IN THE UNKNOWN RIFF.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19202, 19 June 1924, Page 8

IN THE UNKNOWN RIFF.

“SWINDLE OF THE SHEIK.” NOT A ROMANTIC PERSON. BATTALIONS OF FLEAS. Tlie popular idea, fostered by many writers, that the Arab Sheik is a romantic and gallant gentleman, is shattered by Mr Ward J-'rice, who recently visited the wild and little-known Riff country in the mountainous tract of Morocco that Spain has for 20 years tried lo subdue. A picturesque account of his experiences is given by him iu the Daily Mail. “This article,” says Mr Ward Price, “ought to destroy one of the most romantic illusions of the British public. I mean the .swindle of the Sheik —that fierce, dashing, amorous, irresistible, gallant, masterful, manly, utterly false anti imaginary figure who carries off a lovely, proud, highspirited English girl on a thorough tired horse to a tent full of silk rugs and sherbet, and there wins her unwilling love by constant application of a cowhide whip with an ornamental gold handle “I . have just come . Hick from 10 days among the Sheiks in the Riff real, savage, unspoiled Sheik country, where Englishmen have been but four times in the last three vears, and then only landed on the coast, whera.s my journey took me twice across its whole breadth. lor a while I was somthing of a Sheik myself, dressed in flowing robes, white turban, slippers without heels that, kept slipping off mv bare feet, a richly embroidered pouch for pocket, and a fast galloping, fuljtnaned barb pony to ride, in a Moorish saddle with high pommel and crupper and flat steel stirrups. COMELY BERBER WOMEN. “Not even the most sensational woman writer would have disputed the reality of the Sheik atmosphere. Every man had a rifle slung from his shoulder and a pistol ar his hip. Sitting cn the floor, I scooped kons-koas with my hand, like the rest, out of the same bowl with a young chief who had killed his enemy the day before and brought home his head to show his wives The beautiful women were there, too—not English, of course, but often just as fair anti comely, for those Berbers of the Riff are a white race aud not African in origin.” The writer proceeds: “At night we slept on the ground in the broad, low black camel’s hair tents of patriarchal Kaids whose flocks and herds were grouped outside—sometimes inside us well —guarded against Tnrattders by armed men and fierce dogs. The Sheik setting, in fact, was richer than I have road of in any desert romance or seen in the best Bedouin films —and vet the love of the lonely English girl for her sunburnt Arab cantor, the passionate surrender that his fierce, romantic personal! tv and surroundings force from her haughty heart, grew more obviously impossible every moment. ROMANCE AND FLEABITES. “The reason can lie given in one word—fleas! For 20 years the Spanish army and the mountain tribesmen have been fighting for the possession of the Rift, but there is one force that is already in effective occupation of the whole country. It is the fleas, in innumerable battalions, reinforced by allies which our soldiers used to know affectionately as coolies. “Romance and fleabites simply cannot live together, and during those long moonlight nights of Ramadan, the Moslem fast in which the only meals of the day arc taken after sunset and in the small hours, while I lay writhing on my rush mat, desperately rubbing insect powder into the very pores of my skin, 1 heard the sheiks around mo scratching, and, for all their eagle eyes and curly black beards and free-childways-I do not believe the love of any English girl would have survived that test.” The water problem of the Riff country is described by Mr IVard Brice. Ho says: “I saw one man only wash while I was at the Riff —and he was a negro. I washed only three times in 10 days myself, in the three streams we crossed, and my two guides, clean though they looked in their flowing white robes, squatted on the bank to look on with curious interest, much as wo might watch some odd native rite at the Wembley Exhibition. Elsewhere wafer was too scarce. The women bring it on donkey-buck in untanned pigskins from remote pools on the plains or trickles in the hills, and even what one had to drink was often so muddy that I would hardlv have watered plants with it at home. It bad no ill effects, however.”