xv HOME LIFE AND TRAVELS 379 



the street where the dancing girls of the Ouled Nails 

 lived, we constantly did so and never met with the 

 slightest unpleasantness. 



The great event during our stay in Biskra was the 

 races and the Arab fantasia. The crowds of gaily- 

 caparisoned Arab horses with their armed and turbaned 

 riders thronged the streets and passed in grand pro- 

 cession to the race-course. Here one of the attractions 

 is the assemblage of the Ouled Nails, who appear in their 

 gayest attire and look, as Hichens says, like a troupe 

 of magnificent macaws perching in the sunshine. The 

 same author adds, by way of contrast, that when he 

 was there, two solemn English ladies seated themselves 

 on the benches in the midst of the dancers, looking 

 like Sunday morning in Peckham Rye much to the 

 amazement of the Ouleds and the amusement of 

 a Frenchman who vowed he would make a sketch 

 of " les Anglaises avec les Ouleds pour la * Vie 

 Parisienne.' ' 



After the races came the fantasia of the Mozabites 

 and the Goums. The extraordinary antics of the 

 former consisted in rushing forward, howling and leap- 

 ing, and at the same time discharging their firearms 

 into the ground. The fantasia of the Goums, on the 

 other hand, was far more picturesque and exciting. 

 Five hundred gaily dressed Arabs on their richly ap- 

 parelled steeds, drawn up at the end of the course in 

 twos and threes, galloped frantically down the whole 

 length holding their swords in their teeth and brandish- 

 ing their firearms which, whilst standing high in their 

 stirrups, they discharged amidst cries of victory. The 

 amusements opened with the well-known long distance 

 camel race, and all the world and his wife went out to 

 see them come in after their all-night journey at full 

 speed from Tourggourt, the sacred city of the desert, 



