296 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



"The Sitt Khadija must eat," he said. "The wakil 

 of Sidi Idris has sent you dinner." The magic word 

 roused me and the sight of a gleaming brass tray set 

 on a Httle table 6 inches high in the middle of our 

 unbroken sea of carpet finished the cure. ^VTien we 

 lifted the palm-leaf covers from the bowls we found 

 eggs, pigeons and vegetables cooked in wonderful savoury 

 sauces, with piles of most delicious bread, brown and 

 flaky, but, alas! every cunning sauce was so impregnated 

 with red pepper that we had most gingerly to remove 

 the pigeons and dust them carefully before eating, after 

 which we regretfully deposited a just proportion of the 

 rest of the meal in a carefully prepared hole in a back- 

 yard lest the feelings of our host be hurt. We had 

 just removed all traces of our villainy when he appeared 

 to drink tea with us. 



Sidi Hussein, the wakil, was, of all the hosts who 

 generously entertained us on behalf of the Sayeds, the 

 most delightful because he was the most simple. 

 Jaghabub is not a political or mercantile centre, like 

 Kufara or Jalo. It has all the dreaming peace of a 

 little university town, only its dons are reverend, grey- 

 bearded sheikhs in flowing white jerds over grass-green 

 or indigo-blue robes. Its undergraduates are graver 

 figures, with books and beads, than those of Trinity or 

 The House, while the scouts, I suppose, are the black 

 slaves of hideous aspect who live in a special court of 

 the zawia, but I feel sure they are more industrious and 

 certainly more frugal than their English counterparts on 

 the banks of the Isis and Cam. 



Sidi Hussein made tea with a formality as deliberate 

 as that of the kaimakaan at Taj, but his conversation 

 was much less ceremonious. There was no rigid 

 etiquette observed in series of questions and answers. 

 For once the undercurrent of suspicion and unrest was 



