(Editor's note:  Guy de Maupassant, born in Normandy, France, in 1850, was a master of the short story, completing more than 300 in his lifetime. He also wrote extensively about his travels in North Africa. After suffering from syphilis and its accompanying dementia, he died in an asylum in 1893. The following excerpt relates his impressions of Oulad-Nail dancers in Boukhrari, Algeria, in the latter part of the nineteenth century. For more about the Oulad-Nail, see Wendy Buonoventura's Serpent of the Nile.)
 
 

. . . IN THE AFTERNOON I visited the village of the natives. Boukhrari is the first village where one sees Oulad-Nails. One is astonished at sight of these courtesans of the desert (sic).

The crowded streets are filled with Arabs, many of them lying in doorways, talking in low voices or sleeping. Everywhere their floating white garments seem to increase the universal whiteness of the houses. Suddenly from a doorway a woman appears, whose headdress seems of Assyrian origin, surmounted by an enormous diadem of gold. She wears a long dress of brilliant red; her arms and ankles are encircled with shining bracelets, and her face, with its straight lines, is tattooed with blue stars.

Other women join her, a great many of them, all wearing this monumental headdress; a mountain of hair, on each side of which a thick braid hangs as far as the lower tip of the ear, where it is drawn back to be lost in the masses of back hair. They always wear tiaras, some of which are very costly. The breast is hidden under necklaces, medals, and other heavy jewelry; while two strong silver chains, hanging low down from the neck, support a padlock of the same metal, curiously engraved, from which hangs the key.

Some of these girls wear only tiny bracelets as yet; they are simply beginners in their profession. The others, the older ones, sometimes carry about on their persons jewelry to the value of ten or fifteen thousand francs. I saw one whose necklace was composed of eight rows of twenty-franc pieces. They hoard their savings in this way. The rings on their ankles are also of massive silver, and are surprisingly heavy, for, as soon as they accumulate silver pieces to the value of two or three hundred francs, they give them to the native jewelers to melt and make into chased ankle-rings, symbolical padlocks, chains, or bracelets. The diadems they wear are obtained in the same manner.

The monumental headdress, a clever tangle of twisted braids, takes almost a day to put up, and needs an incredible quantity of oil. For that reason, they do not dress it more than once a month, and take great care not to disarrange this high and elaborate edifice of hair, which gives out a disagreeable odor in a short time. It is worth while to go to see them when they dance in the Moorish cafes at night.

The village is silent. White-robed figures lie in doorways. The night is fearfully hot, and brilliant with stars; these stars of Africa shine with a clearness the like of which is never seen elsewhere--the brilliancy of a fiery diamond, palpitating, living, intense.
 Suddenly, on turning a corner, a noise attracts us, a wild and rapid music, a rumble of drums which is drowned by the fierce, sharp sound of the flute, on which the proprietor of the cafe plays indefatigably.

On the doorsteps, looking on without entering, Arabs lie in their white robes, which look like moving light, in the clearer shining that comes from the interior. Inside, rows of men, motionless and white also, are seated on boards along the walls, under a very low roof. And in the center of the room, lolling on the floor in their flaming tinsels, their flashing jewelry, with their tattooed faces, and their headdresses so like the Egyptian bas-reliefs, the Oulad-Nails are waiting.

We enter and no one moves. And so, according to custom, we take hold of some of the Arabs and hustle them out of their seats; they move away with impassive faces, and some of the others make room for them.

On an elevation at the rear, four men, standing in ecstatic poses, are beating with frenzy on the tambourines; and the master--a tall negro--walks about in a majestic way, blowing furiously on his flute, never stopping for a moment.

Then the two Oulad-Nails rise, and taking up a position at the end of the room which has been left unoccupied, they begin to dance. The movements consist of a slow glide, whose rhythm is accentuated by a tap of the heel, which makes the ankle-bracelets ring out like a bell when the whole body bends in a methodical limp-like step; the hands are raised as high as the eyes, and are turned about gracefully, the fingers snapping briskly. The face, astonishingly rigid, is turned a little, and the eyes alone move about, following the action of the hands, as if fascinated by the graceful attitudes they assume.

The dancers approach one another in this way, their hands touching as they meet. A tremor seems to come over them, their figures sway to and fro, a long lace veil trailing behind them. They touch hands again, bending backward gracefully, as would two amorous doves, their long veils beating and spreading out like the wings of a bird. Suddenly they straighten up again, impassive once more, and continue as far as the line of spectators with their slow and limping glide.

Not all of them are pretty, but all possess a strange charm. Nothing can give an adequate idea of the impassiveness of these Arabs, among whom these women, covered with gold and flaming garments, pass and repass with rhythmical grace.

These prostitutes came originally from one tribe only, the Oulad-Nail. They gathered their dowries in this way, and returned home to marry, after accumulating the necessary money. This was one of the customs of the tribe, and no one thought any the less of them for doing it. To-day, although it is still understood that the girls of this particular tribe go away to earn money in this fashion, nearly all the tribes supply the Arabian towns with courtesans.

 . . . Those of the Oulad-Nails who are of noble birth show great generosity and delicacy of feeling in their dealings with visitors. If the lover of a few minutes admires the rug that serves as a couch, the noble prostitute's servant carries it to him, shortly after he has returned to his lodgings.

There are, as is usually the case, men who live on the earnings of these women, and sometimes a girl is found with her throat cut and all her jewels stolen. A man she has loved and lived with disappears at the same time, and is never seen again.

The room where they receive men is a narrow apartment, whose walls are made of clay. In the oases, the roof is sometimes made of reeds, packed tightly, where hordes of scorpions hide. The couch is made of rugs, placed one over another.

 . . . Coming down one night from Boukhrari, I saw three Oulad-Nails, two dressed in red and one in blue, standing motionless in the midst of a group of Arabs, all lying down. They looked like fierce goddesses, dominating a prostrate people. All eyes were fixed on the fort of Boghar, up above, on the long dusty hill facing them. All were motionless, attentive, as if something wonderful were about to happen; each holding between his fingers a freshly-made cigarette.

Suddenly a puff of white smoke appears at the summit of the fortress, and immediately all cigarettes were lighted, while the ground shook slightly with the roar of the cannon that gave the signal for the end of the daily fast.