Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/257

 CHAPTER XVIII

A VERSAILLES UNDER ATLAS SNOWS

ET us pay a visit to one more paradise," proposed Monsieur Delarue. "I shall take you to Menar."

As we wound through the palm-forest, we passed the tents of the Sahara nomads who come here to ply their trade of smiths and their less regular vocation of quacks and sorcerers. They are not much liked, these men in dark-blue bournouses and these unveiled and much-tattooed women who so readily display their arms and necks. Besides shoeing horses, these smiths bleed men, compound medicines and perform incantations which are connected with the ancient iron-magic, that was born when the caveman first saw in the fire a trickle of metal flowing from the stone and heard an unknown voice from somewhere whisper:

"This belongs to you; take it, be powerful through it and rule over everything!"

The mysterious Hephaestus, Pluto, Beelzebub, gods and spirits of smiths, fire and iron; a horseshoe, talisman of happiness; iron crowns of kings, iron crosses—all this was born of iron-magic and in all this the smith had a hand. He was respected but at the same time feared as a man having relations with unknown and evil sources of