Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/148

138 features could not conceal that his nose had been smashed across his face. He had clearly been very much "in the wars."

In spite of the fact that he was badly armed and that our party outnumbered his in the proportion of two to one, he treated us with all the overbearing' insolence for which his race is notorious. He rode past us at first without returning our salutation—this in itself is an unpardonable offence in the desert. When addressed by one of my men, he commenced heaping the most insulting epithets upon him. My Arab, who was not blessed with too serene a temper, retaliated in the same manner, and if I had not interfered, the incident would have ended in that insolent Tawarek receiving a shot in the back from my infuriated Arab as he rode past us.

The distrust that the Tawareks inspire in others is an entirely reciprocal emotion. They are as suspicious and as shy as wild beasts in their dealings with their fellow men. I employed a young Tawarek for a few hours as a guide. One of the Arabs belonging to my caravan happened to be a member of a tribe with which his was at blood-feud, and it was very amusing to see the way in which my hulking guide sidled away and furtively handled the hilt of his dagger whenever his enemy approached him. The latter, feeling that he had the whole of my party on his side, abused the position shamefully, and chaffed that sulky Tawarek in such a merciless and insulting manner that he ground his teeth audibly in his impotent fury.

In the middle of the day, when we halted for a meal, the young Tawarek absolutely refused to eat some dates that I offered him until I had partaken of some of them myself as a guarantee that they were not poisoned, and he had watched for about a quarter of an hour to assure himself that I did not suffer from any ill effects in consequence. When at length I prevailed upon him to accept a few, he squatted down upon the ground at a little distance from us, opened several of the dates and examined them minutely, smelling and licking them all over before he became quite satisfied that they were innocuous. Then he made up for lost time by bolting nearly three pounds of them in about five minutes. It was very curious to watch him eating. Like all the Tawarek men, he considered it immodest to show his face, so he passed the food up under his mask in such a way as to show not even his chin.

Before dismissing him, I bought the whole of his arms, with the exception of his dagger, for which he asked an enormous price, wishing to retain it, as he did not like to go about unarmed. The possession which he most prized was a large stone bangle which he wore upon his arm above the right elbow. This had been given him by his fiancée, and she had inscribed her name upon it. He would not part with that, he said, for "all the camels in the Sahara."

A French soldier, whom I met passing with despatches between two of the small military posts in the Sahara, told me that he had orders not to allow any member of this race to approach him, but to fire a shot over his head if he came within a thousand metres, and to shoot the pariah dead if he did not immediately take the hint and sheer off. This soldier was what is vulgarly known as a "sans souci"—that is to say, he was a member of one of the condemned corps who together with the "foreign legion"—the Turcos, Spahis, and other native troops—form the bulk of the garrisons of the French forts in the Sahara. As these condemned corps consist of those soldiers who have been convicted of serious crimes during the term of their military service, in point of depravity they are quite a match for any Tawarek, and, with the exception of the almost equally disreputable "foreign legion," are the only troops for whom the Tawareks and other warlike desert tribes have any real respect. My sans souci was a typical specimen of his class, and informed me with a leer that even at a thousand metres it was difficult to miss these huge Tawareks, and consequently the first shot often took effect. In accounting to the authorities on his return for his missing cartridge it was, he said, merely necessary for him to show that he had killed a Tawarek with it, and no further questions were likely to be asked. The weapons of the deceased were the French soldier's by right, and he could sell them as curios to the officers, who were always glad of an opportunity to purchase them.