Lippincotts Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 | Page 9

to Madame
Bourguignon, she exclaimed, "He does not support them: it is they who
support him." Thus the smaller a man's means and the greater his wants
the more wives he needs.
We had ample proof that these wretched women are often treated as
little better than beasts of burden. Nearer the "Mouth of the Desert" we
saw troops of women carrying enormous burdens of sticks upon their
backs, which they had collected somewhere north of the mountains,
while their lords and masters strutted along unencumbered at their sides,
acting the part of slave-drivers. Even among the wealthy Arabs it is
common for the wives to be employed in the most menial household
work; and Madame Bourguignon assured me that had I been behind the
scenes I should probably have found some of the ladies of the caid's
family thus engaged.
But to return to the house. The open court into which we entered, and
where we found the family assembled, was evidently their living-room
during the day. Four small apartments opened out of it. First, the
kitchen, the whole furnishing of which consisted of a few fire-bricks,
one or two vessels for cooking and a skin for holding water. The other
three apartments were respectively the sleeping-room of the master of
the house, that of the women and that of the elder children; and,
literally, the only furniture of these was a piece of boarding covered
with matting. There was no bedding, no bed-clothing, no attempt at
comfort of any kind. It is certainly not an expensive matter to set up
house at Biskra, the climate of the desert making one independent of
everything except a shade from the sun and a little food to sustain life.
From the court a stair led up to the flat roof which covered in the four
apartments, and this upper story formed the receptacle for all the filth
of the family. The scene was disgusting in the extreme. In any other
climate it must have bred a pestilence. Here, no doubt, this dire result is

prevented by the extreme dryness of the atmosphere. After this visit I
quite appreciated our good landlady's horror of the Arabs. "You see
now," said she, "how it is I cannot bear even to buy fowls fed by such
people."
During the time we remained at Biskra we only twice made excursions
beyond the limits of the oasis--once to some hot sulphur springs a few
miles out in the desert--springs of such wonderful efficacy in all
rheumatic affections that were they in Europe they would speedily
make the fortune of any watering-place. Here they are little known:
however, a bath has been formed and roofed in, and our gentlemen
enjoyed a dip in the warm water after their ride across the desert. From
this bath one of them dated the cure of a severe pain in the leg which
had caused him much inconvenience during the journey. Our other
excursion was to the neighboring oasis of Sidi Okba, the ecclesiastical,
as Biskra is the commercial, capital of the Ziban. Judging by
appearances, one would say that commerce must be a much more
thriving thing than religion, for Sidi Okba is in every way inferior to
Biskra. The people are more squalid, the houses more wretched: the
very mosque itself is in a dirty, tumble-down condition. Here we found
no Arabs who could speak French; and at one time, having lost our way
among the palms, we were very much at a loss to know what to do. For
some time we tried in vain to catch a glimpse of the mosque, thinking
that it, beacon-like, would guide us back to the town. Equally in vain
we interrogated all the Arabs we met in all the languages at our
command, and it was only at last, inspired by desperation, that we hit
upon the expedient of signs. Assuming the attitude of prayer, we called
out, "Allah! Allah!" An Arab at once answered "Marabout! marabout!"
and then we remembered that this was the name for mosque, and
nodded, "Yes, marabout." He seemed delighted at having understood us
at last, and soon led us to the mosque, from whence we knew our way
to the place where we had left our luncheon. We had crossed the desert
in the early morning, and were obliged to seek a resting-place in the
shade during the hot hours of the day. This we found in a house
belonging to a son of the caid of Biskra. There we ate the luncheon we
had brought with us, and then we reclined upon the Persian carpets and
rested till the hour arrived when we could safely undertake the return

journey.
The day after our visit to Sidi Okba was our last at Biskra. We bade
adieu to