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view, are a few oases inhabited by the descendants of the ancient 
Berbers, the Kabyles, among whom are found in abundance men 
with fair complexions and blue eyes, a laborious, sedentary people, 
fond of agriculture, and with a love for the soil and their homes. 
Further south the eye is struck by a deep depression of the ground. 
Beyond, the extreme view is bounded by the Sahara, with its 
nomad Arab tribes. 
In the depression the eye is arrested by a vast dazzling gleam 
of light from the Chott Mel-rir. 
The name Chott is applied by the natives to shallow lakes, 
full of saline matter, where the water only remains for a certain 
portion of the year. At other times the plain is covered with a 
thick coating of salt, and presents for all the world the appearance 
of a vast field of white jelly, or of camphor, as a Frenchman 
describes it. It then conceals in places deep holes and quicksands, 
where an unwary step might lead to certain death. 
These chotts are extremely numerous, and are all more or 
less connected with one another, and extend in an unbroken line 
from Chegga, where the river Djedi falls into the Chott Mel-rir, 
to within a few miles of the Gulf otf Gabes in the Mediterranean. 
The three largest are the Chott Mel-rir, the Chott Rharsa, and 
Chott Djerid. The first of these is the least dangerous, and 
portions of it are easily crossed. The third, or most Easterly, the 
Chott Djerid, has peculiar perils. It presents many of the 
characteristics of a lake covered with ice. The covering, however, 
being a shell of salt of uncertain thickness. In some places this 
would appear to rest upon the ground, in others upon water, in 
others upon quicksand ; whilst there are at times places where the 
water is withdrawn, and the shell of salt suspended in the air. At 
other times a violent wind will disturb it with the oscillations of 
slow waves. In short, its behaviour is in this respect exactly like 
that of our own lakes when covered with ice. One or two caravan 
routes across this Chott have been known for many years, but 
whoever wanders to the right or left of the recognised track, 
exposes himself to very great risk, and even the frequented routes 
are not devoid of danger. (See the Map.) 
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