dark yellow in hue, and it had a peculiar curdled
look about it which I did not like. It was contained
in a much-patched gurbah, which, from its size, must
once have covered the carcase of a very old he-goat.
It had a savoury smell.
Aissa plunged his forefinger into the mess and
dug out a lump, which he transferred to his mouth,
smacking his lips as he did so. Judging from the
number of pits in the surface of that butter several
other people must have sampled it in the same
manner.
Aissa swallowed the lump, smacked his lips
afresh, and gave his opinion of it with the confidence
of an expert.
‘ That’s very good butter.’
I told him that I did not like the looks of it. He
seemed rather crestfallen.
* It is quite good,’ he said indignantly. ‘ There
is nothing wrong with it. All Arab butter looks
like that. You couldn’t get better butter than that.
Why, it has been kept for over two years in that
gurbah! ’
This was apparently intended to be an unanswerable
argument in its favour. As far as I was concerned
it settled the question entirely. A contact of
two seconds with a goat-skin is quite sufficient to
impart the most piquant flavour to any butter in
existence, but two years—no. Something a little
more juvenile would have been preferable.
Aissa lagged behind as I moved on, and I heard
Tiim endeavouring to buy a small portion of it for
himself. I am thankful to say that he failed, for it
would have been impossible to have travelled with
him if he had succeeded.
The Tougourt market, like that of Biskra, seemed
to be the rendezvous of all the marabouts in the
place.
One cantankerous-looking old negro saint had
somehow managed to get hold of a length of gold
fringe, apparently of European origin, which, to the
envy of his rivals in sanctity, he had sewn all round
the edge of his burnous, thus giving a very smart
effect to his otherwise ragged attire,
v But the marabout which most attracted my
attention was a holy man who got a living by eating
scorpions for the delectation of the people who visited
the market.
At the moment of our arrival he was standing
with his face turned up to the sun, and two of these
loathsome creatures crawling over his forehead and
cheeks. He allowed them to creep for some time
about his face. Then suddenly, with a frantic yell,
he snatched them off, flung one of them down,
causing a small stampede in the crowd around him,
tore the tail and claws off the other, put the body
in his mouth, and crunched it up with apparent
gusto. He then picked up the other one, and treated
it in the same way. It was a most disgusting
spectacle.
I have seen the Beni Issou dervishes of the
northern part of Algeria hammer nails into each
other’s heads, ram spikes into their eyes, bite at a
red-hot shovel, and eat live snakes, prickly cactus,
and glass, but the revolting exhibition given by that