neously crystallized into salt. At length we came upon a spot where the wind had swept the sand away from its gravelly bed, and exposed a layer of gypsum, and here we made ourselves at home for a night, with brushwood for a fire, after a dinner of rice and boiled biscuit, in good order to meet either thieves or brigands.

Monotonous as a desert could make it was our next day's journey, but we relieved its tedium by observing the tracks of its various travellers-the long taper hoof of the gazelle, the club-footed double impression of the ostrich, the trail of the serpent, lark tracks, and those of the wagtail, the spurred boot of some Arab cavalier who appeared to have lost his horse, and, strange to add in such an open expanse, the large round paw of the leopard.

Our cavalier who had forgotten to charge his piece on leaving N'goussa, being somewhat "chaffed" by his comrades for his omission, recounted to me the following tale of prowess as a proof of the advantages of tardiness and negligence. He had once been sent as escort to a flock of sheep, but, having lingered half an hour behind his charge to roast himself by the camp-fire, he found on coming up with it that the flock was divided into three parts-one running wild, another with the shepherds, and a third in the act of being driven off by four armed Arabs. Priming his firelock, he rushes manfully to the rescue, pulls trigger, and flash goes the pan without any report. The robbers flash likewise with similar success. He himself then runs away like a man, but with Parthian valour bethinks himself of loading and returning. Having essayed a shot at easy distance, he declares the marauders, who were searching for their ammunition, ran away. His conclusion, perhaps

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.

CHAPTER XVI.

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 Marshes and lake of Tuggurt- A new fish - Geological speculations.

WE left Temaçin, with its towers and minarets peeping 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 palmgroves 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 returned 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 mosquetowers, 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 expected here to-morrow from the north; but his deputies, the kadi and the khalifat, came to pay their