United States or Lithuania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


It was at that time that he appears to have definitely formulated his plan of a great puritan order, and in 1843 he returned to North Africa, settling in Tripoli, where he built his first Zawia, known as the "Zawia Baida," or White Monastery, in the mountains near Derna. So impressive was his personality and so great his organizing ability that converts flocked to him from all over North Africa.

The officer of the middle watch and a hand for the wheel come aft to relieve their companions, the illusion has passed, and you go below to turn in, feeling uncomfortably sure that your pretty thoughts will appear foolish and commonplace enough when regarded in the matter-of-fact light of the coming day. Dár el Baida, most Moorish of seaports, received us in the early morning.

When we came to Dhul Holaifa, the apostle of God prayed in the mosque there; then mounting his camel he rode hastily to the plain Baida, where he began to praise God in the form that professes his unity, saying, 'Here I am, O God, ready to obey thee; thou hast no partner, etc.

One morning a lieutenant named Myers, asked Jack if he would like to accompany him on a reconnaissance, which he heard that a party of the Sardinian cavalry were going to push some little distance up the Baida Valley. Jack said that he would like it very much if he could borrow a pony. Mr.

Then Dár el Baida sinks behind the water-port gate, the strong Moorish rowers bend to their oars, their boat laps through the dark-blue water, and we are back aboard the ship again, in another atmosphere, another world. Passengers are talking as it might be they had just returned from their first visit to a Zoological Garden.

They took away my mother first; they dragged her off crying, and I never saw or heard of her again. When she was gone I cried for her, and could not eat till they gave me sugar and sweet dates. At Dár el Baïda I was sold in the market auction to a shareefa named Lálla Moïna, wife of the mountain scribe who taught the kádi's children.

Dár el Baida, I was assured, had nothing to offer; Djedida, lower down along the coast, might serve, or Saffi, if Allah should send weather of a sort that would permit the boat to land. As it happened, Djedida was the steamer's next port of call, so we made haste to return to her hospitable decks.

But withal there was a certain picturesque quality about Dár el Baida that atoned for more obvious faults, and the market-place afforded a picture as Eastern in its main features as the tired Western eye could seek. Camel caravans had come in from the interior for the Monday market.

But I, though born free, was brought by my mother, who had been carried off as a slave. The lines cut on my cheek show that, for every free-born child in our country is marked so by its mother. That is our sultan's order. In Mogador my mother's master sold me to a man who took me from her, and brought me to Dár el Baïda.

I remember, too, the covered shed containing the mill that grinds the flour for the town, and the curious little bakehouse to which Dár el Baida takes its flat loaves, giving the master of the establishment one loaf in ten by way of payment.