. In the desert, the hinterland of Algiers. h comes out so strongly in Western crowds andstreets, in the Western arch and wall and face, andwalk and manner and character. It helps one to a comprehension of all this to bein the desert, to feel around one the influences which,the same here as in his native Arabia, have evolvedthe desert type. Here in the desert, indeed, the wholeproblem of environment is reduced to its simplestform. The scenery is of one universal character,scarcely diversified at all, showing one or two power-ful traits and no more. For centuries untold theArab tribes have been
. In the desert, the hinterland of Algiers. h comes out so strongly in Western crowds andstreets, in the Western arch and wall and face, andwalk and manner and character. It helps one to a comprehension of all this to bein the desert, to feel around one the influences which,the same here as in his native Arabia, have evolvedthe desert type. Here in the desert, indeed, the wholeproblem of environment is reduced to its simplestform. The scenery is of one universal character,scarcely diversified at all, showing one or two power-ful traits and no more. For centuries untold theArab tribes have been exposed to these strong andsimple influences. For countless generations theyhave pitched their tents on these wastes of fickle,burning, restless sand, and breathed this stimulating,fiery air, until the characteristics of the desert haveso entered into them that in describing one youdescribe the other. Sometimes at the mid-day halt,when the desert is locked in that grim repose I havespoken of, I have sat and watched it, imbibing the > t. ARAB ARCHITECTURE 269 air and view, until, as happens in some moods, I havefelt myself to be almost a part of my then my glance has strayed to the Arabs crowdednear : never lolling or dozing; attentive ; their dark,piercing eyes glancing over the scene, their fingersrestlessly passing and dropping their rows of beads,their mobile features expressing a succession of lightand fleeting emotions, and I used to think that, likethe nymphs of streams, or fauns of woods, they werethe genii of the place, the incarnated spirits of theSahara. Emanating from such a source, the Arab, in spiteof all his fickleness and irritability, is so much of onepiece, all that he has ever done and said and thoughtis so identical in character, that if you understand himin one respect, you seem to understand him in you understand him as a knotter of camel loads,you understand him as fighter, as builder, as artist,as poet, as philosopher. Only to
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1909
