Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/90

74 crossing, our carriage began to descend into the valley, where we found not only the agricultural station and model farm but also further results of the work of civilization being done by the white man. Black and brown natives were being taught to understand what could be produced on the lands of their fathers and grandfathers, who had in turn taken it from some unknown and longdisappeared owners. The number of Arab agriculturists, Berbers and even nomads migrating here from camps far away in the south or from the steep slopes of the Atlas, increases every year. New areas are constantly being put under vineyards, orchards and grain, side by side with the modern breeding of cattle. The Arab forgets his old nomadic life and is even abandoning his ancient wooden plough for the more modern French and American implements. Western civilization is triumphing here in this African Switzerland, and no one gives thought to the possibility of a fanatical Mahdi inciting the local population, in the name of the Prophet, against the white masters of this prosperous colony. In this part of Algeria the natives will not be attracted by pan-Islamic propaganda, for they see that European civilization and the houses of worship of the infidels do not at all stand in the way of pilgrimages to the mosques and to the kubbas of holy Walis, which are undertaken by crowds of pious men with all the splendor and ceremony prescribed by the Koran and by custom. This Western civilization makes the outward life of the Faithful more agreeable, leaving the inner one unchanged and entirely subject to the Law of the Prophet and the dictates of his representatives here on earth, the Marabouts.