Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/131

Rh Hotel Transatlantique, where we took up our abode under the protecting care of Madame Ossun, the energetic and hospitable directress. Being in Maghreb, with its fatalism and superstition, we began at once to live its life and interpreted as a good omen the fact that the name of the presiding genius of our caravanserai was practically identical with the first half of our own. This seemed to be borne out, when we were conducted to a large, airy room, redolent with the aroma of cedar from the doors and ceiling and opening into a little patio, or court, paved with bright majolica tiles and made gardenlike by a tinkling fountain and two small banana trees. But we did not remain long in the hotel, as we were anxious to see at once more of the attractive hues of this "opal in an emerald setting." Before starting out we selected from among a number of young natives a guide by the name of Hafid, who was a thaleb, or student in a medersa, and whose cleverness and excellent knowledge of French revealed to me many features of the native life that might easily not have been spread before the casual traveler.

As we set out with Hafid in spite of the terrific heat for our first tour of the town, the sun poured down cascades of molten gold from the fiery sky, which seemed to flow along and down the walls of the houses and the ruined ramparts of the town until its hot stream reached the earth and there pushed more lazily and slowly into every corner, every crevice of a wall and along and over the thresholds of carved doors. Everywhere this molten gold fought with the darkness of the shadow that hid beneath the branches of a solitary tree, under the