CHAPTER VI 



CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT 



THE oasis of Jalo contains two villages a few hun- 

 dred yards apart. El Erg is the seat of the 

 Government and contains the Kasr, or Govern- 

 ment Office, the kaimakaan's house and a new zawia 

 with some forty ekhwan. The belad rambles by 

 circuitous narrow lanes, bordered by windowless walls, 

 pierced by low doorways, over a rise and down the 

 farther side to the foot of a large dune, from the top 

 of which one sees mile after mile of scattered palms, 

 with here and there a well, its mouth strengthened by 

 palm trunks. Generally a group of picturesque figures 

 surrounds it and gossips while the day's water supply is 

 drawn. An effective contrast to the glaring white sands 

 are the indigo and royal blue tobhs with which the black 

 slave-women mingle the orange and reds of their more 

 barbaric taste. At the door of every mosque one finds a 

 group of swathed white figures, sunk in contemplation 

 or in sleep, yet mechanically flicking away the ever- 

 attentive flies. 



I rode across the hollow to Lebba on a big white 

 donkey lent by Homeida Bey Zeitun. It is a twin 

 village except that the streets are broader and straighter, 

 and the whole place is dominated by the square tower 

 of Sayed Hilal's house. As I passed below its latticed 

 windows a very pretty face, framed in its sapphire veil, 

 peeped out. It was olive-skinned and round, with dark 

 kohl blurred round darker eyes, long-lashed and misty. 



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