Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/61

Rh Their necks are the color of the locust's skin, While their heads are swathed in greasy rags. This is a Hadar, Oh Lady! The Hadar clan was, until the conquest of the country by France, continually at war with the clan, or "sof," of the Kuluglis which often fought the reigning sultans and Moorish emirs. Finally, in January of 1836, they helped the French Marshal, Clausel, to conquer Tlemsen and held the Meshwar against all the fiery Moorish attacks.

Not far from this old fortress the gleaming walls of a white mosque raise themselves in aspiration. Though it was erected by the local dynasties during the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, it held nothing of great interest for me, after I had seen that in El-Eubbad. The customary mihrab, adorned with pleasing designs and oriented according to the kiblah, gives to the Iman, the high priest conducting the services, his position, with his face turned toward the wall. Next there is the minbar, or movable pulpit, from which the mufti preaches on Friday. Ancient and modern candle holders drop from the ceiling, just as the inevitable columns, rugs and all the other stereotyped elements of the Moslem temple repeat themselves with unvarying sameness, for the established customs of the Faith leave little freedom of imagination to the builder or decorator.

However, in this great Tlemsen mosque I did come upon one new element which I never found in the appointment of any other until I reached the city of Algiers. Opposite the mihrab in the nave of the mosque stood a platform surrounded by a rail, on which the mokim, or