Not an Arab lived here, in the long, straggling town, built on the crest
of a high ridge. Not a minaret tower pointed skyward. The Kabyle place
of worship had a roof of little more height or importance than those
that clustered round it. The men were in striped brown gandourahs of
camel's hair; the lovely unveiled women were wrapped in woollen foutahs
dyed red or yellow, blue or purple, and from their little ears heavy
rings dangled. The blue tattoo marks on their brown cheeks and
foreheads, which in forgotten times had been Christian crosses, gave
great value to their enormous, kohl-encircled eyes; and their teeth
were very white as they smiled boldly, yet proudly, at Stephen and
Nevill.
There was a flight of steps to mount from the car to the hotel, and as
the two men climbed the stairs they turned to look, across a profound
chasm, to the immense mass of the Djurdjura opposite Michelet's thin
ledge. From their point of view, it was like the Jungfrau, as Stephen
had seen it from Muerren, on one of his few trips to Switzerland.
Somehow, those little conventional potterings of his seemed pitiable
now, they had been so easy to do, so exactly what other people did.
It was long past ordinary luncheon time, and hunger constrained the two
men to eat before starting out to find the village where Mouni and her
people lived. It was so small a hamlet, that Nevill, who knew Kabylia
well, had never heard of it until Josette Soubise wrote the name for him
on one of her own cards.
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