“Nay, nay,” she said, smiling, as she laid her hand on the bundle, “a craven needs no garments. Go; quick, quick, or I shall rouse the whole camp!”
The youth looked at her, and seeing the look of determination, slunk out on to the plain, found his horse, and was obliged to ride naked to the oasis; and there is no humiliation greater for an Arab than to be seen without any clothes on.
CHAPTER XXI
SHEEP-BREEDING
Having talked about the nomads we must now cast a glance at their occupation. Of all the many industries in Algeria, sheep-breeding is the oldest, as perhaps it is in all countries where pastures are unlimited and where lack of communication makes it difficult to set up big commercial towns. Moreover, the Arab is essentially a shepherd by instinct, and living a wandering life with no fixed abode but his camel’s hair tent, it is immaterial to him where his sheep pasture, and it is amazing to note the vast tracts of country crossed by a flock during the course of the year.
Messieurs Bernard and Redon say in the Histoire, Colonisation, Géographie et Administration de l’Algérie:
“The Moghreb (original name of Algeria before the Phœnician settlements) is especially suited for the cultivation of cereals, vines and olive-trees, and for sheep-breeding. . . . the Numidians were excellent horsemen who lived by pillage and by the produce of their great flocks.”
Further, speaking of the invasion of the Hillals in the twelfth century, they say:
“The newcomers were fierce nomads who did not invade as did the first Arabs, in small groups, but in hordes, millions of men followed by equally vast flocks.”
The greatest sheep-breeding centers are in the southern part of the department of Algiers, some two hundred miles from Algiers, and right away to the south as far as Ghardaïa.
There is also a certain amount of breeding in the southern tracts of Oranie and in Constantine, but the inhabitants of these areas are more interested in cereals, and the Arabs of Biskra are specialists in dates.