Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/349

Rh foggara finally dug a tunnel under the reservoir of their robbing enemies and blew both it and the village into the air.

"Each of the villages bent every effort to secure water, and the struggle continued among them even down to the time of their allegiance to the sultan. Seeing this and unable to keep the villages in peace, the sultan gave orders for the excavation of a common irrigation canal that should bring the waters of the river to all parts of the oasis and do away with the principal reason for armed hostilities. Though the inhabitants began the common task, the canal was never finished, as another means of circumventing the difficulty was found when the sultan asked from the palm plantations the taxes whose levy led to the formation of an administrative body elected from all classes of the population and to a consequent agreement that the whole network of foggaras should become the communal property of the oasis of Figig. Now each plantation has a fixed time at which the water is let into its irrigation canals, and the distribution is automatically regulated by floating valves."

When visiting the plantations, one cannot look without wonder upon the marvelous subterranean engineering feats of the natives, that represent so much of perseverance and industry and such an extraordinary spirit of invention. Like moles these Berbers have dug tunnels under their lands and villages, driven shafts to permit of cleaning the canals, sunk wells to control the current and the quantity of the water and excavated large subterranean reservoirs with long flights of steps leading down to them. These underground basins are so placed that