T

HE British habit of punching people's heads is the bulwark of democracy," said the colonel. "The blacking of eyes mostly results in the clasping of hands. It enables men to estimate in each other the qualities of pluck, patience, skill. The Italian stiletto, the American revolver, the French rapier, the German sabre, as administered to the unarmed civilian: these are apt to reduce your enemy to a corpse and yourself to a convict. But the expert application of fists, while it attains the defeat, the abasement, and the public ridicule of one's foe, not infrequently turns an opponent into a friend. I can tell you of such an instance," continued the colonel. "To me it was one of the most eloquent and pathetic incidents I encountered during the war and upholds my contention that this conflict is going to upset old conventions and bring men closer together than our false values and social barriers have ever permitted them to be before."

The colonel and his listeners were seated in the garden of an ancient English country house. The venerable trees, which had looked down upon adherents of the Tudors and the Stuarts, now beheld a party of wounded officers and men fresh from the fields of France. This old seat was now a convalescent home, and here upon an August day the colonel, a young man of about thirty, minus one leg and with his body sorely maimed, gleefully upheld the traditions of the boxer's art.

"You remember Raynor of Rugby," said the colonel to some of the group about him. "No? Well, he was at school with me. A dear fellow, fine at cricket and as pretty a fighter as you would wish to meet. It was a distinguished pleasure to be beaten by him.

"When Raynor came into his property he became a justice of the peace-Archi

bald Raynor, J. P. It was a fine sight to see the dear old fellow administer justice."

Here the colonel seemed to indulge in gentle reflection, for he paused and smiled to himself very tenderly. He returned to his story with a sigh and a wave of the hand, as though dissipating the mists of remembrance.

"Good old Raynor!" continued the colonel. "Well, in Raynor's village there was a rough, good-for-nothing, rebellious sort of a fellow who was always concerned in some mischief. He never had regular employment, drank hard and was a general terror to the neighborhood. He had been up before Raynor twenty times for poaching. You know the laws are strict about poaching. The penalties which protect our game are severe.

"Well, Raynor had inflicted various sentences on this fellow, but the man was obdurate, sulky, insolent. Nothing could mend him, nothing could reach his better nature, nothing could conquer him. I had business in the court one day when he came before Raynor again. He had killed birds for the tenth time on Raynor's own preserves. Two keepers gave evidence. The poaching was proved.

666

'Cave!' said Raynor, 'have you anything to say, anything in your own defense?'

""What's the good of defending myself?' said Cave with a scowl on his wicked-looking countenance. 'You, and them like you, has the upper hand. There's no chance for a man like me. You've made the law and you give out the law; you own the land and the things that grow on the land; you own the air and the birds that fly in the air, and the rivers and the fish that swim in the rivers. What have I done? I've shot a bird or two. You can sentence me all you like, I'll do it again. Curse you! and the likes of you I say; curse you!' "Good old Raynor looked at the husky

The méhari, the trotting camel of the desert, which is to the caravan camel what the thoroughbred is to the carthorse, here makes its first appearance. During the last few days of our journey the captain, head of the Arab bureau at Ghardaïa, stationed along our route groups of méharist riders to mark out the road for us. Perched fearlessly upon their long-legged mounts and draped in the flowing burnous, the lower part of the face hidden by a veil according to the Touareg fashion, they present arms and salute when we pass.

These troops of méharist cavalry, made part of our forces by the happy inspiration of our military commanders, have rendered it possible for us to conquer the entire Sahara without too great an effort or at too great a sacrifice. There were in the desert several tribes who, unable to hit upon a more lucrative occupation, applied themselves to the fine art of brigandage, making off with flocks of sheep, destroying encampments, plundering caravans, and murdering travellers. The cure which our officers found for this unhealthy state of things was to take these robbers and make mounted policemen of them. They lent themselves willingly enough to this transformation, greatly encouraged thereto by the regular government pay! Of course, nothing was more simple than this expedient, only, like the famous egg of Christopher Columbus, the idea had to

occur to some one.

And now, thanks to us, practically the whole immense desert of the Sahara is pacified. As a rule it is a comparatively easy trip from Algiers to Timbuctoo-the whole length of the great desert. It is no longer a warlike expedition, bristling with serious risks, but just "globe-trotting," pure and simple.

During the three years and more of the war the security of the Sahara has not been seriously disturbed. At one time the Turco-German intrigues in Tripoli threatened to cause us some embarrassment. The Italians were obliged to evacuate the hinterland of their colony, the oases of the interior, Ghadames and Rhat. A Senoussist uprising, instigated by the Turco-German propaganda, seemed to be on the point of breaking out in the ex

having been able to bring up a fairly strong fighting force which attacked our outposts. But this menace was speedily averted, thanks to the energetic measures taken by our military commanders and to the loyalty of the native chiefs. At the present time the danger has entirely passed.

At the beginning of the European war, when the fate of France hung in the balance, it might have seemed more wise and prudent to economize our troops, to reduce appreciably the extent of our African possessions guarded by French soldiers, to evacuate our frontier posts in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis, with the intention, of course, of reoccupying them, once the great war was over.

During the first months of the war this measure was advocated by certain political leaders at Paris. But the military. commanders here on the spot, who understood the situation better than any one else, violently combated this move, which, while it was apparently wise and far-sighted, would have been in reality most imprudent. They decided that even with the diminished forces left to them, they would not abandon a single frontier post. Where the French flag had once waved, there it should never be hauled down. In the relations between Europeans and natives, above all with the Mussulmans of North Africa, moral forces and prestige are of more importance than material strength. It is necessary to guard carefully against doing the least thing which, in the eyes of the Arabs, would diminish our prestige.

Recently General Nivelle, commander of the French troops in North Africa, has made, without the slightest difficulty, the journey to In Salah, a thousand kilometres from here in the Sahara by automobile. Our auto-trucks go everywhere in the desert with rations for the soldiers. At Biskra there is an escadrille of aeroplanes which fly over the roads, accomplishing in a few hours distances that formerly took weeks to traverse. The aeroplane and the camel in the desert-what a wonderful contrast! Without doubt air machines will in a short time become the most practical mode of desert travel. American tourists who come to Algeria after the war will be able to visit the oases of the