421. The girls' Hakim's mother, and the other women went at their work, too. One of the women sat down with a lap full of wool from the sheep. She took a stick, which she whirled somewhat as we spin a top, and began to spin yarn. Another woman spun goat's hair into a strong rope to be used to tie the camel fast at night. Still another wove striped cloth of camel's hair, to be made into a tent. All their tents were made of camel's-hair cloth. While the women worked the girls helped them, and in this way learned to spin and weave.
After Hakim's mother had spun yarn for two weeks, she began to weave the yarn into cloth for a long, white wool robe, or burnoose, such as all Arab men and boys wear. This one was for Hakim, and she worked hard for a week to weave it. When it was finished it was so strong and firm that it would last for years.
422. The rug. — When Suleima had made all the ropes, sacks, halters, and clothes that her family needed, she began to make something to sell. She had kept the wool of the white sheep separate from the wool of the black sheep. This gave her white yarn and black yarn. She dug up a root and boiled it in a pot. White yarn, soaked in the water in which the root was boiled, became red. Some of the yarn was soaked for three days with some sticks from a desert bush, and became yellow. Some other yarn Suleima dyed green with a very precious powder, for which she had traded two goats and a sheep. She had bought it of some Arabs she had met the year before as they returned from a distant part of the desert. She now had yarn of five colors, white, black, red, yellow, and green, and she began to weave a rug. She wove into it 'figures of camels and men and tents and trees. Although the rug was only seven feet long Suleima was six months in finish ing it. When it was done, .it was so valuable that she knew she could sell it for much money when she reached a town, or that with it she might buy a small flock of sheep, or a couple of donkeys.
423. A life of constant of these things were not done and finished in one camping place. Within ten days after the Arabs first made their camp, the animals had eaten all the food that could be found within five miles. In order to get food for the flocks, the family had to move. Again Hakim climbed up on the camel beside his mother. There he rode with all the tents and the bundles. Twelve miles to the north they rode, until they came to some water. There they again
pitched the tents and cut thorn bushes and hunted firewood.
In the country on the edge of the desert it is warm and there is no snow, but it rains a little in the winter. This makes some grass grow at that season. There are several kinds of bushes that can live all summer in the blazing sun without a drop of rain. In the winter when it rains, grass and water are found in places that are entirely without water in the summer. In such places the Arabs pasture their flocks and camp in the winter. Then, as spring comes and the rains stop, the grass withers and dies, and the desert people go north toward the Atlas Moun tains and the Mediterranean Sea to find grass and food. Find these mountains and this sea on the map of Africa.
These people can never stay long in one place, because grass for the sheep, goats, donkeys, and camels is so scarce that they soon eat up all there is in one place. The flocks and their owners must therefore keep moving. For this reason, we call them nomads. The people in many dry countries are nomads.
The nomad Arabs of North Africa are called Bedouins. Hakim and his family were Bedouins. Their only wealth is flocks and herds and the things they can carry when they move. No one ever has a piece of land for his own, except while he camps on it.
424. The barley the fourth camping place, Hakim and Abdallah came to the tent of their friend Selim. They had left him there in November when they started south with the coming of the rains. You see, enough rain falls in this part of Algeria in most years, to make a crop of barley, though it is a poor one. Barley is a kind of grain very much like wheat, except that it will not make soft, light bread, and does not need as much rain as wheat needs. It is grown in many dry countries.
Before the Arabs had gone south, they had harnessed the camels to wooden plows. These plows were really nothing but crooked pieces of wood. With them, the Arabs managed to scratch up a little ground in which to plant some barley. Selim and his family camped by the field all winter. They had two watch dogs, to keep other people's sheep, goats, and camels from eating up the young barley plants. The barley belonged to all six families of this little nomadic tribe. While Selim stayed there and took care of the barley crop for the tribe, the others took his flocks along with them in search of pasture.