Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/188

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
172
THE FIRE OF DESERT FOLK

the population of our section that we did not come here to exploit them, to conquer or to do them any harm, but only to give effect to the terms of the accord with the sultan, to insure peace to the whole countryside, to further its economic development and to promote that culture without which no man and no nation can today live and develop. We have to repulse, just as we did last night, for instance, the attacks of Abd el-Krim, who sends out raiding parties for the food which is so scarce in the mountains of the Rif; we make roads that assure the movement of trucks, purchase from the natives what they produce, export it and bring back to them the goods they need. We have built a warehouse, which the natives administer themselves; we have organized a hospital in which six hundred of them can ask for aid; we have proved to the Berbers that peace is the only sound basis of lasting welfare and, when we had ample proof that our seed had fallen upon good ground, we armed considerable groups of men in the neighborhood, who can now defend their villages and property from the raiding gangs that come out of the mountains. Look out there, for instance. Those three Shlu horsemen are packing ammunition for the inhabitants of the two villages further out, where another raid is momentarily expected."

After luncheon we visited the observation-post on a neighboring height and had from there an extended view along a great part of the Riffian front. Lieutenant de Seroux showed me through his field-glasses the mountains where the principal forces of Abd el-Krim were for the moment gathered. In the discussions with these offi-