i82 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



test of the North African months, it was not so dreadful as we had 

 anticipated. It is true that the mercury, whether by night or by 

 day, felt little disposed to leave the region of the ninety-eights, 

 unless it was in the direction of an upward journey. During the 

 hours of midday it stubbornly clung to the division line of 110°, 

 passing even beyond it slightly (although, perhaps, not in the most 

 perfect shade); at Biskra, during our brief absence, it stood at 116°. 

 While traveling we were subjected to even a much higher tempera- 

 ture, as at rapidly recurring intervals the heated reflections from the 

 burning sands were blown bodily into us. This temperature was 

 probably not less than 120°, and it was then that we remarked, 

 " This is like an oven." And, in truth, it was very much so. The 

 excessive dryness of the atmosphere doubtless conduced to render 

 it bearable; at least it had the effect of checking excessive per- 

 spiration. On the other hand, its extreme quality brings to many 

 a partly suffocating feeling — a feeling as though it were lacking in 

 the proper amount or quality of oxygen. The parched palate asks 

 for a moistener, and for repeated lotions in decreasing periods of 

 time. Still, the whole is both bearable and supportable, and the 

 foreigners who have located at Biskra seem to have acclimated 

 themselves in a comparatively short space of time. What sur- 

 prised me somewhat was the rather slight difference between the 

 temperature of the open and that of the shade, probably not more 

 than twenty degrees; the highest reading that we found was 132° F. 

 The temperature of the sunny sands was at its highest 123°. 



By the time we reached the relay at Chegga our horses had be- 

 come well tired out; the thirty miles had told hard upon them, but, 

 considering the quality of the road and the excessively high tem- 

 perature, all of it the temperature of the open sun, we did far better 

 than we had reason to hope for. At almost precisely noon we drew 

 up beside the town walls, where the trio of fresh horses was waiting 

 to meet us. An almost hopelessly dismal lunch, to which the dis- 

 tinctive flavor was given by bottled lemonade heated in the sun, 

 prepared us for the further journey, and at one o'clock we were 

 again en route. The surface of the desert now becomes more un- 

 dulating, and the telegraph poles, marking the elevations and de- 

 pressions, rise and fall in rapidly recurring intervals. Without these 

 landmarks thrown against the sky it would have been diflicult to de- 

 tect the inequalities of the desert floor, which to many eyes would 

 have appeared to roll off a flat expanse to the horizon. A feature 

 which by its novelty repeatedly impressed itself upon our minds 

 was the vegetation. A moderately green Sahara is certainly not the 

 ordinary conception of the great desert, but thus far, except for very 

 limited stretches, we had not yet passed the limit of vegetable 



