THE ALGERIAN SAHARA. 37 



apathy amonc^ these gentry, some of them are generally to 

 be seen stretched at full length on the pavement, wrapped in 

 the universal burnous, which approximates so nearly in 

 colour to sand and boulders, that at Boghari I used to find 

 it very hard to distinguish them. Without a burnous you 

 never see an Arab. These garments have no arms, but are 

 open down the middle, so that when the wearer applies 

 himself to manual labour, he must either throw one side 

 over his shoulder or take it off altogether, and the lazy 

 Arabs universally do the former. 



Banish from your mind all high-flown sentiment, for 

 there is nothing picturesque about them. The French 

 have improved away the old stock, and the present people 

 are their degenerate descendants. Not so the Chamba and 

 the Touareg, wild tribes of the true desert, who still cherish 

 a deadly hatred towards that people against whom their 

 hardy fathers swore eternal enmity. 



There are very few French besides the military, and they 

 lose no opportunity of endeavouring to render themselves 

 more popular ; but it is misspent energy. The old antipathy 

 still exists, and the Arabs are and ever will be jealous of 

 them. By nature a distrustful people, they deem every 

 improvement an innovation. Their masters may strive to 

 ingratiate themselves by acts of kindness, but they cannot 

 put down popular feeling, any more than they can obliterate 

 the remembrance of the severity with which the rebellion 

 of 1864 was met, a severity which perhaps was necessary, 

 but which will ever rankle in the bosoms of a vancjuished 

 people. 



]\Iarc]i 2/[tk. Shot two Aquatic Warblers ( Acroccphahis 

 aquaticns). The legs are rather whiter than the Sedge 

 Warbler's, and the iris is not red as figured by Dr. Bree, 

 but dark brown. I found them chiefly in the rushes. They 

 are restless little birds, but sometimes they settle at the 

 bottom of a reed, and then is the best chance of getting them. 



