One man, and only one, has succeeded in escaping
from that oasis. He, like the others, saw that
palace and those beckoning beauties, but being of a
prosaic mind turned his back upon them and declined
to listen to their blandishments. He busied
T-nmsftlf instead in loading his camels with the dates
and precious fruits of the gardens around him.
When he had filled his kerratas (camel bags) to
their utmost capacity, he set out to return to his
tent.F
or three days he travelled, but though he drove
his camels at their utmost speed, he invariably found
himself in the evening at the same spot from which
he had started in the morning.
He realised then that the oasis belonged to the
genii, and that they were preventing him from
carrying away its fruits. He became alarmed and
emptied his kerratas of their precious burden, and
made another attempt to return to his home. In
the evening, however, as before, he found himself
back again at the point from which he had started.
An investigation revealed the fact that a single date
which he had overlooked remained in the bottom of
one of his kerratas, and it was not until he had
thrown this out that he was permitted to return to
his tribe.
In the afternoon we paid a visit to the old town.
A more curious or more interesting place it would be
difficult to find. The streets, mere narrow, tortuous
alleys between walls of rough sun-dried bricks, were
throughout the greater part of their length roofed
over to form a sort of tunnel as a protection from the
burning rays of the sun. Here and there, so as to
allow for the admission of light and air, this roof
was discontinued. On either side were raised seats
of earth, blackened and polished by continual use.
Rough palm-wood doors, six inches thick, and
dark narrow entries appeared on either hand. No
windows opened into the streets, but sometimes
through a half-opened door a glimpse of the interior
of some mud-built house could be caught, or an
Arab school could be seen where some twenty or
more little dark-skinned urchins seated round their
teacher were chanting, with the babble of an infant-
school all the world over, the lesson which they were
learning by heart.
In these cool, dim streets the inhabitants of
Tougourt spend the hottest part of the day. Men
sat upon the seats at the side, knitting socks, sewing
burnouses, plaiting fans from slips of palm-leaves,
smoking, talking, or cobbling their shoes. Others
stretched themselves out at full length, drew the
hoods of their burnouses over their heads, and, with
their shoes for a pillow, slept the sleep of the lazy
and the unemployed.
Children swarmed everywhere. Little girls of
five, clad in dark blue, staggered along, carrying on
their backs smaller children clad in—well, very
little at all. Children sprawled upon the seats and
round the knees of their fathers and big brothers.
Boys on stilts formed from the mid-rib of a palm-
leaf, with a block of wood tied on to it about a foot
from the ground, ran along, crying out imperiously
■ Treg, Treg ’ (way), to clear the road. Gaunt,