A strange desert lily,
purple and golden, starts leafless, like a tall orchid, out of the bitter
waste; camels eat its fat, bulbous, snowy-white root; the Arabs call it
_tethuth_.
I saw some darker markings on the surface of the expanse which the workman
at the salines declared to be the ruins of old buildings and quite
inaccessible nowadays, but they may well have been small ridges of sand,
magnified by mirage: those oasis-Arabs have rather indifferent eyesight.
Plainly visible, however, was a line of palms about eight miles distant to
the east; it was one of a group of oases of Oudiane. I looked at it,
wondering whether I should pass that way on my homeward journey.
But my companion, with a languishing gesture, pointed in the other
direction, towards his home.
Tozeur, he thought, was all very well, and so were Oudiane and all the
rest of them, but Eloued was fairer by far. And only three days' journey!
Why not leave this country and go to the Souf, to Eloued, instead? _Sacre
nom!_ I could return by way of Biskra if I liked. And if I paid him five
francs for a camel he would accompany me the whole way, like a brother.
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