152 SHORT STALKS 



G feet 2t) inches, fair measurement, without stretch of 

 strino- or imaoination. 



The Arabs, to whom he was the accursed thing, did 

 not at all approve of having to handle him. One of them 

 piteously exhibited to me a spot of l)lood on his clothes, 

 apparently thinking that his injured conscience should be 

 compensated. I told him to wash it — I mean his burnous. 

 He seemed to think this was adding insult to injury. 



One day we watched a curious phenomenon from this 

 rano^e. A hioh wind beo;an to blow from the south, and 

 columns of dust, hundreds of feet in height, marched in 

 stately battalions across the plain. Though we were three 

 thousand feet above it, the air surrounding us gradually 

 thickened into a fog, dense enough to l^lot out everything 

 a quarter of a mile off, but of dust so fine as to be quite 

 impalpal)le. In a short time it began to settle as a delicate 

 bloom upon everything in the tent. 



Eeturning to Biskra, our next expedition was to the 

 eastwards, to El Gattar, a pretty camp in a river bed. 

 Although for the most part dry, a small stream rose a 

 short distance below, and fell into a natural bath of white 

 rock frinoed with maiden -hair fern. Dense masses of 

 oleander surrounded it, and were the nightly roost of 

 countless desert sparrows. AVe pitched camp under a 

 low white cliff, from the crannies of which miniature 

 owls looked out. Our Arab followers thought there was 

 something uncanny a1)0ut the place, and tried to dissuade 

 us by saying that tlie cliffs w^ould fall upon the tents, or 

 that the floods would come and wash us away. Nothing- 

 would induce them to sleep there themselves. The Arab 

 whom we picked up here for a local guide was tlie best 



