We ascended higher and higher amongst the mountains, until suddenly, as I turned in my saddle, I saw the Mediterranean like a blue streak in the distance. We were at that moment at the highest point we were to reach that day. At a distance here and there dogs appeared, barking at us, and occasionally in their vicinity white figures and rising smoke. Hamed said that these people were cave dwellers, but were only a small tribe. A little later we were to arrive at quite a subterranean town.
I halted abruptly on seeing below me a valley with, comparatively speaking, many trees. On the farther side rose a long range of high mountains. The valley itself was exactly like a large, old sand or clay ditch, with sloping sides, pierced by a great number of neglected and long-disused shafts, but planted with trees—palms, olives, and figs.
“Is that Hadeij?” I asked. Hamed nodded, and I pulled up to take a photograph.
It was then exactly two o’clock, and we continued on our way, walking for a time beside our horses. Just as we were about to remount, a white sheep-dog bounded out of a hole we had not noticed; it bayed at us in a most dismal fashion, and from the nearest points of vantage its companions joined in chorus.
I rode up to look at the dogs, and caught sight of a deep pit with perpendicular sides that had been dug in the ground from the top of the ascent. Down at the bottom a camel stood resting. Round a hearth were household chattels and large bins made of rushes, containing barley, and amongst these a few fowls. Some women and children looked up on hearing the tramp of my horse, stared at me for a moment, and then fled into recesses in the walls.
Hamed now suggested that I should not remain standing there, and I followed his good advice.
A path had been dug into the hillside, and terminated in a large door or gate. This evidently led to a long underground passage, and ended in the square yard, open to the air, which I had just seen, and whence are entered the excavated rooms or caves, used as dwelling-places, stores, and stables.
On the horizon the straight stems of palms stood out sharply against the mountains. In the foreground were olive trees, and, mingled with them, a few palms; beneath one of these was gathered a group of men, amongst whom, Hamed said, was the great Khalifa. I therefore drew rein. An old greybeard rose and strode forward, offering his hand and bidding me welcome, the other men following his example. They were fine specimens of humanity, with regular features, black eyes, and straight noses—one saw at once that they were not of the ordinary Arab type.
From an open space, or square, several passages led into the hills, affording admission to the cave dwellers’ abodes, which are all of similar construction to that already mentioned. I was allotted quarters in one of the caves, and stepped from the outer air into the hill through a wooden gate on heavy hinges, and proceeded through a long passage, cut in the rocks, a little over a man’s height. On either side were excavated large stalls for horses, the covered way ending in an open square court with perpendicular walls some thirty feet high and about the same in width. From this court one steps into symmetrical caves with vaulted roofs.
In the underground guest-chamber I stretched myself comfortably on a couch covered with handsome carpets from Kairwan. A table and some chairs completed the furniture of this room, specially set apart for European guests. The Khalifa is rich, very rich, so that he can permit himself this luxury, though it is but seldom that he has a European visitor. He told me with pride that General Boulanger had in his time been his guest.