Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/103

 CHAPTER VII

OVER THE MOROCCAN FRONTIER

T one of the railway stations enroute we had the good fortune to find a native orchestra made up of a goodly number of aliyins, or musicians. It greatly interested my wife, as, with her long training and deep fondness for the violin, she was studying and collecting all the original native themes which we could discover throughout the journey. The leader of this orchestra, which was at the same time a chorus that sang to its own accompaniment, himself played upon a violin, with two strings, called a "rbab" in the Arab tongue. Among the other instruments were the kwitsra, closely resembling a mandolin; the terrar and the bendir, drums with bells attached; the thel, similar to the Russian accordion; the raita, or horns; the derbuka and the gwellal, trumpets, and the gwesba, or long flutes.

Zofiette particularly admired her fellow-artist of the violin, though his instrument had only the two strings, tuned very low, and was placed on his knee, just as though it were a small violoncello. She was very anxious to play something of Wieniawski's or Sarasate's on this African Stradivarius, but the guard was signaling for the start, so that we could only listen, just before and as the