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
four 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.
Belatives 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 Eamadan—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'likmm ’—‘ 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,
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
m ark in g 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