Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/119

Rh wall. As we went farther and farther westward over a road as level as a table, the chauffeur carried us along at from forty-five to fifty miles an hour. The white stones set by the military glided by and pointed the traveler on his way to Fez, Rabat and Casablanca, marking as well the side roads and even the paths that were only tracks for mules and led off to Bu Huria and Tinnaburt, or to some village at the foot of the range of Jebel Bu Lajeraf inhabited by industrious agriculturists and expert cattle-breeders of the Beni Bu Zeggu. This is one of the mysterious North African tribes, as they use the Berber language but have their own distinct religious ritual and their special magical practices, claiming also that their original ancestor was a Christian lalla, or woman saint.

Here and there in the desert we also passed carefully built and cemented wells, which had been dug by the French. To make a well in the desert is a deed most pleasing to Allah, according to the Koran. Consequently the French officials and groups of the colonists are not slow to win their way to the hearts of the natives by providing these most necessary stations on the desert road.

Near one of them we drew up beside a pair of native riders, who turned out to be two armed Berbers that were watering their horses at the cement trough near the well. The riders stood waiting near their mounts and kept their faces entirely covered with their bournouses, as they always do when traveling, giving one the impression that they are afraid of burning their already brown or quite black faces. But their own reason for doing this is really quite a different one. Passing through unknown and