صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

perous journey. May the saddle beneath him glide down to the gates of the happy city like a boat swimming on the third river of Paradise. May he sleep the sleep of a child, when his friends are around him; and the while that his enemies are abroad, may his eyes flame red through the darkness -more red than the eyes of ten tigers! - farewell!

Dragoman.-The Pasha wishes your Excellency a pleasant Eöthen.

journey.

So ends the visit.

AFRICA.

THE ARAB OF THE DESERT.

By the Arab of the Desert, the lord of the tent, is meant he who, leading a wandering life, is never more than a fortnight or three weeks without a change of dwelling-place, and who goes only once a year to the tiresome Tell to purchase corn. This cavalier, hunter, and warrior combined, is a man of dry and wiry constitution, with sunburnt countenance and well proportioned limbs, tall, but nevertheless setting but little value on the advantages of lofty stature -"the skin of a lion on the back of a cow - unless it be accompanied by address, agility, good health, vigor, and, above all, by courage. Still, while esteeming courage thus highly, he pities, but never despises or insults, those who have "no liver." It is not their fault. Allah has not willed it... The Desert Arab practises extreme sobriety; but, accommodating himself to all sorts of circumstances, he will not neglect any opportunity of feasting luxuriously and plentifully. His daily food is simple and unvaried; but he knows how to entertain his guests worthily when occasion requires... When el-ouda, or the annual fête of a friendly tribe arrives, he will not insult his acquaintance by neglecting to join them; and, were it eighty or a hundred miles off, go there he must, to fill his stomach and cheer his friends. On the other hand, they are well aware that he will cheerfully return the compliment, and that they have not to do with a rascally towntrader, the whole amount of whose hospitality consists in the offer of four feet square as a sitting place, a pipe of tobacco, and a cup of coffee, sugared or not, after abundance of preliminary speech.

With the Arab of the Desert everything concurs to a powerful manifestation of exterior life. He is sinewy, hardened, sober, although occasionally of vigorous appetite. His visual power is sure and piercing. At five or six miles' distance, he boasts that he can distinguish a man from a woman; at ten or twelve miles, a drove of camels from a flock of sheep... Nor is this empty brag; the extent and clearness of his sight are attained, as with sailors, by the incessant habit of looking over

immense and naked areas. Nevertheless, diseases of the eyes are frequent; the reflection of the sun's rays, the perspiration and dust, are the cause of many ophthalmic complaints, and blind and one-eyed people are numerous in many localities of the Desert... The veritable grand seigneur, the chief of importance, rarely quits the saddle, and scarcely ever goes on foot; he wears boots and clumsy shoes. The man of the common people is an indefatigable pedestrian; in a day's journey he will traverse incredible distances... His ordinary pace is the gymnastic step; he styles it himself the dog's trot. Generally, in a flat country, he takes off his shoes, in order to go more quickly and conveniently: also to spare them; consequently, all such individuals have the feet of antique statues, broad, well-planted on the ground, and with the great toe well set apart... Corns are unknown to them; and more than once, a Christian who had joined a caravan on pretence of being an Arab, has been expelled from it, betrayed by this infallible sign. The soles of an Arab's feet acquire such a degree of hardness as to resist all injury from sand or stones; a thorn will sometimes penetrate the horny skin without their being aware of it.

Notwithstanding, in the Desert proper, during the great heats of summer, the sand acquires so high a temperature that to walk barefoot is impossible, even for Arabs; and they are obliged to shoe the horses also, if they wish to avoid serious injury to their hoofs. The fear of the lefâ, a species of viper whose bite is mortal, likewise compels them to wear slippers which reach above the ankle... The most common foot complaints are the cheg-gags, or cracks, which are cured by anointing the part and cauterising it with a red-hot iron. Sometimes these cracks are so broad and deep that they have to be sewed up, which is done with the sinews of the camel dried in the sun and divided into threads as fine as silk, or with camel's hair stretched to make it thinner. All the dwellers in the Desert employ these threads to mend their saddles, their bridles, and their wooden trenchers; everybody carries about with him, by way of housewife, a bunch of these threads, a knife, and a darning-needle.

Some Arabs turn their pedestrian powers to good account as a profession; such are the runners, the bearers of messages, who gird themselves tightly with a runner's-belt. Those called rekass undertake urgent affairs. In four days they will perform a journey which would take an ordinary runner ten days to accomplish. They scarcely ever stop; when they feel the want of repose, they count sixty breaths, and then start off again... A rekass who has run sixty leagues, or a hundred and twenty miles, and has been paid four francs or three shillings and four

pence for his trouble, considers that he has been handsomely rewarded. This arises from the scarcity and value of coin, the greater part of the necessaries of life being procurable, without buying or selling, by barter only... In the Desert, an extraordinary courier travels night and day; only sleeping two hours out of the four-and-twenty. When he lies down, he ties to his foot a piece of rope of a certain length, the end of which he sets on fire. When the rope is on the point of being completely consumed, the heat of the burning hemp awakes him.

If a Saharian is, ever so little, in easy circumstances, he does absolutely nothing. To work would be a disgrace. He goes to reunions, to meetings of the djemâa. He hunts, rides about, inspects his flocks, and says his prayers. His sole occupations are political, warlike, or religious in their nature. To plough, reap, or garden, is no business of his; such ignoble pursuits belong to chicken breeders who live in ksours or fixed habitations... In a great and grand tent, the labors of the interior are confided to negro-slaves, who are cheap and numerous. The negresses fetch wood and water, and prepare the meals. The proverb says: "He who has no negress, and does not sleep on a bed, has a grudge borne against him by Misery "... In a tent of moderate means, the work is left to the wives. They have to milk the ewes and camels, with the help of the herdsman, to make butter, to grind corn, to saddle and unsaddle the horse, to put on his horse-cloth, to give him drink and barley, to hold the stirrup when the lord and master gets on horseback or off... They weave beds, cushions, baggage-sacks, woollen stuffs dyed red, blue, and yellow, the curtains which separate the men from the women, camels' pack-saddles, bag-pipes, wallets, horsecloths, shackles, nets to keep lambs from ewes whose milk is wanted, ropes of wool, of camels' and goats' hair, of palm-leaves, and of aâlfâ. They prepare the goat-skins in which milk, butter, and water are kept... They fabricate with clay, pottery, drinking-vessels, ovens, and dishes in which to cook bread, kouskoussou, and meat. When the home is shifted, they strike the tent, roll it in a bundle, and put it on a camel's back. During the migration, they walk on foot, often leading a mare with a foal. They faggot the wood they find by the way, and pick up grass for the night's bivouac. On arriving at their destination, they pitch the tents.

But the Saharian, who has neither wife nor negress - who has nothing at all—is less wretched than a wretch of the Tell. He goes and serves some great family, he mends sacks and harness; he roasts sheep; and, when his holidays are longer than usual, he roams from tent to tent, wherever there are

hosts to receive him, exchanging his services for remnants of food. A Saharian Arab, who thus depended on Providence, was asked how he managed to live: "He who created this mill,” he replied, showing his white teeth, "can easily supply it with materials to grind."

The Arab of the Desert is proud of leading such a life, which, although exempt from the monotonous labor to which the inhabitant of the Tell submits, is not the less active and agitated, full of variety and unexpected turns. If the beard bleaches quickly in the Desert, it is not from the heat, the fatigue, the journeyings, and the combats of the Desert; but through the effects of its anxieties, its cares, and its sorrows. He only whose beard does not bleach, "has a large heart," knows how to practise resignation, and says, "It is the will of Allah!"...What a lesson to the worldling who is careful overmuch — who seems to act as if he thought he could take everything out of the world with him! And what an enemy to encounter, endowed with such moral as well as physical means of defence a passive resistance which nothing can touch, after active hostilities have been tried in vain! Household Words.

A MILITARY EXPEDITION AGAINST AN ARAB TRIBE.

THE order is given. The little expeditionary column is to start to-morrow. The soldier knows that the march is to the south, and he makes a wry face, because it is the month of August, the heat is excessive, and the fatigue will be exhausting. Expeditions in the mountains, or to the south, are the two descriptions by which the trooper who does pique himself on geographical knowledge, classes the operations in which he takes part.

The first day's march offers few incidents worthy of remark: they were off at the earliest break of day; every hour there is a five minutes' halt; about ten o'clock they halt an hour to breakfast. This is the grand halt, called by the brigade of Tlemcen, the coffee; because that was the only preparation which the soldiers have time to make with the aid of fire.

After the coffee, the march continues till four or five in the afternoon; the bivouac is fixed close to a stream of good water, near a wood; the men have travelled a dozen leagues. As yet, the troop wants for nothing; the foot-soldier is not too fatigued; he is gay, singing cheerful songs. The veterans exercise their wit at the expense of the less experienced... They do nothing but tell them to make the most they can of the pleasant water, the

« السابقةمتابعة »