204 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



and see you and then you can ask them about their 

 people." 



Thus word went forth from the kaimakaan that all 

 the tribal headmen were to come to Taj to meet the 

 important strangers and the hour and place appointed 

 for this most solemn council were "four hours before 

 sunset in the house of Sidi Idris." We had anticipated 

 battle, because Abdullah had been absent for twenty-four 

 hours and we learned too late that he had been making 

 a tour of the small villages, expounding the treacherous 

 stories which had failed in the Senussi centres, but we 

 did not expect quite such a disastrous meeting. The 

 fifteen sheikhs who appeared nearly two hours late at 

 the rendezvous, were weak and convinced that if they 

 carried out their designs they would be acting against 

 the wish of the Sayeds whom they respected and 

 honoured. Yet so great was their long-cherished loath- 

 ing of the stranger, which had been fostered by years 

 of isolation till it was as much a part of their creed as 

 the Shehada or the Zakah, that they were determined 

 at all costs to prevent our penetrating farther into their 

 country. One gradually absorbed something of the 

 mentality of this strange, distrustful people as one sat 

 amidst the circle of gloomy, suspicious faces. 



For generations the Zouias have been known as a 

 lawless tribe. Originally they came from the Fezzan by 

 groups of families, each owning a particular headman, 

 but they never seem to have possessed one supreme 

 chief. The two most famous of the ancient sheikhs 

 were Abdullah Shekari and Helaig, though it was Agil 

 who met Sidi Ben Ali es- Senussi in Mecca and told him 

 of the strange enclosed land in the centre of the Sahara 

 which the Zouias had conquered from the enfeebled 

 Tebu. The great ascetic had already set flame to the 

 religious imagination of North Africa from Morocco 



