Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/346

330 dates against the robbers that not infrequently come in from the desert and down from the mountains to make off with this staple of the Arabs.

When I was going out, I noticed a red flag with a green star flying right next to the French colors over the official buildings and later found out that it is the Khatem Soliman, or the Star of Solomon, and a new addition to the official insignia of Morocco. The sultan, having learned that the Bolsheviks had also a red flag as their national emblem, ordered this green star to be set in the plain, red field of the Moroccan banner.

During my ramble through the oasis I came upon some interesting zoological specimens, one of which was a small, white squirrel with dark stripes that gave it a close resemblance to the Siberian burunduk (Tatnias striatus). The natives of Figig call it "rallia," that is rockmonkey," a name they have given it owing to the rodent's quickness in jumping about among the rocks; while its Latin name is Atlantoxerus getulus. I came across another specimen in the kitchen-gardens of the natives on the plain in the jerboa, or Egyptian jumper, more scientifically known as the Dipus aegypticus. There were also varieties of lizards, some of them very brilliant in coloring, almost red; but I was not able to make any intimate study of them, owing to the persisting rain.

After luncheon we went in a party to visit the villages themselves, the largest of which is Zenaga. Narrow, twisted, dark and, at times, very amusing streets burrow like mole-runways between the walls of the houses and under overhanging upper stories, ever twisting and descending or mounting again. In these dark burrows we