"Mack Reynolds - North Africa 01 - Blackman's Burden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

Omar said, "It is well known that the Roumas and especially the
Americans are all rich as Emirs but none of them ever possess slaves. The
bedouin have slaves but fail to prosper. Verily, the product of the labor of
the slave is accursed."

"Madness," Moussa-ag-Amastan muttered. "If you do not let our slave
women do your tasks, then they will remain undone. No Tuareg woman
will work."

But the headman of his clan was wrong.

The smiths remained four days in all, and the abundance of their
products was too much. What verbal battles might have taken place in the
tent of Moussa-ag-Amastan, and in those of his followers, the smiths
couldn't know, but Tuareg women are not dominated by their men. On the
second day, three Tuareg women applied for the position of servants, at
surprisingly high pay. Envy ran roughshod when they later displayed the
textiles and utensils they purchased with their wages.

Nor could the aged Tuareg chief prevent in the evening discussions
between the men, a thorough pursuing of the new ideas sweeping through
the Ahaggar. Though these strangers proclaimed themselves lowly
Enaden— itinerant desert smiths—they were obviously not to be dismissed
as a caste little higher than Haratin serfs. Even the first night they were
invited to the tent of Moussa-ag-Amastan to share the dinner of shorba
soup, cous cous and the edible paste kaboosh, made of cheese, butter and
spices. It was an adequate desert meal, meat being eaten not more than a
few times a year by such as the Taitoq Tuareg who couldn't afford to
consume the animals upon which they lived.

After mint tea, one of the younger Tarqui leaned forward. He said, "You
have brought strange news, oh Enaden of wealth, and we would know
more. We of the Ahaggar hear little from ouside."

Moussa-ag-Amastan scowled at his clansman for his presumption, but
Omar answered, his voice sincere and carrying conviction. "The world
moves fast, men of the desert, and the things that were verily true even
yesterday have changed today."

"To the sorrow of the Tuareg!" snapped Moussa-ag-Amastan.

The other looked at him. "Not always, old one. Surely in your youth you
remember when such diseases as the one the Roumas once called the
disease of Venus ran rampant through the tribes. When trachoma, the
sickness of the eyes, was known as the scourge of the Sahara. When half
the children, not only of Bela slaves and Haratin serfs, but also of the
Surgu noble clans, died before the age of ten."

"Admittedly, the magic of the Roumas cured many such ills," an older