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a just one, is that Arab guns are not intended to go off at the first charge.

We rode across the bed of the Sebkha Neklat, a long expanse of firm and rather moist sand, which had evidently not long since contained water, and over which we enjoyed a gallop for several miles. At its extremity the white-domed marabouts standing out from the dark palm-foliage revealed the position of the village or city of Blad et Amer, where our cavaliers had decreed we should levy a dinner. We came upon an Arab village outside the walls, and a quaint village it was, composed partly of built houses, partly of black tents, the houses having all the appearance of huge square packing-cases pitched upside down promiscuously as chance or fancy dictated, made of unburnt brick, windowless, and, unless on very close inspection, seeming doorless also. Still it was a busy scene-ragged women milking goats, the sound of the quern within the tents, and of the shuttle at the doors, while among innumerable pariah dogs several majestic-looking gazellehounds came gravely forth, carefully sheeted, to have a look at the strangers.

But how shall I describe Blad et Amer itself? Not only the buildings, the very water, the very vegetation, was, if possible, decaying. A broad ditch, green and fetid, fringed with a crystallization of saltpetre, and inhabited by a few snipe and sandpipers, surrounded a jagged and crumbling wall, well pierced and loopholed by time. Here and there was a tower or the remains of one, threatening a dusty death to any adventurous defender, and worn down in many places, perhaps by the occasional rains, to a thickness not exceeding six inches. Well may such a city be the annual pest-hole it is said to be from African fever! The

houses within were so low and the streets so narrow, that the very curs on the roofs on either side snapped at our faces as we rode along.

Arrived at the souk, we met a body of townsmen, and after a parley were conducted to the kasbah, which even Blad et Amer boasts, and were promised breakfast, though the kadi was absent. We passed through no less than three quadrangles before reaching the townhall of the city. In the outer court the horses of our guard were arrested-ours were permitted to reach the second, and there supplied with barley. Our chamber was a long windowless room with recesses between pillars, and raised mastabals in each; and in the darkness of the lower end a mysterious door, through which issued, from time to time, men, women, children, asses, everything but kouskousou; so leaving P. to wait for it, I contented myself with dates, and went to shoot in the marsh. Having tried, I fear, beyond any reasonable powers of endurance, the patience of my friend, we set out on my return at once for Tuggurt, which, being fourteen leagues distant, we could by hard riding reach before midnight, and where, within the limits of civilisation, P. was most anxious to spend his Christmas. We crossed a little ridge, and were now at last in the Wed R'hir, not strictly a wed, but a vast depression of many miles in width, and extending upwards of a hundred miles from south to north, from Blad et Amer to the Chott Melr❜hir. It has a gradual and almost imperceptible descent of about 400 feet, and possesses everywhere water attainable by artesian wells at varying depths, but never on the surface.

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CHAPTER XVI.

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Tuggurt Confines of French dominion - Native troops - Hungarian
sergeant-The palace of the Bey-Miscellaneous inhabitants
Imperial furniture - An ancient throne - Visit of the Bey Arrival
of French column – Varied equipments — The camp pitched -
Why do we travel? — Night stroll in the camp — Christmas cheer—
General Desvaux African falcons Cotton Meeting with a
country man Political ideas of a native soldier-
of Tuggurt — A new fish — Geological speculations.

Marshes and lake

WE left Temaçin, with its towers and minarets peep-
ing through the palms on the right, and pressing
quickly on, with many a gallop on the hard bed of the
Sebkha, mounted some sand-hills and entered the palm-
groves of Tuggurt in good time. Among the scattered
palms and Arab tents of the suburbs we were greeted
by some Tirailleurs Indigènes, whose costume, Arab
though it was, proclaimed at once that we had re-
turned to the outskirts of French dominion. The
swarthy warriors advanced and shook hands, giving us
a hearty Bedouin greeting, and evidently looking upon
us somewhat in the light of bold adventurers. The
tricolor floated over the gateway and the mosque-
towers, and as we passed under the gate we were
welcomed, in German, by a sergeant of Indigènes, who
conducted us to the kasbah, where we were installed
in two pleasant apartments.

The Bey (Ali Bey) was absent, having gone to
meet the French column, which we found was ex-
pected here to-morrow from the north; but his de-
puties, the kadi and the khalifat, came to pay their

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