DESERT ROMANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1930, Page 12

DESERT ROMANCE.

PARTNERSHIP WITH ARABS.

STRANGE SAHARA SEQUEL.

"MAGNIFICENT SHEEP COUNTRY."

A curious friendship with an Arab, whom he had invited to London, was recalled by Mr. John Macartney, purser of the steamer,Char lbury,'on his arrival at Auckland from the Morocco yesterday afternoon. Mr. Macartney had spent 12 months among the Arab tribes on the fringe of the great Sahara desert, and had° also engaged in a sheep-farming partnership with one of them in Southern Algeria.

"The Arab is not such a great'coffee drinker as history suggests, and in the vicinity of Algeria he is practically a white man, with a great many of the white man's ideas," Mr. Macartney said to-day. "He is a good sportsman and a good host, speaks French well and is extremely friendly towards the English." Glowing reports of the possibilities of sheep-farming in the Sahara influenced Mr. Macartney during 1928 in a decision to go into the desert. He went to live at the village of Laghouat, with a population of SOOO, only 1500 of whom were permanent residents. The rest were nomads, and lived in tents in the desei t and hills. Lagliouat is in French military territory, with a fort and-a garrison, but there its French character ends. In Other respects it is as completely Arab as it was centuries ago, and the. gradual transference of territory from military to civil administration, the penetration of the Sahara, and the advance of Algeria do not appear xo "Ue changing the life of the Arab settlements. Shepherding in the Sahara is a precarious business, says Mr. Macartney, although the balance generally comes out well on the right side after a few years. In 192G a loss of 40 per cent was reported, and all the lambs had to be killed that season to save the ewes, in a water famine. For two years past there has been compensation for that disaster. Rain has fallen as copiously as in Auckland this summer, and the sheep owners are jubilant. It means a 50 per cent return on. the capital invested, and they are prepared to face a lean year or two. In the Vast Sahara. Mr. Macartney had to go through a round of official routine before lie could secure a flock, and it took him some months to strike up sufficient acquaintance with an influential Arab as a first step towards a partnership. He followed the usual course in getting friendly with as many Arabs as possible of the better class. At the end of six months he was favourably impressed, and decided to invest money, which must be done in multiples of £50(J, wliich is roughly the price of a flock. Eight goats, two donkeys and a camel, he was told, were a necessary part of the purchase, and he found the advantage of the goats later when in quest of water for the flock. Below the surface in the hollows between the chains of mountains in a vast bow or semi-circle of sand dunes on the northern side of the Sahara, water was nearly always to be found. The mountainous parts to the south of Algeria embraced d6ep valleys, most of them seamed with the dry beds of ancient rivers. In support of the opinion that a large part of the Sahara, though not the whole, was undoubtedly under water at one time, Mr. Macartney Said that two ancient river valleys ran for some hundreds of miles towards the "shats" of Algeria and Tunis. These valleys always yielded abundance of water, if not on the surface in the watercourses, then a short distance below it. In the valleys it was that cattle, sheep and camels were mostly grazed. Mystery of the Harem. A partnership with an Arab sheep proprietor gives an opportunity of learning something about the Arabs, and Mr. Macartney went to the extent of inviting his partner, Hadj Mabrouck, later, to pay a visit to London. While in Algeria, Hadj was a typical Algerian. Any visits he made or received were strictly ceremonious. It was impossible to get really to the back of his mind, and Mr. Macartney was never introduced to. the lady of the house. She was in the seclusion of the harem, and remained there at all times. "I did not see an Arab's wife during the . whole of my stay in Algeria," said Mr. Macartney. Hadj Mabrouck went to London in the blue robes that he wore on special occasions, and his loose burnous thrown around his shoulders. His head was wrapped in the usual camel hair, and thus he admired and was admired by London. A fine athletic figure, with a cultivated French accent, was Mabrouck. He was greatly interested in what he saw in London and, although Westminster Abbey left him quite cold, apart from a reverential respect which he considered appropriate, he was so impressed by the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park that its beauty held him for more than half an hour. He was also lost in admiration of the sentry of. the Horse Guards in Whitehall, and said he could understand at last why English soldiers were the finest in the world. Buckingham Palace was another place that impressed him, but he could not understand the meaning of the cenotaph, even with a record of service as a lieutenant in the French colonial forces to his credit. Wonderful as London was, Mabrouck was in raptures about the beautiful English countrysides. What a magnificent country for sheep, lie thought, with memories of the vast desert that stretches from the Atlantic to the Nile.