hungry-looking dogs on the look-out for garbage
slunk by, and goats of the black, hornless breed of
Tougourt hurried bleating past, to disappear suddenly
through an open door into an Arab house
beyond.
Now and then a dyer from the market pushed
his donkey laden with blue and bright red cloths
through the throng. Arabs, bringing home in their
hands their dinner of charred sheeps’ heads and
trotters, mixed with the crowd. Wild-looking
specimens of humanity from the desert came along
with donkey-loads of firewood, and women swathed
entirely in dark-blue cotton, showing not even an
eye, carrying water in quaintly shaped earthenware
jars to their houses from the wells, hurried furtively
past, their anklets clinking with every step they
took.
Sometimes a sheykh in his scarlet burnous rode
by on a mule, or an Arab trooper from a spahi
regiment, ducking his head to avoid the palm-trunk
rafters of the lower parts of the road, emerged from
one of the darker tunnels, and unceremoniously
scattered the crowd in all directions as he trotted
through them.
In the evening I strolled out into the great souk
or market in search of Aissa and El Haj. Several
big caravans had come in during the afternoon, and
the camel-drivers, with their loaded kerratas around
them, were scattered about in little groups, cooking
their supper and talking in low, guttural tones
around their brushwood fires. In the obscurity
behind them the long necks and supercilious faces
of their camels could be seen as they munched their
evening meal of barley from off the cloth before them.
The smell of the camels, of the Arabs’ cooking, and
the smoke of their fires hung heavily in the warm,
still air. The hum of the old city behind mingled
with the low gurglings and grunts of the camels,
the crackling of the fires, and the quiet, guttural
speech of the men.
A couple of men who were sitting by one of the
groups rose as I approached, and came towards me.
By the fitful light from one of the fires I recognised
Aissa and El Haj. A'issa looked grave and troubled.
‘ I was waiting for you, M’sieu,’ he said. ‘ I
have heard bad news. I have just been talking to a
man from Twat, and he says that there is going to
be a big war between France and Morocco. One of
the big officers of the Sultan down there—a Basha,
or someone, I don’t know who—sent a letter to the
French, telling them from the Sultan that they
must leave the country, and when they refused he
attacked them, and there has been a big fight. There
is sure to be a war. We all knew there would be.
The Marabout of Tolga told me so himself. Some
one has seen a Nijem dief (stranger’s star), and that
always means that there is going to be war or
famine.’
Assa then went on to explain that a Nijem dief
was a * star with a tail ’ which occasionally appeared
in the desert, and always preceded some calamity.
One, he said, appeared at the time of the great
insurrection in 1871, and another had been seen in
the year of the great famine. He was, however,