We passed on the right all the oases of the Wed R'hir, marked by a long green line occasionally broken for a short interval, looming like beads on a string; to the left and before us was only desert, whose even horizon line met the sky. I was introduced to Sidi Mochtar, a chieftain and officer of the Legion of Honour, said to be worth 12,000l. sterling per annum, now returning to his home accompanied by three magnificent sakk'r falcons, which had a servant exclusively devoted to them.

And now commenced such a sand-storm as I never elsewhere encountered; not so painful as that on the Souafa desert, for it was not cold, but far fiercer and right in our faces. Our horses were blinded as they struggled on in the wind's eye. Not a trace of the steps even of the animal immediately in front could be perceived. By turning, back to wind, an object at twenty yards distance could be dimly detected, but that was all. Our only guide was the sun, for the sky was cloudless, the sand merely sweeping for a few yards above the surface. Sometimes the gusts almost swept one from the saddle. I put on my spectacles, and a silk kerchief tied tightly as a veil over my face, but still I was blinded, choked, and suffocated. It was more bewildering than a heavy snow-storm; but I kept close by St. Martin's side, at the head of the straggling column.

Once there was a momentary lull, as we came on the banks of a little salt lake. St. Martin, seizing my bridle, for to make me hear was impossible, pointed to my gun, but we were too late, when a cloud of pintail duck rose through the mist. At length we came upon a little oasis, and a half-ruined Arab village, under the lee of whose walls we halted. Soon

after him the rest of the cavalry. Our tent was soon pitched, thanks to the number of willing hands; and fortunate we now found ourselves in having secured the forage, for the camels were far behind. At eight o'clock St. Martin found six men still missing; three who were known to have drunk too much as a parting glass, and three others who must have lost their way. The ranks of the cavalry were also deficient by two donkeys. For the drunken men the risk was great, since, if a man lie down in such a storm, he must soon be suffocated.

The priest, who seemed a guileless man, and little up in controversy, kept us long after dinner in friendly debate on the English Church, of whose doctrines he was profoundly ignorant, though he had read a French pamphlet containing a full account of Archdeacon Denison's case, and believed he represented the views of a majority of the clergy!

We made a late start the next morning, as we had but eight leagues before us. The stragglers, except one, had come up, having been wandering all night, but, being French soldiers, had sufficient head to keep a northerly course and to observe the stars for guidance. The drunkards, very sober now, were set upon camels to ease their wearied limbs.

The route was less uninteresting than that of the preceding day, and we halted in the afternoon at Tamerna to visit the artesian well, the first sunk by the French in the Sahara. Under a little summer-house of palm-stems, in the midst of a date-grove, an iron pipe ten inches in diameter throws a low jet of 800 gallons of clear sweet water per minute. This is all carefully conveyed by little canals throughout the oasis, which is already beginning to extend its limits, as young palms

are being planted and carrots and barley sown all round its borders. Here our camels and mules replenished all the skins, as we should meet with no good water for the next two days. The barley, on the 15th of January, was already showing the sheath of the ear. In March, after the crop had been reaped, maize would be dibbled in, and then a third crop, carrots or turnips, would be raised in autumn.

We watched the operations of an Arab laundry by á duck-pond. A boy stood in the pond opposite a little hollow scooped out at its edge. In this, on the bare ground, was placed a bundle of clothes, upon which stood a little barefooted girl; and while the boy kept a perpetual splash upon the heap, she as constantly seconded his efforts by a lively scuffle-dance upon the linen until she was breathless. A breathing-time, a merry laugh, and the operation recommenced, till the linen was thoroughly soaked and had imbibed a liberal infusion of mud as well as water.

Beyond Tamerna many layers of natron cropped through the sand, and were employed in the erection of sheiks' tombs and marabouts. In the afternoon, having several hours to spare, we left the convoy and made a détour with the falconers, and, after an animated chase, reached Zouïa (not the southern holy city), our appointed halting-place.

We found our host waiting dinner for us, and, as we were sitting down, a brisk little spahi dragged in an Arab with a bloody nose. This proved to be the deputy of the absent kadi of the village, who had had ten days' notice to provide dreen or coarse grass as fodder for the convoy, but had come and declared there was none to be found, and in endeavouring to resist the spahi's attempt to drag him before the officer had

fared but second best, as his face testified. After listening to his solemn declarations that there was not a morsel for a horse to eat within a day's march, that all the tribe were out with their flocks, and that he had not a man to carry fodder, St. Martin quietly took out his watch, and said that if, within an hour from that time, there was not forage supplied for all the horses of the convoy, the kadi should be bastinadoed and fined 100 dollars, and his tribe fined another hundred. The headman went away wringing his hands and howling as if in despair, but in less than half an hour upwards of thirty men appeared, carrying more than sufficient forage for all our cattle, and St. Martin moralized on English prejudices and the true way of dealing with Orientals.

The next day we traversed desert again, to the wretched village of Sidi Khrelil, where were a palmgrove and some wells strongly impregnated with saltpetre. The ground was so saturated with it that it would yield no undercrop, even cruciform plants being unable to thrive. The kadi and notables presented themselves before St. Martin with the tribute of the year, looking mournfully at the pile of dollars they placed on his extemporized table, and yearning after their cherished and disembowelled treasure, for all the money bore evident signs of having been buried in the earth, and only recently exhumed. The tax is sixtyfive centimes per palm-tree, about one-half of what they used to pay to the Sultan of Tuggurt, and the crop of each tree is considered to average thirteen francs per year.

Our "viande" had come to an end, but St. Martin extemporized what he termed a solid salad, an admirable campaigning dish. We sliced a large bowl of