CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT 113 



The blue tattoo marks on chin and Hps but served to 

 throw up the gleam of pearl-white teeth, and great silver 

 ear-rings, red-studded, swung against plait after plait of 

 midnight hair. 



Lebba possesses a very old zawia, founded by Sidi 

 Mohammed ben Ali. I went through its palm-filled yard 

 to the court of the mosque, where I was warmly greeted 

 by Sheikh Omar, who told me he was happy to meet 

 anyone with English blood. He introduced me to all his 

 teachers and his most intelligent pupils, who wanted to 

 show me there and then how well they could write. 

 "You are cleverer than I, for I cannot write Arabic," 

 I said, and a murmur of surprise and scorn ran through 

 the group. "She cannot write and she is big, so big! 

 I believe she is older than Fatima, or Ayisha!" or any 

 other female relative of advanced years! There are a 

 hundred and fifty boy students at the Lebba zawia and 

 about eighty ekhwan. The long, low mosque is very 

 small, clean and white, with its sand arches and palm 

 walls — a few palm mats on the floor and a little painted 

 "mihrab," fragile and bent. "It cost two hundred 

 mejidies to build," said the sheikh proudly; and again, 

 as I left, he spoke kind words about my country, 

 which were balm after the censure of the previous 

 evening. 



On our last afternoon we had a council in the house 

 of the kaimakaan. We left our shoes outside his door 

 and sat cross-legged round the walls of a room, empty 

 save for a packing-case which carried little-used writing 

 materials. "Now is everything ready to start to-morrow 

 at dawn?" I asked briskly. A most dubious "Inshal- 

 lah " came from Yusuf. I have always thought it rather 

 hard that the Deity should be made responsible for the 

 whole doubt of the East! The question repeated, each 

 produced a pet difficulty. "The oil has not come," said 



