Next day he was hawking, and the day after he was again under the
tamarisks learning Arabic, and so the days went by between sport and
study without his perceiving them until one morning Owen found the
spring in possession of a considerable caravan, some five and twenty
or thirty camel-drivers and horsemen; and anxious to practise the
last phrases he had acquired, he went forward to meet the Saharians,
for they were easily recognisable as such by the blacker skin and a
pungent blackness in the eyes. The one addressed by Owen delighted
him by answering without hesitation:
"From Laghouat."
The hard, guttural sound he gave to the syllables threw the word into
wonderful picturesqueness, enchanting Owen. It was the first time he
had heard an Arab pronounce this word, so characteristically
African; and he asked him to say it again for the pleasure of
hearing it, liking the way the Saharian spoke it, with an accent at
once tender and proud, that of a native speaking of his country to
one who has never seen it.
"How far away is--?"
Owen tried to imitate the guttural.
"Fifteen days' journey."
"And what is the road like?"
With the superlative gesture of an Arab the man showed the smooth
road passing by the encampment, moving his arms slowly from east to
west to indicate the circuit of the horizon.
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