One lovely day, bright and cloudless, on approaching the cemetery of Thililit, we heard the chanting of many voices. There was a funeral. The corpse, wrapped closely round in a white sheet and carried on a stretcher, was laid on the ground; a Kabyle sat beside and led the chant, while the friends of the dead man, in picturesque groups, stood round the grave; one carried a crown of oleander. The body was lowered, the earth filled in, and flagstones fastened down on the top; there was another chant, and then the people dispersed. The cattle, sheep, and goats grazed unconcernedly around; the pastoral pipe but halted an hour in its soft-toned warblings. When it recommenced, it might perchance have mourned the loss of a brother piper, in the fashion of antique measures:
‘The fountain nymphs through the wood mourn for thee, and their tears become waters; and echo amid the rocks laments, because thou art mute, and mimics no more thy lips; and at thy death, the trees have cast off their fruit, and the flowers have all withered; good milk hath not flowed from ewes, nor honey from hives, but it has perished in the wax, wasted with grief; for no longer is it meet, now that thy honey is lost, to gather that.’
The long line of mourners issuing from the cemetery was a beautiful spectacle; golden reflections in shadowed burnouses harmonising charmingly with the lichened tombstones. A youth only remained behind, the son of the deceased; he sat upon the tomb wailing.
I have sometimes seen locks of hair laid upon graves, reminding of similar Greek offerings.
In the play of ‘Electra,’ Orestes says:—
first honouring my father’s grave,
As the god bade us, with libations pure and tresses from our brow.
Electra at her father’s tomb says to her sister:
And then do thou,
Cutting the highest locks that crown thy head,