CHAPTER XVIII. -- Starved out of Tuggurt A refractory dragoman Temaçin - A Wed R'hir city -- Busy market-scene - Zouïa Solitary French officers A sublimated marabout - Royal and Imperial gifts - A misplaced cart-Warrior saint - A Bedouin dominie Cheerful soldiers - Omar returns - The priest's steward a valuable guideWeary desert ride - Solitary well Breasting the sand-waves Souf at last- The hospitable khalifat - Magnificent reception - A night of plenty after a day of scarcity - Saharan's opinion of English and French religions - Dryness of Souf- Domed roofs - Female ornaments Market - Purchases of silk- Gardening under diffi. culties Birds and beasts - Shooting at Souf. -- WE had proposed to make Tuggurt our head-quarters for some time, but the French column had cleared the land like locusts, and their peaceful ravages left us not a sack of barley for our horses-not a carrot remained in the gardens. Our own store, of course, was exhausted. The Bey perhaps had not the means, certainly not the will, to assist us, so we determined to hoist sacks and move south at once. But the attractions of Tuggurt were too great for our dragoman, and for two days he had buried himself in the recesses of the dancing cafés with which the place abounds. Consequently, the farrier of chasseurs had taken the opportunity of fixing three sets of worn-out shoes on our steeds; the saddler had receipted his bill, but forgotten the "réparation de selle;" our water-skins had become suddenly old and cracked; iron tentpickets were transformed into wood. A few days more and our campaigning properties had altogether vanished. Omar would not move, and as a last resource aped the agonies of toothache. We left our heavy goods in the storehouse of the friendly Hungarian, who promised to procure camels and forward them and Omar by force of arms. We rode on, I with only a single stirrup, to the next city of Temaçin, which we reached in two or three hours. One description suffices for all the Wed R'hir cities. First, a salt lake, very shallow, a labyrinth of mud-walls, palm-trees, and enclosures. Then a broad ditch, with filthy stagnant water, which surrounds and defends the city, whose nakedness is only partially hidden by a honeycombed mud-wall. Above and through this wall appears a chaos of edifices of sun-dried brick, ragged and dusty, pitched without design or order, crumbling in decay-much as though the city had descended from a sand-cloud and been sadly battered by the fall. A tall, square mosque-tower alone relieves the monotony, and a village is usually sprinkled over some sand-banks outside the walls. As we rode through the suburb of Temaçin there was a busy concourse in the open space outside. It was market-day, and all the living beings of the neighbourhood, intelligent or otherwise, were gathered to the rendezvous. Men, women, camels, asses, dogs, goats, and children were grouped promiscuously with wares on the ground. An old negress presided over a variegated vegetable pyramid, with a yellow substratum of melons supporting a mass of alternate layers of cucumbers and pomegranates, crowned with an apex of crimson capsicums. A tame pied ostrich stalked through the crowd, evidently free of the city, and levying an octroi duty from each heap which pleased his eye, but rendering in return many a plume from his scanty garments to the indignant proprietors. An itinerant butcher was vociferating the juicy excellence of two headless gazelle which hung from his shoulders. A few hungry egrets perched on the walls were wistfully eyeing the offal of slaughtered poultry, with which they meditated to vary their supper of frogs and lizards. Leaving Temaçin, we wound through the palmgardens on the other side, and a quarter of an hour brought us to Zouïa, where the marabout resided-a man so sublimated in piety that he would do no man good or evil. He was, for the nonce, absent on a pilgrimage to Mecca, but his brother, another marabout, who-fortunately for us--had not yet attained to so high a degree of negative virtue, presided in his absence. Zouïa is almost entirely composed of mosques and maraboutsclean, orderly, neat, and well-built. We entered by the western gate, where the French were sinking an artesian well as a gift to the marabout, who had done much for their power in this country. We found a small encampment inside the walls, and a hearty welcome from the solitary lieutenant of spahis and M. Josse, a young civil engineer in charge of the works, of English extraction and education. We breakfasted with them, and the marabout, having heard of our arrival, sent a huge dish of excellent kouskousou as his contribution to our repast, and paid us a visit soon afterwards. He was a venerable middle-aged man, his dark flat face, spare beard, and scant moustache telling of a mixture of negro blood. He pressed his entertainment upon us, but the Frenchmen, with their wonted hospitality, insisted on their prior claim to the guests. Our hungry horses were comfortably stabled under the arches of the city gate, and a military tent was at once erected for ourselves. Our hosts invited us to coffee, and we were glad to pass the evening by their fire, which, after nightfall, was welcome even here. After spending a quiet and lonely Sunday, we devoted the next day to the exploration of Zouïa. It is square, with towers at each corner and three others projecting from the walls, far more solid than most Arab constructions. Seven or eight white cupolas rise above the flat roofs-one the marabout's house, another his father's tomb, the new and old mosques, &c. His house is really a handsome edifice after the Moorish fashion, in a clean, open street, with the familiar projecting window over a double-arched gateway. The walls are also pierced with other windows framed in fantastically-carved arabesque woodwork, and gaudily painted. These were all sent as presents by the Bey of Tunis to the marabout, whose reputation for sanctity is spread throughout North Africa. His house is not yet finished, and a range of lime-kilns behind it tells of the advance of European domestic arts to this distant oasis. But the wonder of Zouïa, the curiosity most triumphantly pointed out to us, is a two-wheel cart, also a gift of the Bey of Tunis, the first ever seen here and very probably the last, transported piecemeal on the backs of camels for 700 miles, and now housed in all but a glass-case. Behind the house is the tomb of the father of the chief, also a saint of renown, but who, like those of the middle ages, united the two swords, for over his coffin are suspended the banners of forty-two conquered or subject tribes. The French Emperor, not to be outdone by the Tunisian potentate, has sent the pious chieftain a mag |