole of the time that his face was ex- posed. As this seemed to some extent to relieve his bashfulness and detracted but little from the value of the photographs, I raised no objections to this ostrich-like manoeuvre. It was curious to see the celerity with which he covered his face as soon as he was told that his ordeal was over, and to hear the huge sigh of relief with which he rose to his feet from the sitting posture which I had got him to adopt in order to bring his face down on to a level with the camera. He had every appearance of having gone through the worst five minutes of his life. While we had been thus engaged our camels had been marching on without us, and time, if we wished A TAWAREK NOBLE AND SLAVE. A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS 317 to overtake them before nightfall, was precious. We could afford to stay no longer in the camp. I gave the young Tawarek a franc or two as compensation for the indignities that he had suffered at our hands, and handed him, in addition, a few coins to distribute among the women, and then we took our leave. As we reached the crest of a dune, lying at a little distance from the tents, I looked back to take a farewell view of the scene. The inhabitants of the camp had by that time returned to their ordinary occupations. One of the women had come out from the tent and was calling in the children to their midday meal. The slaves were busy preparing the food, and the stalwart young noble whom I had photographed had picked up one of the smaller children and was carrying it, laughing and crowing, on his shoulder to the tent. That domestic scene was the last I saw of the masked Tawareks. APPENDIX THE ORIGIN OF THE TAWABEK ALPHABET. The Tawareks are the only race that still uses the old writing system of the Berbers. They call their alphabet Tifinagh. The Kabyles, the Shawias, and the other Berber- speaking tribes have all adopted the Arab cha- racters, and write in the Semitic fashion from right to left. Several theories have been put forward as to the origin of Tifinagh, but so far in none of them has the source of the whole of the letters been traced, nor has any attempt been made to account for the boustrophedon and other methods of writing which the modern Tawareks use. In most of the alphabets, too, with which the Tifinagh alphabet has been compared, the values of the letters have not been known, and a comparison of the forms of the letters alone of two systems of writing is almost useless, as if the letters have a wrong significa- tion, very little can be deduced from the resemblance in the forms. Professor Keane, in a letter to me on the subject, said that he considered this alphabet to be of Phoenician origin, and supposed it to have been introduced into Africa by the Phoenician founders of Carthage, Leptis, &c., his reason for this view being that its name, Tifinagh, when stripped of its prefix ' Ti,' is simply ' Finik,' or Punic. 320 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS A comparison with the Phoenician alphabet, however, did not give any very definite result, so, arguing on the analogy of our own alphabet, which is called by a Greek name (alpha-beta), being derived from the Greek through the Latin, I suspected that the Tawarek alphabet might be called by a Phoenician name, and derived from the Phoenician through some other writing system connected with it, and this I ultimately concluded to be neither more nor less than Greek. In comparing Tifinagh with other alphabets, the ver- sion of it given in Hanoteau's grammar of the Tawarek language is the one that has been generally used. This, however, shows only a few of the different forms which the letters take, and represents the Tawareks as always wi'iting in the Semitic fashion — fi'om right to left. But in ' Le Sahara Fran9ais,' by Bissuel, several facsimiles of Tawarek correspondence are given, which show that these people also write from left to right, and use, in addition, the boustrophedon method, shown on page 289, and the circular and serpentine as well ; in fact, that they still write in all the ways practised in succession by the ancient Gi'eeks. The same vertical line, too, which the Greeks employed as a kind of stop to mark the divisions between the words is used by the Tawareks for the same purpose. The Greeks, it is known, had in very early times much inter- course with North Africa. The use of all these methods of writing among the Tawareks seems to point to a close and lengthened intercourse between Barbary and these people. A careful examination of the characters themselves shows that these, too, are capable, with the exception of H, which seems to come from the Etruscan, of being derived from the same source. Many of the forms which I have given for the Tawarek letters are not found in Hanoteau's grammar. I have taken them from S. Cid APPENDIX 321 Kaoui's ' Dictionnaire Frangais-Tamahaq,' or from the facsimiles in ' Le Sahara Fran9ais.' In every case I have given the form that most nearly approaches to the Greek. There are probably many forms of these letters that are not yet known. Some of the older rock inscriptions found in the Sahara are in part unintelligible to the Tawareks themselves. The forms of the letters seem to be rapidly changing, but this, of course, is the natural result of there having been no printed types to serve as models for succeeding generations. Still, though many of the letters are much altered — lines, for instance, having been reduced to dots, and a rectangle to four dots in the form of a square — the connection with the Greek is always traceable. The Tifinagh characters correspond to the Greek letters of similar values where such values exist, and, where they do not, other letters, such as i, have been bori'owed, which stand for Greek sounds unknown to the Tawarek language. In support of this derivation of the Tifinagh characters there are several other traces of Greek influence among the Tawareks. An inscription in Greek characters was found at Ghadames by M. Vatonne. Some of the constellations are known under names having meanings similar to those by which they were called by the Greeks. Barth was of opinion that the Tawareks were at one time Christians before being converted to Islam, and mentions the fact that they were called by the Arabs ' the Christians of the desert.' He also states that they call God ' Mesi,' and an angel anyelus. Mesi, it has been suggested, is a corruption of Messiah, and anyelus seems to be very closely connected with the Greek ayycXo?, an angel. This word, however, does not appear in S. Cid Kaoui's ' Dictionnaire FrauQais-Tamahaq,' where the Y 822 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS word elmelk is given instead ; this seems to be the Arabic CA^ (angel). The Tawarek alphabet is, perhaps, a survival of the Libyan, or it may be the result of a parallel growth. The date of the introduction of the Libyan characters into Barbary is quite unknown. A few bi-linguals in Libyan and other languages are in existence, and as some of these are in Latin, it is clear that this script was in use in compai'atively recent times. The Phoenician characters on the Libyan-Phoenician inscription found at Tugga, in Algeria, and now in the British Museum, have been estimated by Dr. Wright to date from about 300 B.C. ' The persistence of these forms (i.e. the Libyan and Tawarek),' say the authors of ' Libyan Notes,' ' for fully 2,000 years, almost unchanged, is a strong confirmation of the view that they are the survivals of a system which is even some millenniums older, as is now to be explained. Mr. Evans and Professor Flinders Petrie have shown that certain linear characters which have been found on the Egyptian pottery . . . form a signary in which a large number of the characters are identical with the Libyan and Tifinagh . . . the linear characters in Egypt are earlier than the hieroglyphics, though a few of the forms may ultimately have been fused with the latter. Evolved at a date when hieroglyphic writing was unknown, they per- sisted with a strange vitality, and were never absorbed or ousted. They occur even as late as Eoman times, though the twelfth dynasty was probably the richest in them. It may perhaps be objected that as they are known to have lasted on so long their introduction into Libya may have been comparatively late. The evidence is distinctly in favour of their introduction or use in North Africa being contemporary with their first appearance in Egypt, but the other possibility should not be lost sight of. It is the more necessary to be cautious as the use of the black ornamented white pottery in Libya shows the close APPENDIX 323 connection of that country with Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean at so advanced a period as the ninth century b.c' Against the theory of the extreme antiquity of this Libyan alphabet it may be pointed out that, if the Tawarek is a survival of the Libyan, the variations in the forms of the Libyan characters in use up to Eoman times are far less marked than the changes they have since undergone to become the modern Tifinagh ; and there seems to be no reason why this script should have changed more rapidly since Eoman times than it did before them. It would almost seem, as the Tawarek alphabet has changed so much in 2,000 years, that the Libyan would have differ- entiated from the early Egyptian to such an extent as to be unrecognisable during the course of ' some mil- lenniums.' The use, too, of ligatured letters in the Tawarek alphabet shows either that this script is of comparatively recent date, or that it was subjected to some late influence. Ligatured forms were first used in the Aramean alphabet of Egypt dating from about the third century B.C. In the table I have given, comparing these alphabets, I have placed a few of the Libyan letters by the side of the Greek where their form shows a nearer connection than Tifinagh. The values of those marked with a query are not, I believe, known. Those not so marked have been identified from the Tugga bi -lingual and are the values which Duveyrier gives to them in the table in his book on ' Les Touareg du Nord.' The tabulated comparison of these alphabets requires some explanation in order to make clear the steps by which some of the letters have been derived from the original Greek forms. The vowel sound seems to be simply the small Greek omicron reduced still further to a dot. The connection between the two Tawarek G's and the y 2 324 A SEAKCfi FOE THE MASKED TAtVAEEKS Greek gamma is not so apparent, but a comparison with the Libyan form seems to show that the letter, like the others, was derived from the Greek. The second G, a guttural sound unknown to the Greeks and peculiar to Tamahak, appears — as the stages of its development given in the table show — to be simply a ligature or joining together into a single letter of two gammas. These ligatures are found in many alphabets, and an example exists in our own in the case of W, which was originally written, as its name implies, UU or W ; the first G, too, seems to have been a ligature. Probably the sign from the rock inscriptions given in the last column signified G, and was composed of two gammas placed back to back. These two were then merged into a single letter, and finally the two side strokes became worn down to dots. Perhaps, however, the Tawarek sign comes from the single Greek letter in its square form, the cross-bar becoming reduced to a dot, and a corresponding dot being added on the other side of the vertical stroke in order to avoid confusion between : M, i.e. WG, and '.' I, i.e. KN. The angular D seems to be the triangular delta with- out its base, and in its square and circular form to be derived from the second Greek letter by removing the vertical stroke and turning it on its side. Dh appears, to judge from the Libyan form, to be another ligatured letter, originally composed of a small square D placed inside a larger one. In process of time this smaller D seems to have dwindled down to a line and joined to the long stroke of the larger one so as to form an E-shaped letter. W can easily be obtained from the Greek digamma by first removing the vertical stroke leaving the two parallel lines of the Libyan character, and then reducing these lines to dots. Z, Z', and J are kindred sounds and interchangeable APPENDIX 325 letters in the different Tawarek dialects. The letter J was, of course, unknown to the Greeks. It had to be represented by some symbol, and the unaltered form of the kindred letter Z seems to have been the one chosen. This same letter seems to have been adapted to repre- sent the two Z's. In the first case the vertical stroke was prolonged beyond the two horizontal ones and the latter turned up ; and in the second case the vertical stroke was simply doubled. The Tifinagh S has occasionally the sound of the lisping Arab ^, i.e. sth, and so is simply the old form of tJieta, without any modification. K seems to be the Greek letter worn down until only three dots remain. The J,- and c sounds, having no equivalent in Greek, seem to have been represented by the early form of the i which, since it was not required for its classical sound, was utiUsed in default of an exact equivalent. The vertical bar was, it seems, first removed, reducing the letter to three strokes; these were turned in a vertical position to represent the j sound and finally reduced to dots by a process similar to that which took place in the case of K and W. The Tifinagh F is rather difficult to account for. It may, perhaps, be derived from the early form of ^, the splitting of the letter in two being necessary to distinguish it from J. Kh, as in the case of K, appears to be the last remains of one of the old Greek forms for x- Sh, not being a Greek sound, was derived from the early form of the Greek S, by the same process as took place in the case of M, small circles being added to the ends of the horizontal strokes, as diacritical marks, to distinguish it from the latter letter. The Libyan form, it will be noticed, is the same as the Greek reversed. The Tifinagh H has the same sound as the strong 326 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS COMPAKISON OF GEEEK AND ».,,,, -^ ^ -. , Tawarek right to left writing. From J U . + J b Vj . Plate VII. of ' Le Sahara Fran^ais,' by Bissuel. ^ ^^0 Ai 3 m - " iiV' m 3 J % ^ -^ Tawarek circular writing. [M ( From 'Le Sahara Fran^aia ' ' ^ c-nie:- ) p. 179. /^ VrO>^l x |^V0[l;ll|[ ll ]'A:G| )r |- 34-) o]: S^v^ y-— ■ ■ (oil-: :A cA ^^+L + ® •mr A + G om + I0IIC :o 1^; Tawarek serpentine writing, showing vertical line as ' word-stop.' From ' Le Sahara Franijais,' p. 181. + I ri r C D O Tawarek left to right writing. Plate VII APPENDIX 327 TAWAEEK METHODS OF WEITING. MOTAlAng Greek riglit to left writing. Prom ' The Alphabet,' by I. Taylor. ^N^*&, 8> > to ^ o t Z m 1^ 'S > v- -A. m -o Greek circular writing. Prom ' The Alphabet,' showing vertical line as ' word-stop.' feK T A A yeo>j A I ^ 3 >i O qi=ll>>nMA4^ Gr^^^i serpentine writing • ra i=ii>^r\K/IA/ir3 Greek serpentine writin 3J3I<NAl3^ A^KaA\ETAM o^eokAQM Greek ' boustrophedon ' writing. Prom 'The Alphabet.* Greek left to riglit writing. From ' The Alphabet." 328 A SEAECH FOR THE MASKED TAWAEEKS COMPARISON OP TAWAREK ALPHABET. Value Tawarek Probable Stages of Development Greek Libyan A,To«OU • O (:OMICRON) G •1* 1 =-r = nr 1 OR 1 C lo« = *i = n ' T- C )L = ^= ^ h. D U.UorA 0=D OR DO = D f DorA Dh LU -3= 3 = 3 i 3oRn W : = =- = Ft = OICAMM«) = Z X " X = r « = n = X(=Z) J n: 1 s ©(=0) Yo«l ^or) ^OB)(=t) K j*of«»:oRV » < = K L II « /\ = A M c = z = M N i = h = V R ••• • • OorD = 111= = = D ill ? T + T T ? F Kor:=! = 1 = a](=0) 8 Kh • • • • -n obX BorX('X) X ? Sh o -3=2 = ^(^S) 5 M t • = g = P ^ETRUSCAN* TAWAREK LIGATURED LETTERS. -»€ .-tO.-^Q.S.S orQ] » Bt ^ OR }3t =Zt S.Q3oR® =Rt "*Q.-KD. ©orO = St ToR.t =Gt j^ j &-.E.3 OB 3 = Mt ^ '•-*' ♦d = Sht •r .T. = Nk E g*-ORi » Dht K OR ;*; = Ft, APPENDIX 329 Arab , and has consequently quite a different sound from the rough breathing of the Greeks. In default, therefore, of a Greek equivalent the Etruscan letter seems to have been borrowed to represent this letter, and reduced to four dots by a process similar to that which took place in the case of v- and c. A connection, too, with the Etruscan is perhaps seen in the case of the Libyan letter 8 which is the Etruscan symbol for P, and might very easily be derived from the Greek <{>. There appears to have been much intercourse even in very early times between all the races living round the shores of the Mediterranean, and probably Etruscan traders as well as Greek had communication with the north of Africa. Some of these Tawarek letters have, of course, been considerably altered from the Greek forms from which they seem to have been derived, but when it is remembered that probably nearly 2,500 years have passed since their first introduction into Barbary, and that during the whole of that time there have been no printed type or even written books to help to preserve their original forms, it cannot be said that the extent to which they have differentiated from the original Greek forms is more than has occurred elsewhere in similar cases. INDEX Abd-el-Kadee, Mokaddem of the Senoussia, 146, 150, 243, 244 Abdullah, 159 Ahitaghel, 146. 148 Ahl-et-Trab, 39 Ahmed, 245 Ail-, 226, 238 Aissa ben Jedu, 3, 8, 11, 65, 75, 90, 154, 164, 166, 168, 171, 195, 196, 218, 300, 304 Alphabet of the Tawareks, 319 Amanokal, 252 Avighar, 253 Amulets, 262 Arrerf Ahnet, 252 Artesian wells, 46, 47 Askar Tawareks, 252, 298 Aures Mountains, 3 Awelimmiden Tawareks, 252 Basket-work at Wargla, 154 Bassoors, 34, 283 Beni Issou dervishes, 87 Jellab, 67 Bir Jeffair, caravanserai of, 20, 26 Biskra, the market at, 3, 4 Blanco, Cape, 194 Bled et Ahma, 106, 111 Borjes, see Caravanserais Bornu, 238 Bou Aisha, 148 Amama, 145 Bou byether, 114 Bou Saada, 33 Butter, Arab, 86 Camel herdsmen, 35 Camels, 65, 172, 240 Arab method of loading, 13 Arab method of training, 84 Caravan Arabs, 18, 32, 33, 124, 177, 191, 197 Caravanserais described, 19, 27, 199, 306 Cemetery, of Arabs murdered by Tawareks, 37 Charms, 262 Compagnie de VOued Rirli, 46 Damwah, 80 Dar-diefs, 111, 157, 208 Droning sound in Sahara, 43 Drouh, 17 Duveyrier, M. Henri, 286, 315 Ed Driss ben Naimi, 250 Edemeetha, 209, 215, 293 El Ayed, 109, 110, 129, 164, 168, 171, 197, 203, 306 El Bakkay sect, 233 El Golea, 245, 274 El Goug, 102 El Haj, 7, 129, 169, 194, 306 332 A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS El Wad, 35, 102, 194, 195, 205, 208, 214 Emeralds in Sahara, 22 Enchanted oasis, legend of, 71 Erg, The, 194, 226 Etiquette, Ai-ab, 61, 119 Falconers, 34 Fever, 101, 157 Fezzan, 238 Flatters', Col., expedition, 22, 140, 145, 243 Flous, 213, 292 Foggara, 206 Fort Inifel, 245 MacMahon, 245 Miribel, 245 Fortune-teller, 11 Gabes, Gulf of, 194 Gando, 238 Gazelle-hunting, 171 Ghadames, 226, 239 Tawarek letter to Emir of, 148 Ghat, 226 Gonaar, 215, 307 Gourara, 227, 233, 244 Greek inscription at Ghadames, 321 Guemeerahs, 22, 121, 195 Hamid, 117, 122 Harratin, 229, 235 Hassi Inifel, 273, 275 Mamar, 174 Messaoud, 175, 176 Hassis, described, 119 hidden by Tawareks, 120 Hoggar Tawareks, 146, 280, 252, 298 Mountains, 226, 234 Hot springs, Arab legend of, 48 Hout-el-erdth, 196 Hunting gazelle, Arab method of, 171 ostrich, Tawarek method of, 265 Ifoga Tribe, 267 Ihaggaren, 263 Imanan Tawareks, 252 Imghad, 263 In-Rhar, ksar of, 101 Insalah, 226, 230, 239 Iradjenaten, 263, 270 Irrigation of oases, 54 Issou, see Beni Issou Jababub, 142 Jeffair, Bir, 20, 26 Jews of Tougourt, 89 Joseph, Sister, 288 Kabyles, 271, 299 Kaid of N'goussa, 158, 160 Kef-ed-dour, 44 Kelowi Tawareks, 252 Kerratas, 14 tribal patterns of, 32 Kerzazia sect, 143, 233 Klialifa of N'goussa, 158 Elhartum, Mahdi of, 141 Khotara, 206, 293 Ksars, 99, 228, 231, 235 ' Lament of the prisoner of Kairowan,' 51 Legend of enchanted oasis, 71 of hot springs, 48 of valley of gems, 24 of snake, 25 of Taner'out, 25 Legmi, 212 Lithavi, 220, 223, 295 Lock, wooden, of Sahara, 152 Locusts as food, 4, 258 train stopped by, 259 Longevity of Tawareks, 258 Mahdi of Khartum, 141 of Senoussia sect, 142 Marabouts, 87, 117, 122, 126, 129, 151, 189, 255, 260, 263, 269 Market at Tougourt, 83 INDEX 333 Marocco, 238 Sultan of, 150 Marocco's claim to Twat, 242 Marriage customs of Tawareks, 283 dance at M'raier, 49 Mastan, 288 MeJmris, 102, 172 Melchir, sJwtt, 44 Mia'ad, 260 Mores, Marquis de, 287 Moumen, 288 Mozabites, 4, 229, 230, 244 M'raier, 48 Mugger, 66 Murzuk, 226 Murger, 27 N'godssa, 106, 156 kaid of, 158, 160 Khalifa of, 158 Nijem dief, 75 Nobles of the Tawareks, 263, 268 OUMASH, 17 Ourir, 45 Pallat, Lieut., 244 Palms, cultivation of, at El Wad, 204 Powder smuggling, 108 RiEii, Wad, 45 Eouara, 47, 230 marriage dance, 49 serenade, 50 Sa'a, 54 Sa'ada, 19 Sahara, character of, 16, 20, 30, 117, 120, 205, 225 climate of, 258 diamonds and emeralds in, 22 Salutations of Arabs, 35 ' Sand-devils,' Arab legend of, 43 Sandstorms, 133, 156, 175 Senegal, 238 Senoussia sect, 140, 233, 245 Senoussian vmJidi, 142 Serenade, Eouara, 50 Serfs of Tawareks, 267 Seriana, 17 Setil, 37 Sha'ambah, 59, 146, 167, 273 raids, 92, 106, 203 Shawias, 3, 27] , 300 Shegga, 35 Shereefs, 230, 252 of Wazan, 233 Shotialied, 40 Sidi Amran, 54 Okba, 17 Si Hamza, 146 Slavery, 62, 124, 136, 171, 229, 231, 239, 241, 270 Smuggling powder, 108 sugar, 125 Snake-catching, 34 Snipe, 112 Soffs, 232 Sokoto, 238 Solomon, legend of, 48 Souf, 102, 204 Tabelkosa, 244 Tadjenout, 146 Tamelath, 102, 109, 177, 179, 239 Tamenoukalen, 280 Taiier^ottt, 25 Tawarek burial customs, 40 camp, 293, 297 chief, 294 hidden wells, 120 legends, 24, 25, 39 marriage customs, 283 method of hunting, 265 raids, 39, 263, 273 weapons, 272, 279 Tawareks, 1, 3, 68, 83, 92, 138, 167, 194, 209, 218, 224, 230, 241, 243, 252, 294 of Arrerf Ahnet tribe, 252 of Askar tribe, 252 334 A SEARCH FOE THE MASKED TAWAEEKS Tawarebs of Awelimmiden tribe, 252 of Hoggar tribe, 146, 230, 252, 299 of Imanan tribe, 252 of Kelowi tribe, 252 Temasin, 99, 101, 109, 228 Temassanin, 239, 255 Tharben, 25 Them, 101 Tidikelt, 227, 233 Timbuktu, 225, 238 Timimoun, 249 Timmi, 246, 249 Tobacco culture, 291 Tougourt, 32, b7, 99, 102, 193 cafe at, 79 market, 83 mosque at, 105 old town, 72, 78 Trans- Saharan trade, 136, 238 Tripoli, 238 Trood Arabs, 59, 105, 209 raid by, 92 Tunis, 238 Twat, 206, 226, 227, 232, 233 Ultimatum of Marocco to France, 75, 250 Vatonne, M., 321 Wad Ghie, 237 Igbarghar, 237 Jidi, 19 Eirh, 45, 234 Saura, 234, 237 Zusfana, 237 Waldeck-Eousseau, M., 251 Wargla, 117, 134, 225, 274 Wazan, Shereef of, 233 Weapons of Tawareks, 272 Welad Sidi Sheykh tribe, 146 sect, 233 Zawia of Tamelath, 102, 109, 177, 179, 239 Zawias of Senoussia sect, 141 Zenata, 229, 235 Ziban oases, 3 PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODK AND CO. 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