From the workings the salt is carried to the dwellings in the town, where it is spread out to harden into flat oblong cakes of a size suitable to bale into compact camel loads. The cakes are of pale _pink_ colour, and on account of this it is easily recognisable when seen south of the Sahara in the bazaars of the markets of West Africa, where it is prized on account of its high quality. Thus is _salt_ obtained from two remarkable places in the Sahara. Its romance as currency begins at the very commencement of its existence as a product. Almost everything that the two towns secure from the outside, most of the food, and all of the clothes they require, is purchased by barter for salt. Sometimes the exchanges are curious—a score of blocks of salt, at Bilma, for an article of adornment, or a lover’s gift; half a dozen blocks for a sheaf of raw tobacco, and a single block for a few sticks of scarce firewood. At Tigguida n’Tisem all the water in the town is very salt. Hence _fresh water_ is transported from a distance by donkeys and sold in the streets every day, a handful of raw salt being the purchase price of a half-filled calabash bowl of fresh water. [Illustration: SETTING OUT THE SALT OF TIGUIDDA TO HARDEN INTO CAKES] From the time of leaving the salt-pits the career of each block, or slab, is one continual round of exchange, until they end in eventual consumption. Although tribal customs are changing in the Western Sudan, there are still instances of local taxes being paid in salt; and builders and contractors; while raw materials, such as hides, ground-nuts, and other produce desired for export to Europe are often bartered for the same commodity. Nevertheless, it is as a native medium of exchange for little purchases that salt has its chief use as a currency at the present time. Lastly, the nearest approach to dramatic entertainment that the West African native enjoys is furnished by curious Punch and Judy shows. And in the manner that one pays sixpence or a shilling to gain admittance, say, to a cinema, so the actors, or puppet manipulators, of “Punch and Judy” are often rewarded by small admirers with merely a “pinch of _salt_.” CHAPTER VIII THE PEOPLE OF THE VEIL [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII THE PEOPLE OF THE VEIL The outstanding inhabitants of the Great Desert are “The People of the Veil”; a term by which the Tuaregs are generally known, and one that is employed by themselves, collectively, in the designation _Kel-Tagilmus_, which in their language has exactly the same meaning. It is they who, in widely scattered tribes of small numbers, dominate the Sahara and the sedentary serfs, they who are pre-eminently a class unto themselves, and they who are responsible for much of the romance that has given to the Sahara a world-wide mystical fame.