Page:Among the Women of the Sahara.djvu/89

Rh repose in a different way, each seated at the threshold of his own hut, for every family has a separate dwelling, these dwellings being closely crowded together, with here and there an Arab café, from which, every evening, proceeds the noise of a mixed concert of tambourines, viols and reichas, or clarionets. Though it is now almost dark, the golden ornaments worn by the Aulâd-Naïl gleam brightly, the flute-players are glad to rest their cheeks, swollen with much blowing, the violinists are repairing their strings. Someone is frying cakes hard by, and the soft air of twilight is laden with the acrid smell of hot honey. And in the narrower and steeper streets leading out of the principal square the old beggars are climbing up in the hope of getting some kouskous, lugging along the inevitable old pots they always carry: Ya ah'bab Rebbi! "Oh, ye friends of the chief!"

Night falls upon the town, and from the tops of all the mosques ring out the benedictions of the prayer of 'Asha:

"God is greater than all! Allah akbar!"