Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/108

93. As Colonel Pariel approached him, he drew out a paper, from which the former read something and broke out into a hearty, good-natured laugh. Stroking his neat, gray beard, he said to the man:

"Very well, sir, you did everything you could. Thank you. You may go now."

The young official went away with an expression of doubt on his face, while the Colonel, still laughing over the incident, explained to me that he had directed the police to meet us and to facilitate my visit to the consulate. The authorities, taking no chances, understood this to mean that they were not to leave me for a moment, as they did not know why the consulate was so much interested in my arrival. Was the young official perhaps convoying a foreign criminal? In any case he had decided to take no chances and to be my guardian angel.

An hour later Colonel Pariel called upon us and took us for a stroll through the town, which is made up of a Medina, or old Arab quarter, enclosed in a square wall with several gates, and the more modern section, containing the administrative offices, the post, the telegraph, shops, military institutions, schools, the church, villas and very pretty gardens. The houses are for the most part small, low brick structures in a pseudo-Moorish style. As the wind was rather strong, the heat was not too trying, yet clouds of dust filled our eyes and made our throats dry and sore.

With little to be seen in French Ujda, Colonel Pariel proposed that we go in his car to the near-by oasis. We left the town, passed through a part of the Medina and