Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/22

6 and untutored tribes. This cannot last longer! We must have our rights, our liberty and our creed everywhere in Africa, where at each dawn and sunset the Faithful call upon the name of the Prophet."

Hearing my wife's voice, I excused myself and went to her. When I returned the bench was empty. I sat down, however, and began to reflect upon the great human tragedy, the eternal, historic tragedy whose author is Hate, whose leading roles are played by tribes, peoples, races, cults, merchants, diplomats, parliaments and kings, and the performances of which have continued without interruption through the centuries from the dawn of communal life in the dens of the cavemen down to the days of magnificent palaces of powerful dynasties.

I have come to know intimately wild and half-wild tribes of various colors on three continents. I know their dreams of liberty and independence and, although I realize full well that these, if immediately achieved, would bring them degeneration and death, from which the engrafted European civilization, though often fostered by unwarranted measures, protects them, I thought, in spite of this conviction, that there ought to be some means of saving civilization other than these old and accepted ones, which yield many a full harvest of results but contaminate them with the poisonous weeds of hate.

These thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a short, sharp blast of a ship's whistle, followed by the answering roar from the brass cylinder of the Balear. On the bridge the Captain shouted a command, and I heard the noise of running sailors. The engines stopped, and in a moment the ship rolled helplessly in the troughs and