Tafilet; the narrative of a journey of exploration in the Atlas mountains and the oases of the north-west Sahara . h even in Europe would be considered a buildingof o-reat size and streno;th. Descending the 2000 feet that led to the valleyof Teluet, we met at the bottom almost the firstlarge caravan we had as yet come across. Theywxre bound upon the same road as ourselves, thoughtheir destination was Dads, while I hoped to pushon as far as Tafilet. The men forming the caravanwere one and all Berbers, and natives of Dads, addedto which they were friends of the old Shereef whomI w^as accompanyin
Tafilet; the narrative of a journey of exploration in the Atlas mountains and the oases of the north-west Sahara . h even in Europe would be considered a buildingof o-reat size and streno;th. Descending the 2000 feet that led to the valleyof Teluet, we met at the bottom almost the firstlarge caravan we had as yet come across. Theywxre bound upon the same road as ourselves, thoughtheir destination was Dads, while I hoped to pushon as far as Tafilet. The men forming the caravanwere one and all Berbers, and natives of Dads, addedto which they were friends of the old Shereef whomI w^as accompanying. Therefore I had nothing tofear from them, and the little Arabic they spoke wasso mixed up with Shelha that there was no possi-bility of their detecting my foreign accent. Sometwelve men there were in all, with as many mulesand donkeys. The cheerfulness of this augmentationof our little caravan was damped by the news theygave us, for from them we learned that the road viaWarzazat was blocked, owing to the tribes being in 108 THE DESCENT FROM THE ATLAS. -<«^i ^, ^ |:%^,^ ^p^»i -^- ^ • ^j^f tt* -?. cJ </ ^ /bii-i- ^/^ f/ie Road. WE JOIX A CARAVAN. 109 revolt, and that they had been obliged to turn backonly some six hours from where we met them. Ithad been my particular desire to proceed via thisroute, as there are rumours of ruins in the valleyof the Warzazat; but I at once perceived that wemust follow the inevitable and pursue the road vidAskura, which possessed this attraction to the explorer,that it had never before been traversed or describedby any traveller. It was good luck that brought usin contact with the Dads caravan, for in these wildlawless regions there is safety in numbers, and Inoticed that the old Shereef especially cheered upat the sight of the dozen antiquated flint-lock gunsthe men bore. We at once decided to join company and pursuethe road together, and for the five following daysthe Dads tribesmen and their little mules formedpart of our carava
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1895
