# The Fire of Desert Folk/Chapter 23

ON THE HIGH PLATEAUS
ON arriving at Ujda after our rapid run of something over six hundred miles from the Atlantic to the edge of the High Plateaus that gradually merge into the Sahara, we were very much in need of a rest before setting out on our last long trip in Morocco that would carry us southward over three hundred miles to the oasis of Figig and we consequently welcomed the excuse for a short respite afforded to us by the promise of the newly arrived consul, Monsieur de Vitasse, to accompany us on his first inspection of this part of the district to which he had just been transferred from Cairo, if we would but delay our departure for three days. He not only gave us a most cordial welcome and this offer to accompany us, but also held out the very delightful prospect that Colonel and Madame Pariel were waiting to receive us in their distant oasis.
After three enjoyable days in Ujda under the kindly favor of Monsieur de Vitasse, we started south across the plain of Angad and soon found ourselves winding among the forest-covered, low mountain-ranges of El-Hamra, M'Sila and Mehasseur. Beyond these mountains, the last of which was the crest of Chekhar, began the flat ​country belonging to the Uled Barka tribes, which is covered with the alfa-grass (Macrochloa tenacissima) that serves not only as fodder for their cattle but provides also fuel and the stock for the manufacture of paper in some of the mills of France and Spain. As we rode through the country, we saw numerous herds of sheep grazing on the prairies and also flushed many flocks of birds, among others some bustards (Otis tarda and Otis houbara), which rose near by and flew majestically away, while we hurriedly brought out our guns and threw them together to be ready for that next flock which never appeared within range.
"We are approaching Berguent and shall there find Colonel Pariel, who has come north to meet me here and distribute the prizes for the best horses the natives bring in for this contest," said Monsieur de Vitasse.
This announcement came as a very delightful surprise to us and was immediately supplemented by the dramatic and unusual reception which we were given as we approached the town. While we were still some distance out, we were met by a small detachment of spahis who raced toward the car like a flock of birds coming down the wind, suddenly changed their character, became motionless in the mold of a military rank and presented arms. After the swords had gleamed in the sun and a shout of welcome had gone up, the chief shortened his rein so that his steed reared high on its hind legs, uttered a word of command that threw the group once more into liquid mobility and then dashed in front of the car with two supporting spahis, while the others surrounded us as a flock of gulls convoys a ship at sea.
​We drew tip on a large square in the town, where the consul was met by Colonel Pariel and several ofhcers who had assembled for the occasion. It was interesting to watch the large gathering of Arabs and Jews in their picturesque garments and the local notables in their best bournouses and turbans performing the salaam and welcoming Monsieur de Vitasse. After the ceremony accompanying the presentation of reports to the consul and the introduction of officials the inspection of the horses began. To me the animals did not appear to be particularly fine specimens; yet I must admit that I am hardly a fair judge, as I am not familiar with the Berber and Arab breeds. As the day of our arrival happened to be Monday, we were also fortunate in striking a suk, or market, to which the local population of the region flocked in crowds with their sheep, camels and various products and wares for sale and exchange. The combination of these two major events gave to the town an air of bustle and life and an appearance of brilliance and color.
While Zofiette went to the home of the civil administrator, Monsieur Marcel, to greet Madame Pariel and to have some rest before the luncheon to which he had invited us, I turned to visit the town and the near-by slopes of Jebel Sidi el-Abid which overhangs Berguent. I also had a look at the market outside the town and at the streets in the Arab quarter before returning to the place. I shall long remember the impressions of that morning. The sun blazed madly and with such pitiless fire that it was only my rather thick garments which protected me from its burning rays. From the slopes of the mountain I looked out over the yellow, or rather golden, desert ​that stretches from the town toward the horizon, feasted my eyes upon the consoling promise embodied in a rivulet of precious water and took the final elements of the picture from the tall trees that dotted the oasis and from the multi-colored coats of the crowds of men and the flocks of sheep, the horses, the donkeys and the camels. Falcons and hawks sailed high in the air, as though they too were drinking in the picture of the sun-bathed town in the desert.
After the ceremony in the place had ended, I went to the quarters prepared for us and succeeded at last in getting rid of all the sand about me except that which continued to turn up from between my teeth. Then, after a most delightful luncheon in the house of Monsieur Marcel, we would willingly have remained inside to avoid the burning rays of the desert sun and to rest, were it not that our joint hosts. Colonel Pariel and Monsieur Marcel, had arranged quite an unusual spectacle for us—real Arab horse-races out on the desert.
Welladay! To see the sons of the golden sand at full gallop—this were a delight that would outweigh all minor physical considerations. Never mind the champagne and cognac, to say nothing of the white and red wines; never mind the hundred twenty-seven degrees of temperature—let us go to the races under the broiling sun! Fortunately Monsieur Marcel had caused two great tents to be set up for the spectators and liberal supplies of vichy and tea with mint provided for our comfort against the sizzling heat.
When the horses appeared, we found that there were some beautiful specimens among them, slender of limb, ​sleek and finely molded in body, quick, wild and strong with eyes that gleamed fire and mirrored the great stretches of the desert. And the riders—oh, artists of the whole world, why were you not there? In their wide trousers and short jackets with turbans clinging close to their shaven heads, the Arabs sat first as motionless as stone statues, their horses apparently understanding as well as the riders the solemnity and gravity of the moment, while two orchestras of drums, tambourines, pipes and bells played the martial airs of the desert folk. Then the signal was given, and four of the riders bent low over the necks of their now-transformed steeds and swept out in a great circle of liquid, softly billowing speed. We had no more than gasped and expressed our wonder at the grace and speed of this first quartette before another group was off. As they coursed in fours, sixes and eights, excitement and hazard grew as well among the riders as among those of us who watched this most unique scene. One of the best of the men up proved to be a spahi at the garrison, who made five of the courses and seemed not to tire at all.
After the distribution of prizes by Monsieur de Vitasse, we went for an excursion to the spring of Ras el-Aïn, whose waters burst forth from under little domes of pushed-up sand and joined together to form the stream of the Berguent River, that passes through and gives life to the oasis. I did not notice any fish in it but saw an amazing quantity of small, ordinary water-turtles.
On our way back we were met by Monsieur Marcel, who had come out to tell us that a fantasia was being arranged and that we must hurry on to be in time for it. ​As I had read and heard much of this performance by Arab horsemen, I was consequently most anxious to see it and disregarded the amused comments of my companions when I hurried off ahead of them at the sound of a rifle shot and the staccato of horses' hoofs mingled with the shouts of the riders. The fantasia was beginning. I found the whole square surrounded by Arabs, Berbers. Jews and Europeans, but not a woman among them. Knowing well that a fantasia brings together many finelooking, appealing men who become more and more inspired by the spirit of battle and that a woman's heart is readily moved by displays of courageous strength, the jealous monsters, men, lock well the strong doors of their houses to prevent the possibility of their wives and daughters from "showing a foot" or letting their voices be heard, in accordance with the directions of the merry and wise patron saint of Tlemsen.
At the southern end of the place were gathered a score of riders with their horses pressing one against the other, rearing, fighting and kicking. As the orchestra struck up a quick rhythm, eight riders separated from the mass and ranged themselves in line with military precision. Resting the butts of their long Moroccan rifles against their right hips, they sat motionless like a group of wonderful models for some master sculptor's hand, awaiting the signal that should galvanize them into action.
Who would give it? My eyes searched round to find tire man who should command and direct the spirit of action in these handsome riders on their wild and lovely steeds, of these warriors in their picturesque attire with their bournouses that will soon be veritable wings, with ​their fantastic turbans and with their colored jackets adorned in gold and silver embroidery.
Soon I discovered him in the person of their chief, who sat his white thoroughbred, with its brilliant red saddle and bridle, there on a mound just opposite me. The Arab beast, statuesquely beautiful, stood motionless with its flaming eyes staring far out on the desert plain it loved to course and its nostrils spread as though they searched for the air of the open spaces. As the rider sat his motionless mount, his picturesquely draped bournous did not hide his fine, stalwart form. From under the cowl that covered his turban, well-deep, dark eyes told of the spirit and expectancy within, while his black beard, spreading over his bournous, seemed to add the last bit of evidence of repose and strength.
At a slight signal from his hand the line of riders shouted, started their horses forward, threw their rifles into the air, catching them again while still in motion, and managed somehow to keep the dress of the line, though the horses, once in action, lunged and showed great nervousness. When the line reached the middle of the square, the riders raised their rifles above their heads and gave forth a tremendous shout Then suddenly, as though madness had seized them, they let their reins fall from their hands and gave another wild, sharp and guttural yell, following which the horses sprang into a gallop at such speed that their bodies seemed raised above the ground in flight and coursed round the place like a group of falcons chasing a flock of finches. Another shout, and the men sent a volley into the air from their long rifles, leaving little cloudlets of white smoke and the ​echoes playing back and forth from kubbas and mountains to add their weird contribution to the scene. Then they fired at random, some into the air, some toward the ground, so that ragged clouds of smoke and dust seemed in flight among the riders.
But what will become of the crowd, if these wild steeds of the desert, with their bloodshot eyes and foaming mouths and excited to a point approaching madness, galloping within ten feet of the line of onlookers, lose their heads and break for the open? A shout, and the question is answered; for the horses are on their haunches, and the laughing riders have formed the perfect line again, are reloading their rifles, as they trot back to the end of the place, and are throwing, in magnificent gesture, coins to the lesser beings who must stay down on the ground and make music to which warriors may ride.
Other groups repeated the same general performance, but what a variety in the way they shot and rode and cried! One could watch them for hours on end and always discover new details. When the fantasia was nearly finished, the commanding spirit on the little hillock, who turned out to be a local caid, descended from his staff-position and entered himself into the wild display. The fantasia now reached its highest pitch of abandon, just as the sun was splashing its last rays against the oasis which it had flooded with molten gold throughout the day. The kubbas seemed wrapped in brilliant flames, the river was turned into a ruby ribbon and the now-scarlet figures of the riders seemed to be the draft that stirred the flame. One moment more and all this glory was lost forever in the unbreakable caverns of the ​past—save as the key of memory might unlock some of tire lesser vaults.
"La Illah Illah Allah … Mahommcd Rassul Allah!" came from the lips of an old Arab, squatting on his prayer-mat somewhere near. The crowd began rapidly dispersing to return to their homes and offer praises to Allah, while the riders from the distant nomad camps, where they had left their herds and flocks, scattered among the various inns to wash the grime and dust from their hands and faces that they too might raise them purged to the sky and repeat in His praise tire ancient words:
"There is no God above Allah! His Eternal Name be praised by the men, nations and countries of the whole earth! Allah Akbar, Allah Mani, Allah Rashid, Allah Kadim!"
As I came back to our quarters, full of the thrills and pictures of the afternoon, I overheard one of the officials saying to a spahi:
"Do not neglect to see whether the natives have used all the powder issued to them. If any of it is left, collect it and put it in the storehouse."
It was easy to infer from this that an Arab possessing powder might prefer to associate it in undesirable juxtaposition with lead rather than to explode it in the harmless curls of smoke that decorated the place.
During dinner with Colonel and Madame Pariel and Monsieur de Vitasse the Colonel recounted many interesting stories about the natives, some of which illustrate most clearly certain unique features of their mental field.
One of these dealt with a Berber who, when he ​returned from service in the war, answered a query as to what had astonished him most by saying:
"Three things seemed strange to me. In our village iron, when thrown into water, will sink at once; yet on the great sea I sailed in a ship made all of iron. I am sure of this, because I tapped her sides with my hands; yet she went not under. This I do not understand. Also, the French horses astonished me, those that they used in the ports to haul great loads. Their hind legs are so thick that one of them would be equal to four or five of those of our animals. And what completely amazed me was a man standing on a high bridge and lifting with a chain loads that thirty men of our village could not have raised from the ground." This last referred to an electric crane.
Monsieur de Vitasse also recalled an amusing case of an Arab's experience in Paris. During one of the ceremonies in the Place de l'Etoile, at which many of the generals who had taken part in the war were present, the wave of emotion following some of the speeches was so strong that many of those present wept. A caid invited to the function was found weeping also. When asked why he wept, the caid for a long time did not regain sufficient composure to answer but finally replied:
"I cried from enthusiasm, as I could not look at the horse of General Pershing without shedding tears; it was so moving, so splendid!" and he had no more than answered before he wept again, this lover and connoisseur of beautiful horses.
The following morning we left Berguent. Our first stage, to the small civil administration outpost at Tendrara, carried us through a plain that was also covered ​with alfa-grass and afforded pasturage for the herds of the nomads we found encamped there. Inasmuch as their duars, or encampments, were always some distance off the road, we only occasionally saw out near the horizon the black spots of the tents, the shepherds guarding their flocks and the grazing camels.
As we were passing along the dried bed of the Tanekhuft River, we came upon two gazelles (Gazella dorcas) feeding in some thick alfa-grass. One of them made off in great jumps until it had disappeared in the green sea of the plain, while the second one continued to graze, apparently undisturbed by our presence. I snatched my rifle and had a shot at it at six hundred yards, only to see it bound away in the direction we were going. This gave me an opportunity to witness a repetition of the experience I had had when hunting antelopes (Gazella gutturosa) in Mongolia. As soon as we were under way, the gazelle quickened its pace with every increase in our speed and carried on for a distance parallel to our course, until it decided to put on more power and led us by a sufficient distance to allow it to cross in front of us. It was so far ahead and the motion of the car was so disturbing that I could only increase its speed with the shots I sent after it.
In view of the fact that certain sporting magazines had questioned my assertion of this characteristic in the Mongolian antelope, I was very much interested and pleased to see the trait duplicated in its African cousin and to hear from local hunters unquestioned confirmation of this peculiar habit.
In Tendrara, where two low, naked ranges come ​together from the northeast and southwest, we found a small French administrative village with a civil official and a guard of Arab horsemen. After being served coffee by the young and very chic Parisian wife of the official, we continued on through another plain of alfa-grass, but this time streaked with ever-increasing bands of naked clay and sand set with small stones. Not a living being, not a bird nor even a lizard was to be seen, with the exception of a small flock of bustards which we sighted near the bed of a dried stream. Monsieur de Vitasse and I assembled our guns and tried to stalk them but were unsuccessful in getting within range. Disgusted with our failure, we put our guns back in their cases, only to see a magnificent specimen rise within fifty yards of the car out of some thick grass that grew in a ditch. A real misfortune! But I knew it would be so, as I met an old Arab woman just as I was leaving the house in Berguent to enter the car. Hunting tradition the world round has well established the fact that to meet an old woman on the way to the field tolls the knell of all chance. One can then miss an elephant at five paces, to say nothing of a flying bustard or a speeding gazelle.
As we journeyed, we did not see a single trace of man. Farther on a string of camels appeared from behind a low hill and soon lost itself around another. But when we entered the region of Oglat ben Abd el-Jebbar with its good wells, we came upon many herds and their attending nomads. Then soon the prairie was pressed into a narrow valley between flanking mountains, high up on one of which we sighted some European buildings and telegraph poles.
​"It is Bu Hafa," explained the chauffeur, "where the manganese-mines are located. Before the war these were operated by German interests but are now controlled by other foreigners."
After enjoying near Bu Hafa the luncheon which Madame Pariel had thoughtfully brought along and which was spread amid the rather gloomy surroundings of these outspurs of the High Atlas, we met some Arabs on splendid mounts, riding in advance of a caravan of camels, punctuated at intervals with covered litters from which black-eyed women and children peeped out at us. They were guarded by young and old men, traveling on foot or mounted on donkeys and all of them carrying rifles and knives. In the distance a mirage shimmered, showing most plainly an island with a forest on it. But once we had topped a rise of ground, lake, island and forest all disappeared by the same magic that had made them so real a moment before.
As we continued our way, at one point the alfa-grass abruptly disappeared, giving way to areas of yellow and pale-green stones, almost all uniformly rounded and covered with little knobs and protuberances. In the course of investigating the geological formation, I sat down on one of these stones but jumped up as though it were red hot, with an acute pain in the palm of one of my hands which I had placed upon it and in which hundreds of needle-like points had made diminutive holes.
"You must be careful," cried Pariel, "for those 'stones' are really cacti."
Examining them closely, I could see that they actually were a vegetable growth, apparently as hard as stone, ​covered with minute thorns and some of them bearing small, yellow flowers. My knife could penetrate them, in spite of their hardness, due to saturation with chalk and magnesium salts. Colonel Pariel told me that their proper description is "Anabasis," though the French commonly call them "cauliflowers"—and, really, they rather closely resemble them.
The Anabasis is the flower of the Sahara and marked very distinctly the beginning of the sands. Marvelously patterned little ridges and kopjes revealed the handiwork of the swirling winds, while the gradually receding face of the mountain bore evidence of the stronger cunents from the south and southeast that carried myriads of silicious missiles to wear it away. Great rows of rocks at times stretched across the plain, resembling the ancient ruins of some long-forgotten civilization. Among these and the giant Anabasis, jackals and fennecs (Fennecus zerda) range, while vipers of all the varieties known in this latitude seemed to be basking there.
The fennec resembles a small fox but has large ears with long white hair inside them. It is quick, energetic and cautious, and the Arabs assert that it will climb trees. It seems to me that this characteristic of the animal must be derived from some feline strain in its ancestry, a possibility which is suggested also by the fact that fennecs play with their prey for a long time before killing it and also maintain great cleanliness in their surroundings.
Finally we reached a low, rocky pass, Teniet Zerga, resembling an immense gate. At the further end the road turned and brought us abruptly out of the pass above a large, deep valley with a single opening toward the south. ​Through and beyond this we could see the immense plain of Zusfana, which dropped gradually down until it was lost in the sandy hills of the Sahara. In the bottom of the valley the eye feasted upon a dark, green sea of splendid palms, some million of which the oasis of Figig counted as its own. The inevitable wonder-working river flowed between the towering hills of golden sand and down among the palms on its largess-distributing progress to the south. Until recently the Zusfana was considered an affluent of the Niger, but the celebrated geographer and authority on the Sahara, Professor E. F. Gautier, has proven that the Zusfana disappears in the sands of the desert to the south of Figig. Possibly it is a subterranean affluent of the Guir.
Dotted among the palms we could count seven pink villages and, set apart from them, the white, picturesque buildings of pseudo-Moroccan architecture which form the most advanced administrative French post in southeastern Morocco. The settlement comprises only four officials with their families, a doctor and some native cavalry. There are no colonists at all. In the surrounding seven villages some fifteen thousand natives lead their entirely different, primitive life, counting among them also about five hundred old Moroccan Jewish families. Near by in the desert, in the alfa-prairies and in the mountains camp thousands of nomads.
As we drew up before the residence of Colonel and Madame Pariel, we were met by smiling and most polite Arab servants. Escorted in to the terrace, we beheld a most pleasing fruit-garden with an avenue of palms carrying great bunches of golden dates. It was amusing to ​watch Madame Pariel's little dog frisking about under the palms and waiting for the dates which the birds dropped as they worked among the bunches.
In the evening, when we had dressed and come in from our quarters in the smaller bungalow in the garden to the larger house, filled with its objects of African art, beautiful pictures, magazines and books and radiating a sense of culture, I found myself musing over what a blessed thing this culture is. During my forced flight across central Asia three and four years ago I always compelled my companions, no matter in what extreme of difficulty we happened to be placed, to wash morning and night and always before partaking of food, to keep their washable garments, few as they were, clean, and to preserve some aesthetic forms or manners at our very simple meals, even though it might be during a Mongolian dinner, when mutton fat was dripping from our elbows. Yet in spite of all these precautions I remember now most clearly that, after some months of wandering, of hunger and cold and of sleeping beside open camp-fires, when we arrived at the house of a colonist who prepared for us real beds with clean sheets and pillow-cases, I was so moved that the tears welled up into my eyes. And some months later, when I saw the electric lights in Urga, I actually wept.
I feel that a member of the white race, consciously struggling for the highest forms of civilization, takes on an actual phsysiological need of culture and that he really suffers morally from the lack of it, as though he were deprived of the essential conditions of life and were ​aesthetically retrograding. At the same time, a man of culture, after a period of separation from his usual cultural surroundings and the extravagant joy that follows upon a return to them, very easily and swiftly forgets the contrast with hardships and reverts to his former state of mind and fixed habits of thought, an experience which I very clearly proved in my own case. After my wanderings of a year and a half over the mountains, deserts and prairies of the Mongolian region of Asia I arrived at Peking and installed myself in a room in the Hôtel des Wagons-Lits in the Legation Quarter. At first quite enchanted to be back in the surroundings to which I was accustomed and from which the Russian revolution had so abruptly snatched me, after but a few days I found myself beginning to observe that the Chinese service in the dining-room was not all that it might have been and even at times growing a little irritated over it. I remember hauling myself out of these moods, laughing at my sudden refinements and reproaching myself for my ready accumulation of critical tendencies, saying:
"Be quiet, you ungrateful wretch, and enjoy your excellent beefsteaks, tasty salads and cooling ices. Be thankful that a Chinese 'boy' brings you clean napkins and shining plates and remember the days, not so very long ago, when you had to sit by the fire and chase from your over-populated sheepskin irritating neighbors and when you ate meat that would never pass muster with the most lenient of sanitary inspectors!"
"Yes, that is all quite true," my other self argued, "those were bad times; but, just the same, why should ​that Chinese who is bringing in a clean napkin for the guest three tables down wipe his perspiring brow with the end of it?"
In the caravanserais of the world, be they in some small Oriental port or in one of the greatest metropolises of the West, there may be cleanliness and even splendor, but the constant passage of men through their courts and the monotonous repetition of stereotyped service robs them of an element which one longs for in life. We were consequently ripe for enjoying the contrast of perfect culture that reigned in this home of the Pariels, the cleanliness, the fine, silent service, the evening dress and the intellectuality which revealed itself at every step—in speech, in movements and in the considerate attitude toward one another.
After the dinner, at which all of the official associates of the Colonel and their wives were present, we talked for a long time, and I was again impressed with the fact that these men, flung by the sowing hand of Chance to the very edge of the Sahara, once more exemplified the fact that those left to depend on themselves for their intellectual life come to possess a broader and deeper knowledge than their seemingly more fortunate brothers who are set down in the centers of civilization and have to pay the price which constant distraction imposes upon their mental life. How these pioneers knew their country—its geology, zoology, botany, history, ethnology and language! All these were studied carefully and in scholarly detail.
In the course of the evening my wife played various violin selections for our hosts, among them some of her ​own compositions written and elaborated in Granada. As music is rare in the desert, her playing gave great pleasure to these finely cultured people.
During the afternoon, while we were still some distance from Figig, Colonel Pariel had looked at the sky and predicted rain, though it was quite unusual at this season. Unconventional as it was, when evening fell, with it there came torrents of rain, that still continued in lighter form when I set forth the following morning with my camera to cross the level space separating the French quarter from the native villages. At a distance these all looked quite uniform in appearance with adobe structures showing above the enclosing walls of similar material. The houses, which seemed to be constructed on different architectural lines from those in other parts of Morocco, had strange, open galleries and flat roofs, small iron or wooden doors, through which one could pass only by bending very low, and steps leading down into patios sunk below the level of the street. The inhabitants of the ksurs lead their daily lives in these sunken courts, overhung on all four sides by galleries which are usually decked with bunches of golden dates, with ropes of red Turkish peppers and with strings of grapes drying in the sun.
In spite of the rain and dark skies I took some snapshots but was entirely unsuccessful. What is more, the rain lasted during all of our stay in Figig, so that I was unable to secure any good pictures of this extreme outpost I greatly regretted this, as the oasis is quite unique in character and is surrounded by a high wall set with strange-looking watch-towers, where villagers guard the ​dates against the robbers that not infrequently come in from the desert and down from the mountains to make off with this staple of the Arabs.
When I was going out, I noticed a red flag with a green star flying right next to the French colors over the official buildings and later found out that it is the Khatem Soliman, or the Star of Solomon, and a new addition to the official insignia of Morocco. The sultan, having learned that the Bolsheviks had also a red flag as their national emblem, ordered this green star to be set in the plain, red field of the Moroccan banner.
During my ramble through the oasis I came upon some interesting zoological specimens, one of which was a small, white squirrel with dark stripes that gave it a close resemblance to the Siberian burunduk (Tatnias striatus). The natives of Figig call it "rallia," that is rockmonkey," a name they have given it owing to the rodent's quickness in jumping about among the rocks; while its Latin name is Atlantoxerus getulus. I came across another specimen in the kitchen-gardens of the natives on the plain in the jerboa, or Egyptian jumper, more scientifically known as the Dipus aegypticus. There were also varieties of lizards, some of them very brilliant in coloring, almost red; but I was not able to make any intimate study of them, owing to the persisting rain.
After luncheon we went in a party to visit the villages themselves, the largest of which is Zenaga. Narrow, twisted, dark and, at times, very amusing streets burrow like mole-runways between the walls of the houses and under overhanging upper stories, ever twisting and descending or mounting again. In these dark burrows we ​saw many native men squatting or lying about, but only two women, and these wrapped from head to foot in dirty bournouses that brushed the ground and hid the feet of these Helens of the desert.
We learned from our French official associates that the inhabitants of all the villages are Berbers and monogamists, while the neighboring nomads from the plains are Arabs from the east and polygamists. The stationary and more stable people of the ksurs have often suffered at the hands of the nomads on account of their women, so that now the men of the oasis keep their wives and daughters well guarded under lock and key.
At one point we passed through the suk where the major portion of the merchants were Jews, some of whom belonged to very ancient families that traced their lineage back to ancestors who arrived before the tide of Islam swept over the country. Colonel Pariel pointed out to us, as we were passing a small place, a mosque with a tall, new minaret and explained that the old one had fallen some years before just at the time when the muezzin was calling the people to prayer. The fact that he escaped with his life and without even a serious bruise, when several Berbers were killed and some houses badly damaged by the falling tower, could only be accepted as a miracle and at once marked the muezzin as a saint and Marabout—a title which he well deserved after his unusual feat.
I was interested, in the course of a visit to a well under one of the houses, to note the structure of the building. The different stories and the galleries were supported by transversals made of palm-wood. As this ​has a low coefficient of lateral supporting strength, the length of the beams is restricted to ten feet, owing to which practically all rooms are of uniform dimensions. It also interested me immensely to find that the natives seek to preserve the wood from rotting by wrapping it in layers of dried palm-leaves, just as the Mongols and Tibetans preserve their beams and rafters with the twigs of some local shrub.
In a school that we visited we found the Arab master was instructing the children in geography, history and French, in addition to the rudimentary subjects. The shaved heads of the boys made strenuous efforts to spell acceptably before the consul and the colonel and succeeded fairly well. In another school small children and youths were learning to make artistic embroidery and to decorate leather in gold and colors according to the accepted fashions of Fez and Marrakesh.
Meanwhile, as we wandered about. Colonel Pariel began telling us something of the history of the oasis.
"These seven villages, before their incorporation into the empire of the Moroccan Sultan, were seven separate and independent republics, constantly at war with one another. There existed two very definite reasons for this unceasing hostility: the first, a moral one, that of the vendetta, or blood-revenge; the second, a material one, the struggle for water.
"Do you see those ruins? They were once a village, whose inhabitants skilfully gained possession of the foggar a made by their neighbors for the purpose of leading water to the reserve reservoir on their lands. After a long-continued armed strife the original owners of the ​foggara finally dug a tunnel under the reservoir of their robbing enemies and blew both it and the village into the air.
"Each of the villages bent every effort to secure water, and the struggle continued among them even down to the time of their allegiance to the sultan. Seeing this and unable to keep the villages in peace, the sultan gave orders for the excavation of a common irrigation canal that should bring the waters of the river to all parts of the oasis and do away with the principal reason for armed hostilities. Though the inhabitants began the common task, the canal was never finished, as another means of circumventing the difficulty was found when the sultan asked from the palm plantations the taxes whose levy led to the formation of an administrative body elected from all classes of the population and to a consequent agreement that the whole network of foggaras should become the communal property of the oasis of Figig. Now each plantation has a fixed time at which the water is let into its irrigation canals, and the distribution is automatically regulated by floating valves."
When visiting the plantations, one cannot look without wonder upon the marvelous subterranean engineering feats of the natives, that represent so much of perseverance and industry and such an extraordinary spirit of invention. Like moles these Berbers have dug tunnels under their lands and villages, driven shafts to permit of cleaning the canals, sunk wells to control the current and the quantity of the water and excavated large subterranean reservoirs with long flights of steps leading down to them. These underground basins are so placed that ​water can be led down from them to flow out over the lands and make possible the culture of the dates, figs, pomegranates and grapes that mean sustenance and life to the inhabitants of the oasis. In the stretches not set with trees one finds also small fields of grain and vegetables.
But even with the resolution of tire great problem of water and the frequent genial contact there has been between men of the different villages, working in some mole runway underground or laboriously driving a shaft through formations of rock to form an artery for the life-blood of the land, the old enmity has not entirely disappeared, as an evidence of which one can still find families that will not permit marriage with the inhabitants of a neighboring ksur and even some men of such obstinate ill-will that they will not deign to enter one of the other settlements.
The delegates from all the villages meet in a neutral place, in the local agora of the Figig council, which gathers in the patio of the square white building that has been erected for this purpose. Owing to this traditional and deep-seated antagonism between the various individuals, these Berbers never can succeed in choosing a chairman acceptable to all, so that they deliberate without one and with such a concomitant of noise, vociferous demonstrations and real parliamentary pandemonium that one would never believe they could come to anything but blows. However, in some mysterious fashion they arrive at an understanding and formulate decisions.
Illustrative of their difficulties. Colonel Pariel recounted to us a very amusing and characteristic case.
​"It is not easy to manage all this, for, in addition to hundreds of kanouns, or local laws, we have had here to deal with an anarchistic commune. From the original seven distinct factions there afterwards remained, owing to certain economic considerations, only four parties. Following the adoption of a resolution by the council a committee of four, consisting of one member from each of these parties, comes to me and announces the action taken, and through a similar committee I send to the council the expression of my wishes, the text of new laws or regulations and my opposition to, or approval of, their resolutions.
"Once, when I received an official communication from Rabat concerning a new tax, I summoned a meeting of the council and asked that some one should come for a copy of the document forwarded by the government. When four delegates, one from each of the four parties, arrived, I read them the document and sought to hand it to one of them to carry to the council.
"'I cannot take it,' he said, retreating.
"'But why?' I asked.
"'Because for me to carry this paper would imply that I am more important than the others, and we are all equal in the council,'
"'Yes, Ali Haddar is right,' came as a supporting affirmation from the others.
"'Then what am I to do?'
"'Make four copies of the paper and give one to each of us.'
"It immediately occurred to me," continued the Colonel, "that, if all the official documents for the council ​should have to be copied in quadruplicate, my staff would have little time for anything else; yet I had to find some way out of the dilemma.
"'Well,' I finally queried, 'then can none of you, neither Ali nor Hadj ben Sliman nor either of you two others, receive or carry this paper?'
"'No, our kanouns do not permit it.'
"'But, if I were to give you four copies, would they form the single document sent for your consideration by the sultan?'
"'You speak justly, Sidi.'
"'Very well, then imagine that only one man came to me from the council, but such a one as should have from each party one head, one heart and one hand. If to such a one I should give a paper for him to take in his four hands, holding one of the four corners in each of them, could he carry it to the council in accordance with your kanouns?'
"'Such a man with four heads, four hearts and four hands could receive the single paper from you, Sidi.'
"'Well then, it is quite all right; for you four may take this paper and carry it between you, with one at each corner, to the council. May Allah protect you!'
"After a short consultation the delegates decided they could do this and went off, with one holding each corner, to lay the communication from the head of the state before their associates.
"With regard to taxes," Colonel Pariel explained in answer to my question, "the sultan experiences no difficulties, inasmuch as the Koran commands the Faithful to pay tribute to their Master. Real trouble in this respect ​could probably occur only with the downfall of Islam, and this is certainly not near."
As I afterward learned, the Figig natives most scrupulously respect private property and the sanctity of the home. For trespass either upon the fields of another or for entering unbidden another's home the culprit is punished by the cadi with the levy of a large fine. Murder, on the other hand, often sets going a vendetta between two households, such as the personal history of all Moslem countries so frequently exhibits. These family struggles are one of the principal reasons for the lack of communal and national feeling among the natives. To correct this the legislators of Islam have decreed banishment, sometimes perpetual, for spilled blood, the law requiring that a murderer must at once disappear from his home and village and never return. With the culprit out of their sight, the wronged family may gradually forget him and cease from their efforts for revenge. Then, after some time has passed, the relatives of the murderer may, through the medium of the cadi. Imam or Marabout, endeavor to negotiate an approach to the wronged family and to effect an agreement about the dia, or the price of blood, after which the two families can partake of food together and become reconciled. Once this accord has been established, the banished one may return, offer gifts to the family of the murdered man and become once more a citizen in good legal standing, after which no one will ever take him to task or remind him of the crime he has perpetrated.
The French authorities experience little difficulty in the execution of their taxation programs so far as the stable ​population of the ksurs is concerned; but, when they go farther afield among the nomads, they find the task is not such an easy one. In this shifting population the French have to act almost entirely through the caids of the various tribes, who not infrequently profit by their position of power to assist the rich and oppress the poor. But these poorer members of the tribes have ways of defending and protecting themselves, in that they know they will be heard if they come to the offices of the French Administration and report the correct returns of cattle in the herds of the rich. In such cases, when the French officials investigate and confirm the false reports given by the caid, they remove him and propose to the tribe that it elect a successor.
The council of the Figig commune invited Monsieur de Vitasse, Colonel Pariel and ourselves to a formal tea, which proved to be very solemn but which gave me an opportunity of observing some very fine types of men from the different ksurs and of hearing many original bits of information about the life of the people.
One of these concerned the burial customs of the oasis, which are quite different from those in any of the other parts of Maghreb. When a Berber who is sick unto death breathes no more, the eldest member of the family approaches and addresses him:
"In the name of Allah, pronounce the words of glory—'La Illah Illah Allah!'"
If the sick one remain silent, the senior propounds to him a second test:
"If Allah has left a single spark of life in your body, raise up one finger in token that God is One!"
​Failing response to this, it is considered that the soul has left the body and that burial preparations should be immediately begun. Without allowing any further period of time to elapse, the relatives quickly prepare the body and carry it to the cemetery for interment. With this most primitive method of determining whether life is extinct, there have occurred, I was told, cases in which men who were still alive have been placed in the ground.
The dead are laid on their sides with their faces toward the kiblah, that is, looking in the direction of Mecca. After the burial ceremony the relatives hold a banquet, which resembles very closely the ancient Slavic burialfeast, or trizna, the primitive forms of which have been preserved in Russia in the pominki. With the Berbers the feast comprises several varieties of kouskcus, which again marks a parallel with the Russian custom of serving wheat, buckwheat and rice. In this use of the cereal foods the influence of the East is visible, marking a change from the earlier form of trizna, at which only a horse or an ox was slaughtered and no vegetable foods whatever were served.
During our subsequent excursions the sun continuously hid itself behind clouds that frequently poured upon us. Under the ever-courteous guidance of Colonel Pariel we visited the whole reach of the neighboring valley of the Zusfana, ran over much of the desert surrounding Figig and, in the course of our several expeditions, at one time came upon a region of serried aregs, or low hills in the desert, covered in places with a thin coating of alfa-grass and elsewhere with thousands of Anabasises.
At one point along the river, where the stream cuts ​its way through a ravine of naked red and greenish-colored rocks, we could see in the distance the ranges of Jebel Gruz and Jebel el-Maïz. These are rather wild mountains, in which mouflons (Ovis musimon) have been plentiful in the past and with them their unwelcome enemy, the panther. But today no great number of these beautiful animals remain, and any hunter who attempts to bring one down will have long and arduous waits before he succeeds, and still more rarely will he come upon a specimen of the stalking feline.
In the neighborhood of Figig other beasts of prey continue from time to time to prowl, especially the guepard (Cynaelurus jubata), also known as the chetah, or hunting-leopard. Likewise there are wild cats with very long legs, which are not so savage as their larger relative, the panther, and which are trapped and tamed by the natives to be used in hunting gazelles, jackals and foxes.
With the excursions in the valley and through the surrounding country all accomplished, we spent a very memorable last evening in the home of Colonel and Madame Pariel, when my wife took leave of them and their oasis through the voice of her violin. As she had grown very fond of their verdant island in the desert sea, where we shared and enjoyed the unusual calm of nature, the unruffled life and the hearts of men, she played with unusual depth of feeling and with regret at leaving them all. To this distant, peaceful valley the germs of life's urban maladies do not penetrate; here political storms do not drive men from their homes to take up arms; even the storms of nature, the hurricane and the mad simoon, ​almost never rend the peace and calm of the villages set among the palms.
Hearts which have gone through the trials of great pain and trouble, souls which have struggled with the monstrosities and criminal demands of modern life would find their rest here, listening to the soothing, consoling whispers of the leafy palms, to the murmur of running waters and to the song of liquid-throated birds. Amidst all these the low-voiced Berbers, with their strange and primitive morals, not only contribute their element of calm to the picture for the eye but also remind the visitor that life is ever the beautiful gift of Allah and so fleeting that it is a sin to sacrifice the blessed moments of existence to such vitiating currents as jealousy and hate.
From our days in Figig we carry memories of calm and buoyant men, well reconciled to Fate and satisfied with her ministrations; of peaceful ksurs, whose internecine strifes have been ended for all time; of the accord set up between the menacing, sterile desert and the fertile, lush oasis, where every man is looked upon as a desired guest, if he but bring with him a pure heart, free from jealousy, and a mind calm and amicable.
It was hard to leave this Figig. When we crossed the line to Beni Unif in Algeria and entered our railway carriage from which we saw the faces of our friends for the last time, our eyes involuntarily turned away to hide their emotion to the brightly colored mountains and the sea of palms, where the welcome silence reigned and in it that calm of spirit and heart which is now so largely lost by men in the life of the world today, as well as a ​deep understanding of human suffering and a fine appreciation of beauty and truth. As though all nature were leagued to show us the desert garden at its best, the sun for the first time during our visit appeared from behind the clouds and bathed everything in a blazing, scintillating flood of light.
As our train drew away into Algeria, I gazed out toward the distant north and northwest and in my imagination ran again over the stretches that we had traversed during these last hurried weeks. There near the sea raged the fire of war and hate, which had been kindled by incautious hands and had spread farther and farther, covering town after town and tribe after tribe with the folds of its red mantle. Will it finally reach here, this Figig with its peaceful ksurs, its tall palms and its naked, richly colored ranges?
What then will become of those messengers who bring here another fire, a fire lodged in their hearts and kindled by the Creating Hand of a great love and understanding? The light of this fire will in time penetrate through the crumbling wall of darkness into all the distant recesses of life and will triumph as a splendid, strong Conquering Spirit among the yellow/ black and white races from one end of the world to the other.
Finis