I was again very disappointed by the civilized, European way in which we ate. Instead of squatting cross-legged on the ground, eating with brotherly love out of the same dish with a wooden spoon or our fingers, we sat round a well-laid table, with knives and forks, and dinner-napkins embroidered with the Caid’s initials. Everyone and everything is getting so horribly civilized nowadays, I reflected, sadly.
The repast began with a red-hot liquid in which vermicelli floated. It burnt my unaccustomed mouth and I did not fall in love with it, but as I had never tasted anything like it before I did not even want to refuse when the Caid offered me a second helping. After the soup came some boiled chicken, on which the red liquid had been poured. He helped me largely—twice. The third course was mutton, with prunes; the fourth mutton, with red liquid; the fifth a French ragoût, with an Arab taste; the sixth was chicken without the red liquid; the seventh an Irish stew gone wrong; the eighth—well, perhaps my readers are beginning to feel as tired as I did after having partaken twice of all these dishes. Indeed, I was beginning to feel very serious, and longed ardently for the end of this Gargantuan repast.
After about the twelfth course an Arab in waiting cleared a space on the table before the Caid. My hopes were raised to the heights, but, alas! only to fall to the lowest depths in a very short space of time. Suddenly something knocked my hat on one side, and everyone yelled at me. Dazed, I looked round and rubbed my nose into a sheep’s leg. Starting back, I met the convulsed and, as I imagined, reproachful eye of an enormous sheep lying in a contorted attitude on a big brass platter. Si Benrajah turned to me with a gracious smile. “I am much honoured, madam,” he said, in perfect French, “in being the first to offer you a ‘meshui’ on your arrival in Algeria.”
A TYPICAL ARAB HUT.
[From a Photograph.]
A “meshui,” I learnt, is a royal dish, and is only offered to those the Arabs delight (or are compelled) to honour. It is simply a whole sheep roasted over wood embers, and served uncut on a brass or silver platter. It should not be cut with a knife, but torn off with the fingers and eaten. If you wish to be particularly polite to a friend who is present, you wrench off a piece of flesh and present it with your greasy fingers, and he receives it much flattered, returning the compliment with his greasy fingers. This style of eating was certainly not over-civilized, so I ought to have been better pleased than I was. As a matter of fact I felt very bad, and hoped against hope that the Caid would forget me.
“You are not yet accustomed to our habits,” he said, kindly. “Take a knife and fork and cut off the meat.”
So I cut off a few small bits in a dilatory way, secretly wondering if I could not surreptitiously throw them to some lean, hungry dogs who were peering into the tent door.
“What silly little bits!” cried Benrajah, laughingly. Then, after well licking his brown, henna-stained fingers, he tore off a huge piece and offered it to me! A cold perspiration broke out on my forehead, and I almost longed for death.
“Eat! eat!” he cried, gaily; and, choking down my despair, I ate.