VII

The lake water was salt, but there was a spring among the hills, and when the hawks were resting (they rested every second day) Owen liked to go there and lie under the tamarisks, dreaming of Sicily, of "the visionary flocks" and their shepherds no less visionary, comparing the ideal with the real, for before him flocks grazed up the hillside and his eyes followed the goats straying in quest of branches, their horns tipped with the wonderful light which threw everything into relief—the bournous of the passing bedouin, the woman's veil, whether blue or grey, the queer architecture of the camels and dromedaries coming up through a fold in the hills from the lake, following the track of the caravans, their long, bird-like necks swinging, looking, Owen thought, like a great flock of migrating ostriches.

It was pleasant to lie and dream this pastoral country and its people, seen through a haze of fine weather which looked as if it would never end. The swallows had just come over and were tired; Owen was provoking enough to drive them out of the tamarisks just to see how tired they were, and was sorry for one poor bird which could hardly keep out of his way. Whence had they come? he asked, returning to a couch of moss. Had any of them come from Riversdale? Perhaps some had been hatched under his own eaves? (Any mention of Riversdale was sufficient to soften Owen's heart.) And now under the tamarisks his thoughts floated about that bleak house and its colonnade, thinking of a white swallow which had appeared in the park one year; friends were staying with him, every one had wanted to shoot it, but leave had not been granted; and his natural kindness of heart interested him as he lay in the shade of the tamarisks, asking himself if the white swallow would appear, thinking that the bird ought to nod to him as it passed, smiling at the thought, and the smile dying as his dragoman approached; for he was coming to teach him Arabic. Owen liked to exercise his intelligence idly; a number of little phrases had already been picked up, and his learning he tried on the bedouins as they came up the hill from the lake, preferring speech with them rather than with his own people, for his own people might affect to understand him, his dragoman might have prompted them, whereas the new arrivals afforded a more certain examination, and Owen was pleased when the bedouin understood him.

Next day he was hawking, and the day after he was again under the tamarisks learning Arabic, and so the days went by between sport and study without his perceiving them until one morning Owen found the spring in possession of a considerable caravan, some five and twenty or thirty camel-drivers and horsemen; and anxious to practise the last phrases he had acquired, he went forward to meet the Saharians, for they were easily recognisable as such by the blacker skin and a pungent blackness in the eyes. The one addressed by Owen delighted him by answering without hesitation:

"From Laghouat."

The hard, guttural sound he gave to the syllables threw the word into wonderful picturesqueness, enchanting Owen. It was the first time he had heard an Arab pronounce this word, so characteristically African; and he asked him to say it again for the pleasure of hearing it, liking the way the Saharian spoke it, with an accent at once tender and proud, that of a native speaking of his country to one who has never seen it.

"How far away is—?"

Owen tried to imitate the guttural.

"Fifteen days' journey."

"And what is the road like?"

With the superlative gesture of an Arab the man showed the smooth road passing by the encampment, moving his arms slowly from east to west to indicate the circuit of the horizon.

"That is the Sahara," he added, and Owen could see that for the bedouin there was nothing in the world more beautiful than empty space and low horizons. It was his intention to ask what were the pleasures of the Sahara, but he had come to the end of his Arabic and turned to his dragoman reluctantly. Dragoman and Saharian engaged in conversation, and presently Owen learned that the birds in the desert were sand grouse and blue pigeons, and when the Saharian gathered that these did not afford sufficient sport he added, not wishing a stranger should think his country wanting in anything:

"There are gazelles."

"But one cannot catch gazelles with hawks."

"No," the Saharian answered, "but one can catch them with eagles."

"Eagles!" Owen repeated. "Eagles flying after gazelles!" And he looked into the Arab's face, lost in wonderment, seeing a picturesque cavalcade going forth, all the horses beautiful, champing at their bits.

"But the Arab is too picturesque," he thought; for Owen, always captious, was at that moment uncertain whether he should admire or criticise; and the Arabs sat grandly upright in their high-pummelled saddles of red leather or blue velvet their slippered feet thrust into great stirrups. He liked the high-pummelled saddles; they were comfortable to ride long distances in, and it was doubtless on these high pummels that the Arabs carried the eagles (it would be impossible to carry so large a bird on a gloved hand); and criticism melted into admiration. He could see them riding out with the eagles tied to the pummels of their saddles, looking into the yellow desert; the adjective seemed to him vulgar—afterwards he discovered the desert to be tawny. "It must be a wonderful sight… the gazelle pursued by the eagle!" So he spoke at once to his dragoman, telling him that he must prepare for a long march to the desert.

"To the desert!" the dragoman repeated.

"Yes, I want to see gazelles hunted by eagles," and the grave Arab looked into Owen's blonde face, evidently thinking him a petulant child.

"But your Excellency—" He began to talk to Owen of the length of the journey—twenty days at least; they would require seven, eight, or ten camels; and Owen pointed to the camels of the bedouins from the Sahara. The dragoman felt sure that his Excellency had not examined the animals carefully; if his Excellency was as good a judge of camels as he was of horses, he would see that these poor beasts required rest; nor were they the kind suited to his Excellency. So did he talk, making it plain that he did not wish to travel so far, and when Owen admitted that he had not fixed a time to return to Tunis the dragoman appeared more unwilling than ever.

"Well, I must look out for another dragoman"; and remembering that one of his escort spoke French, and that himself had learned a little Arabic, he told the dragoman he might return to Tunis.

"Well, my good man, what do you want me to do?" And seeing that the matter would be arranged with or without him, the Arab offered his assistance, which was accepted by Owen, and it now remained for the new dragoman to pay commission to the last, and for both to arrange with the Saharians for the purchase of their camels and their guidance. Laghouat was Owen's destination; from thence he could proceed farther into the desert and wander among the different archipelagoes until the summer drove him northward.

The sale of the camels—if not their sale, their hire—for so many months was the subject of a long dispute in which Owen was advised not to interfere. It would be beneath his dignity to offer any opinion, so under the tamarisks he sat smoking, watching the Arabs taking each other by the shoulders and talking with an extraordinary volubility. It amused him to watch two who appeared to have come to an understanding. "They're saying, 'Was there ever any one so unreasonable? So-and-so, did you hear what he said?'" Drawing long pipes from their girdles, these two would sit and smoke in silence till from the seething crowd a word would reach them, and both would rush back and engage in the discussion as violently as before.

Sometimes everything seemed to have been arranged and the dragoman approached Owen with a proposal, but before the proposal could be put into words the discussion was renewed.

"In England such a matter as the sale of a few camels would not occupy more than half a dozen minutes."

"All countries have their manners and all have their faults," the dragoman answered, an answer which irritated Owen; but he had to conceal his irritation, for to show it would only delay his departure, and he was tired of hawking, tired of the lake and anxious to see the great desert and its oases. And he felt it to be shameful to curse the camels. Poor animals! they had come a long way and required a few days' rest before beginning their journey homewards.

Three days after they were judged to be sufficiently rested; this did not seem to be their opinion, for they bleated piteously when they were called upon to kneel down, so that their packs might be put upon them, and upon inquiring as to the meaning of their bleats Owen was told they were asking for a cushion—"Put a cushion on my back to save me from being skinned."

"Hail to all!"

And the different caravans turned north and south, Owen riding at the head of his so that he might think undisturbed, for now that everything had been decided, he was uncertain if the pleasure he would get from seeing gazelles torn by eagles, would recompense him for the trouble, expense, and fatigue of this long journey. He turned his horse to the right, and moved round in his saddle, so that he might observe the humps and the long, bird-like necks and the shuffling gait of the camels. They never seemed to become ordinary to him, and he liked them for their picturesqueness, deciding that the word "picturesque" was as applicable to them as the word "beautiful" is applicable to the horse. He liked to see these Arab horses champing at their cruel bits, arching their crests; he liked their shining quarters, his own horse a most beautiful, courageous, and faithful animal, who would wait for him for hours, standing like a wooden horse; Owen might let him wander at will: for he would answer his whistle like a dog and present the left side for him to mount, from long habit no doubt. And the moment Owen was in the saddle his horse would draw up his neck and shake all the jingling accoutrements with which he was covered, arch his neck, and spring forward; and when he did this Owen always felt like an equestrian statue. And he admired the camel-drivers, gaunt men so supple at the knee that they could walk for miles, and when the camel broke into a trot the camel-driver would trot with him. And the temperance of these men was equal to that of their beasts, at least on the march; a handful of flour which the camel-driver would work into a sort of paste, and a drink from a skin was sufficient for a meal. Running by the side of their beasts, they urged them forward with strange cries; and they beguiled the march with songs. His musical instincts were often awakened by these and by the chants which reached him through the woof of his tent at night. He fell to dreaming of what a musician might do with these rhythms until his thoughts faded into a faint sleep, from which he was awakened suddenly by the neighing of a horse: one had suddenly taken fire at the scent of a mare which a breeze had carried through the darkness.

The first bivouacs were the pleasantest part of his journey, despite the fact that he could find no answer to the question why. he had undertaken it, or why he was learning Arabic; all the same, these days would never be forgotten; and he looked round… especially these nights, every one distinct in his mind, the place where yesterday's tent had been pitched, and the place where he had laid his head a week ago, the stones which three nights ago had prevented him from sleeping.

"These experiences will form part of my life, a background, an escapement from civilisation when I return to it. We must think a little of the future—lay by a store like the bees"; and next morning he looked round, his eyes delighting in the beauty of the light. Truly a light sent from beyond skies in which during the course of the day every shade of blue could be distinguished. A thin, white cloud would appear towards evening, stretch like a skein of white silk across the sky, to gather as the day declined into one white cloud, which would disappear, little by little, into the sunset. As Owen rode at the head of his cavalcade he watched this cloud, growing smaller, and its diminishing often inspired the thought of a ship entering into a harbour, sail dropping over sail.

The pale autumn weather continued day after day; everything in the landscape seemed fixed; and it seemed impossible to believe that very soon dark clouds would roll overhead, and wind tear the trees, and floods dangerous to man and horse rush down the peaceful river beds, now nearly dry, only a trickle of water, losing itself among sandy reaches.

During the long march of twenty days the caravan passed through almost every kind of scenery—long plains in which there was nothing but reeds and tussocked grass, and these plains were succeeded by stony hills covered with scrub. Again they caught sight of Arab fires in the morning like a mist, at night lighting up the horizon; and a few days afterwards they were riding through an oak forest whose interspaces were surprisingly like the tapestries at Riversdale, only no archer came forward to shoot the stag; and he listened vainly, for the sounds of hunting horns.

On debouching from the forest they passed through pleasantly watered valleys, the hillsides of which were cultivated. It was pleasant to see fields again, though they were but meagre Arab fields. All the same Owen was glad to see the blue shadows of the woods marking the edge of these fields, for they carried his thoughts back to England, to his own fields, and in his mood of mind every remembrance of England was agreeable. He was beginning to weary of wild nature, so it was pleasant to see an Arab shepherd emerge from the scrub and come forward to watch for a moment and then go away to the edge of a ravine where his goats were browsing, and sit upon a rock, followed by a yellow dog with a pointed face like a fox. It was pleasant, too, to discover the tents of the tribe at a little distance, and the next day to catch sight of a town, climbing a hill so steep that it was matter for wonderment how camels could be driven through the streets.

The same beautiful weather continued—blue skies in which every shade of blue could be studied; skies filled with larks, the true English variety, the lark which goes about in couples, mounting the blue air, singing, as they mounted, a passionate medley of notes, interrupted by a still more passionate cry of two notes repeated three or four times, followed again by the same disordered cadenzas. The robin sings in autumn, and it seemed strange to Owen to hear this bird singing a solitary little tune just as he sings it in England—a melancholy little tune, quite different from the lark's passionate outpouring, just its own quaint little avowal, somewhat autobiographical, a human little admission that life, after all, is a very sad thing even to the robin? Why shouldn't it be? for he is a domestic bird of sedentary habits, and not at all suited to this African landscape. All the same, it was nice to meet him there. A blackbird started out of the scrub, chattered, and dived into a thicket, just as he would in Riversdale.

"The same things," Owen said, "all the world over." On passing through a ravine an eagle rose from a jutting scarp; and looking up the rocks, two or three hundred feet in height, Owen wondered if it was among these cliffs the bird built its eerie, and how the young birds were taken by the Arabs. Crows followed the caravan in great numbers, and these reminded Owen of his gamekeeper, a solid man, six feet high, with reddish whiskers, the most opaque Englishman Owen had ever seen. "'We must get rid of some of them,'" Owen muttered, quoting Burton. "'Terrible destructive, them birds,'"

Among these remembrances of England, a jackal running across the path, just as a fox would in England, reminded Owen that he was in Africa; and though occasionally one meets an adder in England, one meets them much more frequently in the North of Africa. It was impossible to say how many Owen had not seen lying in front of his horse like dead sticks. As the cavalcade passed they would twist themselves down a hole. As for rats, they seemed to be everywhere, and at home everywhere, with the adders and with the rabbits; any hole was good enough for the rat. The lizards were larger and uglier than the English variety, and Owen never could bring himself to look upon them with anything but disgust—their blunt head, the viscous jaws exuding some sort of scum; and he left them to continue their eternal siesta in the warm sand.

That evening, after passing through a succession of hills and narrow valleys, the caravan entered the southern plain, an immense perspective of twenty or thirty miles; and Owen reined up his horse and sat at gaze, watching the dim greenness of the alfa-grass striped with long rays of pale light and grey shadows. But the extent of the plain could not be properly measured, for the sky was darkening above the horizon.

"The rainy season is at hand," Owen said; and he watched the clouds gathering rapidly into storm in the middle of the sky. Now and again, when the clouds divided, a glimpse was gotten of a range of mountains, seven crests—"seven heads," the dragoman called them, and he told Owen the name in Arabic. These mountains were reached the following day, and, after passing through numberless defiles, the caravan debouched on a plain covered with stones, bright as if they had been polished by hand—a naked country torn by the sun, in which nothing grew, not even a thistle. In the distance were hills whose outline zigzagged, now into points like a saw, and now into long sweeping curves like a scythe; and these hills were full of narrow valleys, bare as threshing-floors. The heat hung in these valleys, and Owen rode through them, choking, for the space of a long windless day, in which nothing was heard except the sound of the horses' hooves and the caw of a crow flying through the vague immensity.

But the ugliness of these valleys was exceeded by the ugliness of the marsh at whose edge they encamped next day—a black, evil-smelling marsh full of reeds and nothing more. The question arose whether potable water would be found, and they all went out, Owen included, to search for a spring.

After searching for some time one was found in possession of a number of grey vultures and enormous crows, ranged in a line along the edges, and in the distance these seemed like men stooping in a hurry to drink. It was necessary to fire a gun to disperse these sinister pilgrims. But in the Sahara a spring is always welcome, even when it carries a taste of magnesia; and there was one in the water they had discovered, not sufficient to discourage the camels, who drank freely enough, but enough to cause Owen to make a wry face after drinking. All the same, it was better than the water they carried in the skins. The silence was extraordinary, and, hearing the teeth of the camels shearing the low bushes of their leaves, Owen looked round, surprised by the strange resonance of the air and the peculiar tone of blue in the sky, trivial signs in themselves, but recognisable after the long drought. He remembered how he had experienced for the last few days a presentiment that rain was not far off, a presentiment which he could not attribute to his imagination, and which was now about to be verified. A large cloud was coming up, a few heavy drops fell, and during the night the rain pattered on the canvas; and he fell asleep, hoping that the morning would be fine, though he had been told the rain would not cease for days; and they were still several days' journey from Laghouat, where they would get certain news of eagles and gazelles, for the Arab who had first told Owen about the gazelle-hunters admitted (Owen cursed him for not having admitted it before) that the gazelles did not come down from the hills until after the rains and the new grass began to spring up.

All the next day the rain continued. Owen watched it falling into the yellow sand blown into endless hillocks; "Very drie, very drie," he said, recalling a phrase of his own north country. Overhead a low grey sky stooped, with hardly any movement in it, the grey moving slowly as the caravan struggled on through grey and yellow colour— the colour of emptiness, of the very void. It seemed to him that he could not get any wetter; but there is no end to the amount of moisture clothes can absorb, a bournous especially, and soon the rain was pouring down Owen's neck; but he would not be better off if he ordered the caravan to stop and his servants to pitch his tent under a sand-dune. Besides, it would be dangerous to do this, for the wind was rising, and their hope was to reach a caravansary before nightfall.

"And it is not yet mid-day," Owen said to himself, thinking of the endless hours that lay before him, and of his wonderful horse, so courageous and so patient in adversity, never complaining, though he sank at every step to over his fetlocks in the sand. Owen wondered what the animal was thinking about, for he seemed quite cheerful, neighing when Owen leaned forward and petted him. To lean forward and stroke his horse's neck, and speak a few words of encouragement to one who needed no encouragement, was all there was for him to do during that long day's march.

"If he could only speak to me," Owen said, feeling he needed encouragement; and he tried to take refuge in the past, trying to memorise his life, what it had been from the beginning, just as if he were going to write a book. When his memory failed him he called his dragoman and began an Arabic lesson. It is hard to learn Arabic at any time, and impossible to learn it in the rain; and after acquiring a few words he would ride up and down, trying the new phrases upon the camel-drivers, admirable men who never complained, running alongside of their animals, urging them forward with strange cries. Owen admired their patience; but their cries in the end jarred his highly-strong nerves, and he asked himself if it were not possible for them to drive camels without uttering such horrible sounds, and appealed to the dragoman, who advised him to allow the drivers to do their business as they were in the habit of doing it, for it was imperative they should reach the caravansary that night. The wind was rising, and storms in the desert are not only unpleasant, but dangerous. Owen tried to fall asleep in the saddle, and he almost succeeded in dozing; anyhow, he seemed to wake from some sort of stupor at the end of the day, just before nightfall, for he started, and nearly fell, when his dragoman called to him, telling him they were about to enter the ravine on the borders of which the caravansary was situated.

The first thing he saw were three palm-trees, yellow trees torn and broken, and there were two more a little farther on; and there was a great noise in their crowns when the caravan drew up before the walls of the caravansary—five palms, the wind turning their crowns inside out like umbrellas, horrible and black, standing out in livid lines upon a sky that was altogether black; four; great walls, and on two sides of the square an open gallery, a shelter for horses; in the corner rooms without windows, and open doorways. Owen chose one, and the dragoman spoke of scorpions and vipers; and well he might do so, for Owen drove a hissing serpent out of his room immediately afterwards, killing it in the corridor. And then the question was, could the doorway be barricaded in such a way as to prevent the intrusion of further visitors?

The wind continued to rise, and he lay rolled in his blanket, uncomfortable, frightened, listening to the wind raging among the rocks and palms, and, between his short, starting sleeps, wondering if it would not have been better to lie in the ravine, in some crevice, rather than in this verminous and viperous place.

Next day he had an opportunity of contrasting the discomfort of the caravansary with a bivouac under a rainy sky; for at nightfall, within two days' journey of Laghouat, the caravan halted in a desolate valley, shut in between two lines of reddish hills seemingly as barren as the valley itself. After long searching in the ravines a little brushwood was collected, and an attempt was made to light a fire, which was unsuccessful. The only food they had that night was a few dates and biscuits, and these were eaten under their blankets in the rain, Owen having discovered that it was wetter in his tent than without. This discomfort was the most serious he had experienced, yet he felt it hardly at all, thinking that perhaps it would have been very little use coming to the desert in a railway train or in a mail coach. Only by such adventures is travel made rememberable, and, looking out of his blankets, he was rewarded by a sight which he felt would not be easily forgotten—the camels on their knees about the drivers, who were feeding them from their hands, the poor beasts leaning out their long necks to take what was given to them—a wretched repast, yet their grunts were full of satisfaction.

In the morning, however, they were irritable, and bleated angrily when asked to kneel down so that their packs might be put upon them; but in the end they submitted, and Owen noticed a certain strain of cheerfulness in their demeanour all that day. Perhaps they scented their destination. Owen's horse certainly scented a stable within a day's journey of Laghouat, for he pricked up his ears, and there was nothing else but the instinct of a stable that could have induced him to do so, for on their left was a sinister mountain—sinister always, Owen thought, even in the sunlight, but more sinister than ever in the rainy season, wrapped in a cloud, showing here and there a peak when the clouds lifted. And no mountain seemed harder to leave behind than this one. Owen, who knew that Laghouat was not many miles distant, rode on in front, impatient to see the oasis rise out of the desert. The wind still raged, driving the sand; and before him stretched endless hillocks of yellow sand; and he wandered among these, uncertain whither lay the road, until he happened upon a little convoy bringing grain to the town. The convoy turned to the left…. His mistake was that he had been looking to the right.

Laghouat, built among rocks, some of which were white, showed up high above the plain; and, notwithstanding his desire for food and shelter, he sat on his horse at gaze, interested in the ramparts of this black town, defended by towers, outlined upon a grey sky.