Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/115

Rh Among the Zkaras, as a matter of fact, there is a ceremony during the feast of Bairam called "Leilat el-Gholta," or "The Night of Error," during which, after prayers and the performance of certain ritualistic ceremonies in the temple, men and women spend a night of debauchery. It is a custom, or rather an ancient rite, similar to those of the "jumping sect" which existed in certain congregations of the Greek Church of Russia. The origin of these and similar practices may be traced back to the old pagan agricultural cults.

That evening we spent in the hospitable home of Colonel and Madame Pariel and met there a monk of the order of The White Fathers, who had come up not long before out of the Sahara, where he was passing his life among the Tuaregs and other half-wild nomads of the desert. The black cross hanging against the white cassock combined with the serious, calm face of this man to tell of some force which the white race is opposing to the irreconcilability of Islam and to the magic cults of lesser importance which still find shelter within the confines of the Dark Continent.

Before we left that evening Colonel and Madame Pariel invited us to pay them a visit in Figig, their pretty oasis on the edge of the Sahara.