Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/264

248 inn where Ali informed me I could buy a bournous and babooshes to win me entrance where my European costume could not go. As soon as we had entered the court of the inn, Ali helped me to pick out a very good bournous of fine wool, a yellow robe such as is usually worn under the mantle, an old velvet belt and a mountaineer's knife, or rather poignard, with a long, straight blade. We ordered some coffee and grapes and feasted the owner of the inn, who was a bit worried by my transformation. As we passed out of the innkeeper's room into the court, no one paid any attention to me, for I had become but one drop in the sea of Berbers. With my European clothes entirely hidden by the yellow robe and the folds of the bournous and with the cowl thrown over my head, I was not too unlike the natives around us, inasmuch as I am naturally dark and had been burned nut-brown by the sun and wind during our trip from Oran.

Once in the court, Ali ordered a table and cushions and some coffee, which gave me the opportunity to look around and observe that this was not an ordinary fonduk with its incessant stream of camels and donkeys, their drivers and caravan leaders, beggars, petty merchants and smiths. Here it was otherwise, for instead of the ordinary crowd and bustle of a caravanserai we found the patrons of this fonduk sitting about in separate and quite distinct groups, eyeing one another with badly concealed hostility. Just near us sat a tall Berber, as thin and smoky-looking as a dried herring, who, to add dramatic interest to his part, stroked and fondled a cat with an adorable family of kittens that tumbled about in his lap, while a goat rubbed against his side. He was expounding