North Africa and the desert

by George Edward Woodberry

IV

The processional is an inherent trait in the desert landscape, owing to the fewness of the human figures and their concentration in the vastness of the horizons. Everything seems strung out—herds of goats, wandering camels, even the scattered palms; and in the caravans or troops of horse or military trains the feature is emphasized. It is the trait of a migratory land. The mise en scène for a procession, in the true sense, is superb. The eye centres the scene on the great space and views it whole and entire at a glance; one could see the migration of a tribe or the march of an armed host so.

These reflections came to me the next day when I returned to the race-ground. The general scene was the same. A procession was already forming at the upper end of the field. The white-robed Mzabite group, with brown girdings round their loins and crossing their backs and lacing their turbans, whom I had seen the previous day with their guns, squatting about the splendid banner, were the leaders of the formation, which was on foot. This was peculiarly the Arabs’ day. On the rising ground the procession gradually took shape and stretched out against the sky and the low palms, a long, white line of moving figures, with the high standard borne proudly advanced, Arab music, guns gleaming and sometimes held in the air. It moved, not with a martial look in the European sense, but with an aspect of oriental war. They were marching to be reviewed by their chief near the centre of the course, and to perform before him their fantasia, an Arab war game, in which one rank advances rapidly upon another, fires, and whirls swiftly back. They came down the track in gallant show, and as they passed the old chief the mêlée began. Those in front turned to face the rank behind; the second line rushed frantically forward in confusion, every man for himself, fired their guns almost amid the feet of those before them, whirled back waving their weapons, and came on again, repeating the manœuvre. There was a great noise of powder, plenty of smoke and commotion; their bodies were all in violent action, their faces distorted with excitement, their garments fluttering. They came squad after squad, as the groups slowly worked by, and the din began farther up the line. It was a great game, vivid, spectacular, with the smell of powder biting the nostrils, the rouse of fighting blood, the drifting clouds of smoke—a waking dream of personal combat; and they thoroughly enjoyed it.

Then came the turn of the goum, the cavalry. The caïds, splendid figures in their brilliant red burnooses, came first. Each, single and alone, charged down the course on the gallop with headlong speed, holding in the right hand a gun in air and in the left a sabre; and as they passed the old chief they saluted with the sabre and discharged the gun, and swept on till the thunder of their hoofs died away down the track. The goum followed, a fine body of horsemen, with similar tactics. The Arabs are expert in horsemanship as an art of riding, but it is said they are deficient in that part of the art which lies in care for the mount; they kill their horses. On that day the spectacular charging, the discharge of firearms in motion, the jockey-like cling and rhythm of bodies under the streaming folds of the riders, the élan of the troop, were fascinating, as all skilled physical motion and its accoutrement is to my eyes; but whether my battle sensations were exhausted, or for some other reason, the sight did not interest me so much as the earlier mimic combat on foot. It was not the proper setting for the fantasia of the goum. One should see it in the desert when the charging troop comes over the sands to salute some chief or Marabout with his grouped attendants, riding as if to overwhelm, discharging its guns at close quarters, wheeling just in time to avoid the shock of the horses. Here on the race-course it was a show; there in the sands it is a native custom, vivid and gallant with the spirit of a race—a flower of desert chivalry.

What had drawn me to the fête was the desire to see the Arab temperament in some of its violent manifestations. One habitual trait of Arab life to the eye is the repose of its figures, seated or in motion; the grave courtesy, the immobile posture, the public dignity—the decorum. But, speaking of the race, this is the repose of a tropic animal; it wakes to an instant intensity of action, to a tiger violence. It was something of this side of Arab nature that I sought; and I found some suggestion of it in the mimicry of personal combat, the excitement, the confusion, the distorted faces and bodily vehemence of the play; and also in the goum some intimation of the look of their leaders, the old feudality of the desert. It all helped me to reconstruct the warrior, marauding, internecine, old desert world; but it was only fragments of vision. What a vivid race in its splendid and gallant spirit—as full of fascination there as it is dingy in its sodden poverty, earth-bound and earth-soiled, pitiable in its misère.