Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/144



dagger, and lance, roams the Sahara like a knight errant of old, protecting and guiding the caravans under the charge of his tribe, redressing and avenging the wrongs done to his slaves and serfs, or, in order to bring glory to his ladye-love, whose gage d'amour he wears, and to find the necessary dowry to settle upon her, engaging in adventurous forays upon his neighbors' herds and the caravans under the protection of the neighboring tribes.

From time to time, when an opportunity occurs, he sends a letter to his adored, giving, in a somewhat vainglorious tone, an account of himself and his exploits. These letters are written in the old characters of the Berber alphabet, which at the present day is in use among the Tawareks alone. They are sometimes illustrated with rough but spirited drawings of the incidents referred to. Occasionally they are written in a cipher, of which the writer and the recipient alone possess the key, and not unfrequently they take the form of a short poem addressed by the absent Tawarek to his inamorata.

When a Tawarek woman wishes to obtain some intelligence of her absent lover, if no other means are available for doing so, she arrays herself in her best dress, dons the whole of her jewelry, and betakes herself at nightfall to the nearest Tawarek grave, where, lying at full length upon it, she summons a spirit known as the Idebni to appear before her. If he answers to her call, he takes the form of a huge Tawarek, and seating