,
even the richest, owned more than one camel or donkey; and nobody came
to stay, unless some son of the miserable hamlet, who had made a little
money elsewhere, and returned to see his relatives. But on the other
hand, numerous caravans arrived at the Zaouia of Oued Tolga, and
hundreds of pilgrims from all parts of Islam were entertained as the
marabout's guests, or as recipients of charity.

Dimly, as she detached her mind from the message she had sent, the woman
began to wonder about this caravan, because of the bassourahs, which
meant that there were women among the travellers. There were
comparatively few women pilgrims to the Zaouia, except invalids from the
town of Oued Tolga, or some Sahara encampment, who crawled on foot, or
rode decrepit donkeys, hoping to be cured of ailments by the magic power
of the marabout, the power of the Baraka. The woman who watched had
learned by this time not to expect European tourists. She had lived for
eight years in the Zaouia, and not once had she seen from her roof a
European, except a French government-official or two, and a few--a very
few--French officers. Never had any European women come. Tourists were
usually satisfied with Touggourt, three or four days nearer
civilisation. Women did not care to undertake an immense and fatiguing
journey among the most formidable dunes of the desert, where there was
nothing but ascending and descending, day after day; where camels
sometimes broke their legs in the deep sand, winding along the fallen
side of a mountainous dune, and where a horse often had to sit on his
haunches, and slide with his rider down a sand precipice.

She herself had experienced all these difficulties, so long ago now
that she had half forgotten how she had hated them, and the fate to
which they were leading her. But she did not blame other women for not
coming to Oued Tolga.

Occasionally some caid or agha of the far south would bring his wife who
was ill or childless to be blessed by the marabout; and in old days they
had been introduced to the marabouta, but it was years now since she had
been asked, or even allowed, to entertain strangers. She thought,
without any active interest, as she looked at the nodding bassourahs,
growing larger and larger, that a chief was coming with his women, and
that he would be disappointed to learn that the marabout was away from
home. It was rather odd that the stranger had not been told in the city,
for every one knew that