4 African Mysteries: Zoraida, The Great White Queen, The Eye of Istar & The Veiled Man (Illustrated Edition). William Le Queux

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СКАЧАТЬ had been to In Salah with salt and dates, and were now returning with cotton and silk goods, which would eventually find their way into the country in the far south beyond Lake Tsâd. Mákita and I were soon very good friends, but from the moment we started I observed that he ruled his people in a most despotic manner. They were Children of the Sun, with whom theft is no crime, and revenge is virtue.

      The first hours of our journey were pleasant enough, for we passed through a beautiful palm-grove bordered by scattered gardens, where the people were busy in the cool of the morning irrigating the corn and vegetables. They came out to see us depart, but without expressing any feeling, hostile or otherwise. After a mile and a half the plantation ceased, and presently we entered a luxurious valley between three and four miles broad, rich in herbage and full of ethel trees, which crowned the tops of small mounds. Several other valleys, rich in sebót and adorned with talha trees, brought us to the well of Gara Beïda, where we encamped for the night at the foot of some cliffs of considerable height, which were to be ascended on the following day.

      Commencing our task at dawn, we found the precipitous path wound through loose blocks, and the ascent proved most difficult. The loads had in many instances to be taken off the camels, and we all had to climb on foot up the steep, narrow way over the rugged red sandstone. The ascent took over two hours, and at last we found ourselves on a great rocky level destitute of herbage, stretching away as far as the eye could reach. This region was the wildest, most barren, and most difficult to traverse that I had ever experienced, and it was then that I realised the wisdom of old Mákita, who had prevailed upon me to leave Zoraida’s horse behind and mount a camel.

      Very slow and tedious our journey proved for four days, the rough nature of the ground making it exceedingly difficult for the camels, until on the fifth day we began to descend by a narrow rocky ravine into a deeper region, amid scenery that was grander than I expected to find in that arid country. Here I saw plants and flowers, the most noticeable among the latter being one that grew about twenty feet high, bearing a white and violet flower which my Arab companions called “tursha.” There were also the jadariyeh, the shiá, and the damankádda and dum palms, all of which, however, are familiar to the traveller in the Great Sahara. There was a small torrent too, the bed of which was overgrown by wild melons, and beside the rippling water we halted for the night, prior to moving out into the wilderness again.

      Few, however, moved far from the camp that evening, for my dark-faced companions spoke with timorous exclamations of the numbers of lions which infested the valleys. While the camels browsed greedily upon the fresh allwot, the monotony of the evening was relieved by performances by Mákita’s musicians and the dancing of several Soudanese slave girls.

      On the following day we entered a much wilder country, and for a week we plodded on over the hot dry sand, during which time we only came across one well. The sun was blazing, its fiery rays beating down upon us more fiercely as we travelled further south. The choking clouds of sand raised by the camels, the inability to wash, and the continual consuming thirst, were some of the many discomforts we had to bear. Within sight of a great barren peak called Mount Telout, rising dark and rugged some three thousand feet above the level of the trackless, sandy waste, we passed, and entered the inhospitable country of the Izhaban. Not until a few days later, when we had halted at a well called Djerdeb for our noonday rest, did Mákita coolly inform me that the country through which we were passing was the territory of a slave-raiding tribe, the Kel-Fadê, who had on several occasions besieged their town Djanet, and had even gone so far as to threaten Rhât, the principal town of the Northern Touareg.

      “But dost thou apprehend attack?” I asked concernedly, as we squatted together under the shadow of a tree, a little apart from the others.

      “It is as Allah willeth it,” he replied gravely, stroking his grey beard and taking a deliberate pull at his long pipe. “One of the camel-drivers, however, hath declared that he detected a horseman of the Kel-Fadê in hiding in the valley through which we passed two days ago. It is possible that he is a scout; if so, we may find ourselves compelled to fight.”

      “Was it absolutely necessary to pass through this region? Could we not have avoided it?”

      “No. On the plain called Admar neither man nor beast can exist, for there are no wells, and the region remaineth unexplored. In a week we shall enter the gates of Djanet. Till then, we must be vigilant and watch warily, lest we are surprised. If we were, it would peradventure mean death or slavery for all of us.”

      This was not reassuring. Previous experience had taught me how deadly were the feuds between the various desert tribes possessed of souls of fire, and how fierce and sanguinary were the struggles when collisions occurred. I had not forgotten the swift, awful fate of the caravan of Ali Ben Hafiz, nor the bloody combat with the fierce freebooters of Hadj Absalam; and when I reflected that the packs of our camels contained very valuable merchandise, and that nearly a quarter of the number comprising our party were women and children, I confess I had some misgivings.

      As the succeeding days passed in perfect security, and as the Sheikh, to judge by his jubilant manner, considered that the danger of attack was over, the apprehensions passed entirely from my mind. Though the heat was intense and the journey monotonous, our long string of camels plodded onward at the same slow, measured pace day after day, regardless of the fiery sun. At night in the moonlight, when the wind blew in short refreshing gusts, the camel-drivers would sit and play damma, the women would chatter and scold their children, and the musicians would twang weird Arab airs upon their queer-shaped instruments or thump on their derboukas, while ebon-faced damsels danced on the mat spread for them. Indeed, under night’s blue arch life in a desert encampment has an indescribable charm that is irresistible to those of roving disposition, to whom the hum of cities is a torture and who have thrown off the conventional gyves of civilisation to wander south beyond the Atlas.

      In the dull crimson light of the dying day, that made the foliage of the palms and talha trees look black as funeral plumes above us, we halted at the well of Zarzäoua in a small oasis in the centre of a wild rocky district known to the Arabs as the Adrar. It was, the Sheikh informed me, only three days distant from Djanet, and the approaching termination of the journey, which had extended over four months, put everyone in a good humour. On the morrow we should cross the boundary, and my companions would enter their own country; then the remainder of the journey to their town would be devoid of danger.

      At the hour of prayer each of our men prostrated himself towards Mecca, and old Mákita, a very devout and bigoted Moslem with Time’s deep furrows on his brows, cried aloud the following words, which were repeated by his people, who at the end of every sentence kissed the ground.

      “O Allah! bless and preserve and increase and perpetuate and benefit and be propitious to our Lord Mohammed and to his family and to his Companions, and be Thou their preserver. O Allah! these Thy people are delivered. One and all, may Thy Blessing rest upon us. O Allah! pardon our sins and veil our faults, and place not over us one who feareth not Thee, and who pitieth not us, and pardon us and the True Believers, men and women, the quick of them and the dead, for verily Thou, O Allah, art the hearer, the near to us, and the answerer of our supplications.”

      Then, after reciting the testification, and drawing their palms down their faces, they went through a two-bow prayer, and the devotions, throughout exceedingly impressive, ended.

      Immediately there was bustle and activity. Camels were lightened of their packs and allowed to browse at will upon the long oat grass, a tent was quickly pitched for the Sheikh, a fire was kindled, the kousskouss was cooked, and as the dim twilight darkened into night and the moon’s rays shone like silver through the feathery palms, sounds of singing and revelry awakened the echoes of the fertile grove. Mákita and I had given ourselves up to cigarettes and calm repose as we squatted on a mat and lazily watched the terpsichorean efforts of a thick-lipped young negress, whose movements were exceedingly graceful as compared with those who had on previous СКАЧАТЬ