Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/339

Rh "It is Bu Hafa," explained the chauffeur, "where the manganese-mines are located. Before the war these were operated by German interests but are now controlled by other foreigners."

After enjoying near Bu Hafa the luncheon which Madame Pariel had thoughtfully brought along and which was spread amid the rather gloomy surroundings of these outspurs of the High Atlas, we met some Arabs on splendid mounts, riding in advance of a caravan of camels, punctuated at intervals with covered litters from which black-eyed women and children peeped out at us. They were guarded by young and old men, traveling on foot or mounted on donkeys and all of them carrying rifles and knives. In the distance a mirage shimmered, showing most plainly an island with a forest on it. But once we had topped a rise of ground, lake, island and forest all disappeared by the same magic that had made them so real a moment before.

As we continued our way, at one point the alfa-grass abruptly disappeared, giving way to areas of yellow and pale-green stones, almost all uniformly rounded and covered with little knobs and protuberances. In the course of investigating the geological formation, I sat down on one of these stones but jumped up as though it were red hot, with an acute pain in the palm of one of my hands which I had placed upon it and in which hundreds of needle-like points had made diminutive holes.

"You must be careful," cried Pariel, "for those 'stones' are really cacti."

Examining them closely, I could see that they actually were a vegetable growth, apparently as hard as stone,