Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/304

 286 Collectanea.

I was told a story by an Arab of a man who made some slighting remarks to his companion about a passing " sand-devil." The Devil immediately wheeled round and came swirling and roaring towards him, knocked him down, tore the burnous (cloak) from his back, and carried it up into the air until it was lost to sight.

A curious droning sound known as " the song of the sands " is heard sometimes on a still night in the Sahara. The Arabs say that this sound is the genii talking. (From an Arab of my caravan • and from one of a gang of Sha' ambah Arabs under arrest at Tougourt for raiding the Touaregs.)

There are two species of fabulous snakes in the desert. The one was described as being about eighty feet long, three feet wide, and having long hair on its head " like a woman." It springs upon travellers from an enormous distance or kills them by breathing fire at them. (Touareg name ashshel; Arab name hatiesh — both words mean simply " snake." I have also heard it called Tharaben by an Arab.) The other is smaller, the length of six men. It also has hair on its head, and has besides two horns like a goat. Its cry resembles that of a goat : it is called a Tanerhouel. This account, which I had from several Arabs, is con- firmed in Le Sahara f radicals, p. 154, where it is further said that in the Ahnet mountains of the Sahara there is also a creature called a Tatier'ouf. It is globular in shape, and " as large as a camel," and quite black. It moves occasionally from place to place, but generally lives in the caves of the mountains, where it sleeps all day long. It has a great objection to being disturbed, and if aroused by any one entering the cave, squirts boiling water at him from its mouth, which not only kills him but cooks him as well. The Taner'out then devours him and immediately falls asleep again. Can this myth refer to some volcanic phenomenon ?

Some of the better-class natives of course quite recognise the fabulous nature of these various creatures, but others firmly believe in them. One reason of my journey into the Sahara was to inquire into the existence of the tharaben, as I was collecting natural history specimens at the time, and thought that perhaps the " long hair " might be some sort of hood like the cobra's, and that it might be a new species. I was told at Biskra that one had been seen at El Wad (El Oued), but of course when I got there I could hear nothing of it. The horns of the tatierhouel vax^^ be only an exaggera-