when I was not looking, but which turned away immediately
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 themselves
still more imposing than their already sufficiently
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 lithams 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 behaviour.
He was rather a Don Juan in his way—or, at all
events, he liked to think himself ope—and his
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 little 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 flous,' whispered Aissa.
Flous 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 for flous.
Their manner was entirely different from that
displayed by Arab children, who are always the most