Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/132

116 eaves of houses, behind a slender column or at the corners of narrow lanes, extending sometimes long feelers from a deeper shade or tracing the contour of a more daring branch on some plane or fig-tree. The deepest shade reigned only in the mosques, in houses and in the inner recesses of shops, where men barricaded themselves against the searching stream.

Though at this hour no Europeans were visible on the streets, the fiery heat seemed to be no deterrent to the native Berbers and Negroes, among whom there were, however, frequent evidences of their appreciation of it in the numerous water-carriers, who, for the most part Negroes or Berbers with an admixture of Negro blood, went about half-naked, carrying their big gleaming water-skins, from which the precious liquid leaked at every seam. Ringing their bells, they cried to their greedy patrons:

"Tessaout! Berrctd ma! (Are you thirsty? Here is cold water!)"

It is said that water is best kept cool in these goat-skin bags, better even than in the conventional porous clay jars of hot countries, inasmuch as the moist, hair-covered exterior offers a very large superficial area for the cooling process of evaporation. Besides the cool waters which were centuries ago leashed and made to run through the canals and pipes and brought their freshness to the dars, or palaces, of such families as those of the noble tribe of the Beni Merin, who were at one time the protectors of the dynasty of the Merinides, the town is also blessed by the stream of a quick-running river that sings the underlying accompaniment for the lighter airs