Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/41

Rh B.C. these tribes, Libu and Tahennu, had a distinct civilization and industry, were ruled by hereditary kings and made political agreements with other tribes and peoples, especially with the islanders of the Mediterranean.

The excavation of ancient tombs and dolmens has yielded no definite answer to this very interesting question concerning the primitive peoples of North Africa, no more than have the designs and drawings discovered on the rocks, which are almost everywhere alike and which must be interpreted or even accepted with the greatest caution, inasmuch as Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs, one of the authorities on the subject, when investigating in the Sahara, found in a group of primitive rock-drawings the picture of a steamer which had been scratched there by the unsacred hand of a more unsacred tourist of our own generation.

The riddle remains a riddle, however much scholars tnay try to explain it. Some months after my visit to Oran, while I was on my way from Constantine to Tunis, I talked with a Marabout with whom I had tea and questioned him concerning the custom of the Berbers in staining their hands with henna.

"It is a tradition among us and is carried out in memory of former inhabitants of North Africa, who had a red skin and were both powerful and wise," he answered after some hesitation.

"What were these earlier inhabitants called?"

"We do not know," was his disappointing reply.

The unanswered riddle again ! But when I communicated this statement of the Marabout to an accidental acquaintance during a dinner in Tunis, a certain Mr. Charles Grewster, he nodded his head and observed: