emissaries can take refuge, have made it possible for them to continue their intrigues since the commencement of hostilities. Those efforts and those intrigues have been without the results so confidently expected. The Mussulmans of Algeria have stood by France with an unshakable loyalty and fidelity. Since the outset of the war three-fourths of our active forces here have been sent to France. They played a magnificent rôle in the first decisive battles. At the Marne, on the Yser, the African troops, zouaves and sharpshooters, covered themselves with glory. The troops remaining in Algeria, few in number and composed largely of old classes, have, nevertheless, been able to preserve unbroken order and security in the colony. After nearly four years of warfare it is good to see the tranquillity and prosperity of Algeria. Algiers, the capital of our African empire, has become a large city, having almost doubled in extent and population in the last ten years. Owing to the increase in price of all foodstuffs, the Algerian colonists, who are wonderful farmers, do an excellent business. They sell their wines, cereals, early vegetables, fruits, and sheep at high prices, while the value of the land itself has considerably augmented. There is not an acre which is not under cultivation. Everywhere are vineyards, orchards of orange and lemon trees, fields of wheat and barley. Farming, and especially grape-growing, is carried on along the most modern lines and with the aid of up-to-date machinery. There is something about the Algerian planter which reminds one of the American farmer. Like the American, he cultivates a rich, virgin soil; like him, he breaks away from tradition and the rou One is surprised and enchanted on rounding a hill to come suddenly upon a forest of green palms.-Page 264. tine way of doing things much more easily bites, who in the tenth century conquered than the French peasant. Leaving Laghouat, we strike downward toward the south. Our route lies in the direction of the oases of M'zab, one of the most curious and unique spots in the world. The Frenchman is a wonderful builder of roads. Nowhere save in Algeria is there such a network of roads and trails offering to the automobilist the most attractive, and at the same time the most varied, excursions. American tourists who come to Europe after the war will not regret taking a look-in on Algeria. From Laghouat on through the desert, the military authorities who control the affairs of the country have constructed a road especially reserved for automobiles. Vehicles without rubber tires are prohibited from using it under heavy penalty of the law. Thanks to this regulation, the road is as smooth as a billiard-table. Every thirty kilometres there is a fortified road-house where soldiers on the march may halt for rest. There they can obtain water and food. One of these caravansaries, Tilrempt, even boasts a wonderful native cook, El Haid, a desert Vatel, who can serve a breakfast which would make the chef of a “Café de Paris" or a "Voisin" restaurant jealous. At eighty kilometres from Laghouat there is a sudden and extraordinary change in the character of the country. We have reached the limestone plateau of the "Chebka," an Arab word signifying a net. The rocks, worn, hollowed out by the action of the water, assume under the burning reflection of the sun's rays the appearance of a net whose meshes shimmer away as far as the eye can see. This chain of faintly yellow, rocky ravines is the last word in desolation. In comparison with their arid, parched rims, stretched across the landscape like some vast skeleton, dried to powder by the blazing African sun, the sand-dunes seem delightfully cheerful! Behind this barrier of sterility and death men, fired with religious zeal, the Mozabites, have sought a sanctuary where, free from persecution, they could worship according to their beliefs. The Mozabites are Berbers belonging to a dissenting Mohammedan sect, the Ida northern Africa and founded the kingdom of Tiaret. Violently persecuted by the Arabs, who looked upon them as heretics, the Mozabites took refuge in this inhospitable land, too poor and too remote to tempt any other people. After hours of driving over this desolate sea of stones, one is surprised and enchanted on rounding a hill to come suddenly upon a forest of green palms. One asks oneself by what miracle they have been able to grow in such an arid, rocky place. It is a miracle-a miracle wrought by man, who, at the cost of arduous labor has achieved the fertilization of a barren soil. In order to irrigate these oases, it has been found necessary to bore to a great depth in the rock for water. And after all, these wells yield only a scanty flow. Unless there are good rainfalls during the season they are apt to go dry altogether. Camels, mules, and asses tug incessantly at the long ropes which, by a primitive system of pulleys, raise the buckets of goatskin filled with the precious water to the surface, and empty them into a reservoir. From these reservoirs the water is carried by pipes, cleverly disposed, to the gardens. Everywhere is heard the creaking of the neveridle pulleys. It is the only noise that breaks the silence of the oases of the Mozabites. The sacred cities of M'zab, Ghardaïa, Melika, Beni-Isguen, are situated in a line along a dried river-bed of the Sahara. Only once in every four or five years is there any water in this river, and at those times the stream is carefully dammed and used for the fertilization of the parched oases. During the dry years, only by the most strenuous efforts do the Mozabites protect their gardens from the ever-menacing aridity of the surrounding desert. But such a land is too poor to maintain the inhabitants, no matter how industrious and hard-working they may be. Therefore great numbers of the young Mozabites are obliged to expatriate themselves. They go to the fertile and rich country of North Algeria, where they engage in commercial pursuits and succeed admirably. Their shops are in all the cities of the sea-coast. These deeply religious Mohammedans are the most astute A miracle wrought by man, who, at the cost of arduous labor has achieved the fertilization of a barren soil. -Page 264. of merchants, canny enough to outwit even the Jews. They are at one and the same time the Quakers and the Phoenicians of Islam. But, though expatriated themselves, they leave in far-off M'zab their families their wives and their children-and invariably they return to M'zab. The priests who govern these little theocratic republics lay upon them the inviolable obligation to return to the land where their ancestors are buried and where they, |