Page:Algeria from Within.pdf/132

ALGERIA FROM WITHIN

the moment for themselves, but generally speaking the fast starts at the same time all over Algeria. It ends as soon as the next new moon is visible, and sometimes, owing to bad weather, the inhabitants of a town may fast one or two days longer than people who live where the night has been clear. From the moment the decree is sent abroad that the Ramadan. has begun all believers must obscrve the fast for thirty consecutive days. During this period they must neither cat nor drink nor smoke from two hours before the dawn until after sunset. The time-table on the opposite page published for the Ramadan of 1926, which took place in April, gives some idea of the length of time passed without nourishment or water: The decisive moment of the evening is that at which the imam can no longer distinguish a white hair from a black, held at arm's length. A gun is then fired, cries of joy rise from the populace, and the first meal is hungrily attacked. Those who are out on the plain pull out a few dates which they munch until they get home. From the firing of the gun they can eat and drink as much water or milk as they like until two hours before dawn. As a general rule they begin with a big dinner. Then they rest, after which they go out and visit their friends or walk about the streets till midnight, when they return home and have a second big meal followed by bed. At first sight this penitence may not seem rigorous. Perhaps not for those rich men who can convert the night into the day; but to the average worker it is a terrible ordeal. Fifteen hours or so with nothing to eat and nothing to drink! This last privation is especially trying when the Ramadan falls in the summer months and when consequently the period of fasting is longer. What is most astonishing is to see how strictly

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