Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/304

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THE FIRE OF DESERT FOLK

bow across the strings with the lightness of a spirithand. These books of Le Glay encase within them the soul of the various Berber tribes within his realm—their strange splendor, their undefined, unvoiced longings, their unfulfilled mission and their eternal note of sadness.

"The Emperor of the Berbers" is the name they have given him in Morocco. The Berbers really have a most deep love and respect for him. This is not strange, as these children of the desert, the mountains and the sun feel that this seemingly severe administrator, with his subtle and impressionable character as a writer and with his heart of a poet and great artist, will understand and have sympathy for the aspirations of their hearts and souls.

When Le Glay came forward as I entered the salon, we seemed to meet as old friends who had known each other for a long time. Unfortunately our hours together were short, owing to the fact that Le Glay had to go on an official journey to Rabat the following morning; yet this brief contact and a few other fleeting hours which we later had together in Casablanca were sufficient to enable me to snatch an understanding of this man of deep thought and with a no less deep sadness wrapped in his heart.

As Le Glay took me in his car for a first visit to the town, the sun was already setting in the sea of a thousand opals that shimmered and gleamed in the rays that were bathing the town in every shade of rose and pink. After passing between the rows of young palms, sandaracs and acacias that edged the wide streets of the new French quarter and out past the palace of the local caid,