211 
with water, ie. for forming a new gulf in the Mediterranean, 
containing an area somewhat greater than the Irish Sea. In 
considering his views of what was once, and what again might be 
the condition of this district, there flashed upon my mind the 
explanation of the difficulties which have been enumerated. 
Along the whole northern coast of Africa, from Cape Bon to 
the Straits of Gibraltar, runs a range of mountains of varying height. 
In the regency of Tunis, bearing the name of the Auress Mountains, 
they rise with snowy peaks, for some part of the year, to the height 
of 6000 feet. Crossing Algeria with diminished elevation, they 
finally reach their grandest proportions in Morocco, and under the 
name of the Atlas Mountains, attain 12,000 feet, and are covered 
with perpetual snow. It is with their eastern extremity that our 
business lies. Until.in an hour, happy for itself and humanity, 
Algeria was occupied by the French, this region was unknown. 
Beyond the Auress Mountains was the desert, and there were 
marked upon ancient maps vague traces of lakes with the name 
Lacus Tritonidis attached, and probably a note of interrogation 
followed, to indicate that the site was entirely uncertain. 
Now, however, all can be traversed in safety, and the French 
authority is in the main willingly acknowledged as far south as 
Touggourt and Wady Souf, and military posts, and farms, dependent 
in some cases for their existence on Artesian Wells, are found at 
Chegga and El Feid, and other places south of the Auress Moun- 
tains, and Biskra is rapidly becoming a sort of Arab Paris. 
Nowhere are the contrasts of nature more striking than in 
this southern part of the French province of Constantina. There 
meet at the Auress Mountains, the Mons Aurasius of the Romans, 
the Djebel Auress of the Arabs,—two worlds which are total 
opposites. On the one side are snowy peaks, broad mountain 
pastures, forests, streams of water, picturesque villages, vying with 
each other in the riches and fertility of their gardens. On the 
other side, to the south, is a plain parched by a burning sun, an 
horizon without limit; hot, rugged mountain sides with broken 
precipices and deep ravines, without vegetation, strangely harmo- 
nizing with the aridity beyond. Here and there, within the near 
