Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/120

104 spiritually unchartered places, they know not the day nor the hour when a djinn may enter their mouths and cause sickness.

The men carried long Arab rifles, with graceful, slender stocks ornamented with silver and mother-of-pearl. When they sprang into their saddles and their horses shot away as though their feet hardly touched the earth, these riders made a picturesque sight with their rifles resting on their hips and their bournouses flying in the wind. But the mechanical speed-king of mountain and plain soon overtook and passed the more picturesque men of the desert on their Arab steeds and then drew alongside a railway train, filled with the white forms of natives and their wives, with haiks drawn over the women's heads. Some of the dark passengers had even scrambled up and were squatting on the roofs of the cars.

Taurirt and Gwersif were two of the largest villages we passed on the way. The first of these is on the left bank of the Sa River and counts a mixed European, Arab and Jewish population. In the story of Morocco this locality, which is crossed by important commercial highways, has figured prominently, for it was here that many struggles took place between the various competing dynasties.

The Taurirt plain, as it stretches southward, merges into the plain of Tafrata, within which is located the city of Debdu, previously the capital of an independent state and today a Jewish town of peculiar interest on account of its folk-lore and the relations that exist between the Jews and the Arabs. These Jews of Debdu very carefully guard their ancient faith but observe even