At the end of each year the profits are estimated and after sharing expenses, half goes to the Arab partner. This may sound excessive, but when one considers that he is responsible for the whole of the breeding, and that without him it would be impossible to do the business without being robbed of eighty per cent. of the profits, it is not too much. Moreover, in the unlikely case of dead loss the Arab partner bears half. There have been one or two rare examples where Frenchmen who know the country well, and who can speak the language, have launched forth on their own; they have found that after a year’s work the flock has been mysteriously stolen by some migrating tribe and that it can not be found. What redress has the Frenchman? He can have the shepherd imprisoned if he can find him, but this won’t return him his sheep or his money. On the other hand, when an Arab loses a few sheep he has every redress possible from his colleagues and friends, the chiefs of the district, who will set all the tribes in such a hum that it is not worth while for the robbers to conceal the spoil long.
The way these nomads track a lost flock across hundreds of miles of stony areas baffles all comprehension. I have seen a man track thirty-five strayed sheep from Chellala to Ghardaïa, over two hundred miles of the most desolate country, and never make a mistake until he reached the sheep. During the tracking he crossed the spoor of some thousand other flocks, but he hardly hesitated in his relentless march, whereas I could not see as much as a mark on the stony ground. I remember at one moment I expressed my amazement at this apparent witchcraft. The Arab chief, my partner, laughed.
“Look,” said he, “what do you see on the ground?”
I peered down and, after a long scrutiny, I said doubtfully. “It is something like the print of a man’s foot, but I am not sure.”
The Arab smiled.
“It is the print of an unmarried girl of the tribe of the Chambas,” he replied without hesitation.
In amazement I looked at him.
“But how?” I asked.
“I can not describe to you the difference between the print of an unmarried girl and a woman without having the two prints before me,” he replied, “but I know.”
“But the tribe?” I exclaimed incredulously.