HANDSOME BANDITS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4593, 27 August 1923, Page 1

HANDSOME BANDITS.

WHERE THEY REIGN. IN THE CENTRAL SAHARA. Lady Dorothy Mills has returned to London from West Africa after having travelled alone as far as Timbuctoo. She says I have discovered a country devoted to women —the country of the Touaregs in the Central Sahara. At Timbuctoo I had the opportunity of studying them. They are a strange people, aristocrats of the sand. Their men—.who live by bloodshed and pillage—are the handsomest creatures alive, slim, amber skinned, muscular, but, they hide their acqu ■ line features behind a black or dark blue veil that leaves nothing visible but their bright, black eyes. “ Their women are very good looking, though, among the richer classes, beauty is measured by weight, and young girls are subject to a fattening process something like that; cf the Christmas turkey. Often by the time they reach maturity they ca"i only move with the aid of two or more slaves. “ But rich or poor, they are always and in everything the priority over men. They have a voice in every family or public assembly • at meals they eat first; their children are exclusively their property, and they retain their rank should they marry men of inferior degree. “ They alone have the power to ask for a divorce,, and no Touareg woman ever dreams of remaining with a husband she does not love. Should she be unfaithful to her. husband, the most he can do is to scold her gently. Indeed, should a married woman, as sometimes happens,, give birth to ablack child, proving that It is not that of her husband, but probably of some vassal or slave, her virtue is not impugned; but the evil machinations of a scorcei;er are taken for granted. “Married or single, the Touareg woman holds receptions in her tent of little bits of red leatther sown together, after ,the evening meal, much in the manner of the ‘ salons ’ of the great ladies of old. She dabbles in politics, is catty about other women, and flirts freely with her numerous admirers, “ It all seems to work out well. She is an excellent mother,, and an intelligent companion. He is happy with his warfare, she with her social life and household. And it is said that they never have domestic rows.”