STREET IN WARGLA.
CHAPTER XI
T h e methods which a marabout 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 whitewashed
and made quite comfortable for his son, who,
acting as his successor, reigned in his stead.
But the new marabout had no intention of spending
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 whispered
to him through the hole in the wall. In the
evening he collected the presents which had been