Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/315

Rh air and in another moment a yellow curtain, an impenetrable cloud of fine particles of sand borne up from the Sahara; here date-palms, olives, pomegranates, tropical Sapotaceae and Argania Sideroxylon, there a little higher up pines, cedars, sandaracs and over all the Atlas snows—a country of most pronounced natural and social contrasts.

What could the descendants of the encyclopaedists, what could Anatole France, Rolland, Rostand and Chénier, or what could the countrymen of Cervantes, Blasco Ibañez, or of Dante Alighieri and d'Annunzio have in common with the men brought up on Moslem tradition, on the utterances of kahinas and on madik, the religious poetry of the Koran world?

The white strangers, skilled in building railways, asphalt roads, structures of iron and concrete, cannon, submarines, steel-plated ships, cars, aeroplanes and radio equipment—what could they have in common with the brown and black autochthons of the desert country, learnèd in the laws of the Prophet and acknowledging the superior wisdom of arrafs as well as the tassarouf, that supernatural power over the forces of nature with which their sherifs and Marabouts are fully credited?

It seems to me that the answer is clear—not only is there nothing uniting these races, the newcomers from Europe and the ancient invaders from Asia, but hostile phenomena are always and everywhere to be expected. Yet we find that the Europeans, knowing not only the very material science of keeping down expenses but foretelling, with an ability abreast of that of the seers, the future yields and profits, are steadily bringing new capital