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-
1 poking soup were brought in, the sheylch muttered
grace—Bismillah—and the feast began.
The milk was first handed round. The sheylch
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
sheylch dug out of the pile and handed to me as a
special favour was quite beyond my powers of mastication
. 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
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 precedes
you through the door in order to show 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 sheylch 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