Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/218

202 five hundred sons, ate ever alone, seated on a sheepskin, drank water only, led a more severe life than that of most of the learned ulema, went barefoot and without a turban, taught his people the laws of Allah and of the Prophet and ruined Berbers and Jews whom he compelled not only to pay tire ordinary taxes but to give of their wealth to maintain the whole court and to provide funds for the construction work which he never permitted to be interrupted. However heavy may have been his hand, he succeeded in uniting all the tribes from the Atlas and the Atlantic to Tlemsen and Biskra and established peace, law and security throughout the whole of Maghreb. It was only he himself and his black praetorian guard that offered the exception to this rule of security and law, for he violated every established right and statute by his continual spoliation and persecution of the tribes and families suspected of treachery or discontent. One of his well-known sayings seems strikingly characteristic:

"My state is a bag filled with rats. If I were to cease shaking the bag, the rats would gnaw holes and jump out of it."

With this as his code Ismail surrounded himself with Arab tribes, maintaining an army of Negroes and kept his state in continual ferment and movement through the instrumentality of wars, the transplanting of tribes from one locality to another, punitive expeditions and the construction of buildings, walls and gardens, only to destroy them and begin the work anew.

It is recorded that twice only did this ruler of such severity toward himself and toward others give