Among our excursions at Boghar was a ride down. the hill, across the Cheliff. and up the opposite ridge, to the Arab town of Bokhari; the first purely native city we had met with, so much so that no European is on any pretext permitted to sleep within its walls. This regulation is enforced to prevent quarrels between the races. On the slope outside is held every Monday (or Tsenin, i.e. second day) the great wool-market of the country. Buyers come from the coast with camels' loads of barley and bales of coarse French fabrics, which are bartered for the wool, the finest imported into France. The sheep of the South Atlas are said to be the progenitors of the Spanish merino, but, whatever be the quality of their wool, their forms partake rather of the uncouthness and ruggedness of the Bedouin than of the grace and dignity of the Spaniard.

Bokhari is also the rendezvous of many native dealers in the white burnous, the Arab dress of perpetual wear, After huckstering for these in the trapholes called shops, and laying in a stock of capsicums and onions for our journey, we dived into a thoroughly Eastern café, where, seated cross-legged on a mat under an alcove, we enjoyed a view over the rich alluvial but sun-dried plain, and sipped our black coffee at one sou per cup. There is not a tree near the place, but under the cliffs are many gardens, green throughout the summer by the water of the springs which gush from the rocks in various directions.

From the arcade of the café we witnessed an interesting illustration of the Scriptural expression "wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs," * while watching an Arab turning with his foot the little rills which

* Deut. xi. 10.

To stoop

were to refresh each row of vegetables. would have been too undignified a posture for the proud Moslem, who, while scarcely deigning to look down to his work, admitted by turns the allotted portion of liquid to the thirsty plants, and then dammed it off by raising the earth with his foot.

Similar fountains in yet more abundance gush from the rocks at Boghar, which is indeed a favoured spot in this arid wilderness, and much resembles a hill town in the south of Judæa. One of these fountains, emerging from a grotto in the limestone, supplies a neat experimental garden or " pépinière," which, though yet in its infancy, promises to become valuable by its lessons to the natives. It is liberally supported by the government, which never grudges its aid to any scheme for the advancement of physical civilization, so long as it be carried on in due form and with an adequate supply of officials and paper.

In riding across the plain we found it rather dangerous to diverge from the beaten path, owing to the "Silos" or "Mottamorhas," as the Arabs call them, in which, under the protection of the fortress, the surrounding tribes hoard their grain for winter use. Near them are some threshing-floors, merely square patches of cowdung and clay, on which the sheaves are spread and the corn trampled out by oxen or mules. This process completed, equally rude is the winnowing, performed simply by throwing the grain into the air with a large wooden shovel, until "the chaff of the summer threshing-floor" is carried away by the wind. There were scores of these mottamorhas together, circular pits in the earth, each about six feet deep, and scooped out till they were somewhat of the shape of a stout earthen pitcher. No brickwork is used, but, a slight layer of straw being

spread at the bottom, the corn is thrown in, straw again spread over it, and the soil carefully beaten down on the top. As each tribe has its own treasure-houses carefully selected and watched, they are not exposed to sudden marauding inroads; while the owners, if obliged to retire before a superior force for a time, may hope that only a portion of their hoards will be discovered, and that they are at least secure from a conflagration.*

* Utilissime servantur in scrobibus, quos Siros vocant, ut in Cappadociâ et in Thraciâ. In Hispaniâ et Africâ ante omnia, ut sicco solo fiant, curant; mox ut paleâ substernatur. Præterea cum spicâ suâ conduntur.-Pliny, H. N., xviii. 30. The last particular seems to be the only one in which the ancient differed from the modern usage.

CHAPTER IV.

-Way

Departure from Boghar-Fainéant farrier-Lock the door side cabaret-In the Sahara - Camels - Jacob's flocks- A mirage - Paradise of waterfowl - Flamingoes - Plovers - The Sheik Bou Disah - Falconry · A bustard-hunt - The sandgrouse - Costly birds- Sunday in the Desert - Natron deposits — Whirlwinds Pillars of sand - Bedouin on the march Camel-tents Aïn Oosera - Formation of the Steppes - Geologic record-The Zahrez - Fast in the sand - Salt-rocks-Intelligent guide - Manufacture of saltpetre Note on the salt-hills of Herodotus.

THE military authorities very kindly granted us free transport for our bulky baggage in a government trainwaggon, or “prolonge" as far as El Aghouat. There being military caravanserais along the whole route, we congratulated ourselves on being freed from the care and annoyance of the commissariat for the next ten days, and gladly forwarded all we had, except the contents of our holsters and valises, indifferent to the necessity of composing ourselves for a night or two in our burnouses on the floor.

On the morning of our departure I rose before daybreak to look after the farrier, who had faithlessly neglected to shoe the horses. After an hour spent in rousing him, and another hour in vainly endeavouring to prevent his putting soft or cracked iron into the shape of shoes, I returned to our quarters to find that, having omitted to lock the door, we had been robbed most inopportunely of articles it were now in vain to attempt to replace. A pistol, large sponge, and various other indispensables had vanished. Little did we suspect what we afterwards discovered, that Omar was the thief. I could

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but reproach myself for being yet a very young traveller, and, pocketing losses and indignation, we rode down the hill at once, and with our faces southward were in the Sahara. To our surprise we found the convoy, which, though it had left Boghar the day before, evidently valued au point du jour" as little as the farrier, still loitering at the door of a cabaret. Here, following Dugald Dalgetty's maxim, we secured breakfast, and I obtained the skins of a magnificent lämmergeyer and an Egyptian horned owl (Otus ascalaphus) which had been but recently shot.

Our day's ride was dreary enough. We passed a desolate-looking Arab cemetery on a hill-side, unfenced, and the graves marked, not by headstones, but by a collection of rough unhewn slabs surrounding each, and so placed as to prevent the hyænas and jackals from feasting on the dead. Occasionally a few tattered rags, fluttering like scarecrows in the wind, marked the resting-place of a sheik. The soil during the first part of the route was extremely rich, at least 20 feet of alluvium, and all under barley cultivation, but the crops are very precarious, and this year had proved an utter failure from the want of rain, so that no attempt had been made to reap them. The plain was intersected by the bed of a stream, now dry excepting in a few deep holes, and these strongly impregnated with salt. Beds of natron frequently appeared through the soil, sometimes horizontal, but occasionally broken, and at various inclinations, as if from the effect of earthquakes. For five leagues the plain was often intersected by low ranges of rolling hills, at once suggesting by their form the idea of their having been successively the coast-line of a gradually receding ocean.

After crossing the fourth of these little ranges we