The Saharowi was an exceedingly thin man, of wild aspect, with flowing hair and scanty beard.  His skin was burnt deep brown, and he was dressed in a blue cotton garment of guinea cloth made in simplest fashion.  He was the chief of a little party that had been travelling for two months with faces set toward the North.  He reminded Salam of Sidi[51] Mackenzie, the Scot who ruled Cape Juby, and how the great manager, whose name was known from the fort to Tindouf, had nearly poisoned him by giving him bread to eat when he was faint with hunger.  These true Bedouins live on milk and cheese, with an occasional piece of camel or goat flesh, and a rare taste of mutton.  When Salam’s friend came starving to Cape Juby, Sidi Mackenzie had given him bread.  The hungry man ate some and at once became violently ill, his stomach could not endure such solid fare.  Having no milk in the fort, they managed to keep him alive on rice-water.  It would appear that the Saharowi can easily live on milk for a week, and with milk and cheese can thrive indefinitely, as indeed could most other folk, if they cared to forswear luxury and try.

[Illustration:  ON THE ROAD TO ARGAN FOREST]

The little party was travelling with some hundreds of sheep and goats, which were being tended a little way off by the children, and, large though their flocks seemed, they were in truth sadly reduced by the drought that had driven one and all to the North.  The Saharowi explained to Salam that all the wandering Arabs were trekking northwards in search of land that had seen the rain; and that their path was strewn with the skeletons of animals fallen by the way.  These nomads carried their wives and little ones, together with tents and household impedimenta, on the camels, and walked on foot with the grown children in charge of the flocks.  The sheep they had sold to the butcher were in fair condition, and fetched from four to five shillings in English money, or the equivalent of this sum in goods, for when a Saharowi approaches civilised lands he is generally in need of some of the products of civilisation, or thinks he is, though, at need, he manages excellently well without them.

Among the miscellaneous gathering that the Tuesday market had attracted to Hanchen I noticed a small company of acrobats from the Sus, and a medicine man of fierce aspect, who sat by himself under a rough tent, muttering charms and incantations, and waiting for Allah to send victims.  This wonder-worker had piercing eyes, that seemed to examine the back of your head, long matted hair and a beard to match.  He wore a white djellaba and a pair of new slippers, and was probably more dangerous than any disease he aided and abetted.