Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/124

108 strange feature of these wall-lizards that they have incredibly fragile tails, as evidenced by the fact that you have only to catch one by his tail or, sometimes, even simply to frighten him into falling from the wall to see his tail break almost as though it were a piece of glass. It makes amends for this peculiar quality by growing again very rapidly. The gecko possesses another distinctive trait in being the only lizard with a voice, which he tries out during his evening hunt by distinct and rather loud cries.

After the geckos we visited Tasa superficially. It is but one of the interesting posts along this road that man has for centuries followed from Algeria to the Atlantic in his struggle for existence and which all sorts of invaders have also taken. In the grottoes of Kifan el-Ghomari and in ancient tombs near the town the natives have found weapons and other objects from the stone age and from the earliest periods of the iron age, while Roman ruins also remain along the Tasa River and in some parts of the city. The place already existed in the seventh century and was early known for its gold-mines. With the varied and destructive repercussions of the many wars adown the centuries certainly no historian will be able to follow all the flags that have waved above this place.

At present there is located here one of the largest military establishments in French Africa, as war with the insurgents of the north who seek to wrest the throne of Idris I, one of the great rulers of Maghreb, from its present encumbent, faithful to France, and with the independent wild mountaineers, Ghiata and Beni Warrene, who