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There we ate the luncheon we had brought with us, and then we reclined upon the Persian carpets and rested till the hour arrived when we could safely undertake the return journey. The day after our visit to Sidi Okba was our last at Biskra. We bade adieu to it with regret, and we shall always remember the time spent in this oasis of Sahara as among the white days in our calendar.
It remains to explain how it was that the Corsairs were able to possess themselves of this convenient territory, which was neither devoid of inhabitants nor without settled governments. North Africa the only Africa known to the ancients had seen many rulers come and go since the Arabs under Okba first overran its plains and valleys.
Okba, the wild and gallant leader, rode into the sea on the western shore of Africa, and, whilst the seething waves reached to the saddle of his camel, he exclaimed: "Allah, I call thee as witness that I should have carried the knowledge of Thy name still farther, if these waves threatening to swallow me would not have prevented me from doing so."
On the ruins Okba constructed a new city. This city is Es-Souk. The one that Sidi-Okba destroyed was the Berber Tadmekka. What Dom Granger asked of me was precisely that I should try to exhume from the ruins of the Mussulman Es-Souk the ruins of Tadmekka, which was Berber, and perhaps Christian." "I understand," I murmured. "So far, so good," said Morhange.
Ali bowed and showed his white teeth. "To-morrow," continued Abdullah, "since it is Friday; and immediately after the middle prayer. I hear in the bazaar that the well at Okba is choked. Can we make forty-two miles in one day, so as to cut Okba out?" "We can," said Ali, "during the first three days, when the beasts do not drink; after that no." "Good," said Abdullah; "I will make a route."
We visited, however, the celebrated Argan tree, which the people pretend was planted by the lieutenant of the Prophet, the mighty Okba, who, having spurred his horse in the roaring rebellious surge of the Atlantic, wept and wailed before Heaven that there were no more nations in whose heart to plunge his awful scimitar so teaching them the mercy of God!
"Give me, Allah, a safe and quick journey. Unchoke the wells at Okba. Strengthen the yellow camel. Make high the price of dates and low the price of hides; 'tis thus I have ventured. Bring us in safety to Biskra. And bring me to the damsel who sits behind the green lattice. These things I pray thy sinful son, Abdullah." He rose, and the old man stood at his elbow.
For centuries it has been the custom of Sahara caravans to travel not more than five miles the first day. Abdullah, the iconoclast, made thirty-three. Ali came to him at two o'clock. "Shall we camp, master?" he asked. "When I give the word," replied Abdullah. "You forget that the wells at Okba are choked. We shall camp at El Zarb." "El Zarb," exclaimed Ali. "We should camp there to-morrow."
It is an abstraction of character which has no relation to common existence; a shadow in which all the permanent features of the mind are expressed, but none of the temporary passions of the mind are shewn; like the figures of snow, which the magic of Okba formed to charm the solitude of Leila's dwelling, it bears the character of the human form, but melts at the warmth of human feeling.
"Peace," said Abdullah, "you know nothing of commerce." "I know, however," said Ali, "that the Englishwoman whom we carried two years ago, and who made us stop two days at the wells of Okba, because her dog was ailing, gave me a bad piece of silver that I could not spend in Biskra. 'T was she of the prominent teeth and the big feet.
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