oe, The Sahara. 
their wished-for goal. The chief difficulty is the casing of the pit-- 
walls. Having no other wood than palm, which is neither strong 
nor durable, it often happens that the frame-work gives way, and 
the sand falling in, overwhelms the work of years. Then, again, 
when they have arrived at the lowest bed, that which rests on the 
water, those who pierce it are exposed to extreme peril, for the 
water rushes upwards with such force that they cannot always get 
up in time. 
The sand is at all times liable to drift in, and fill up the wells by 
degrees; and from time to time it is necessary to scour them out. 
This is a task devolving on certain families, and is hereditary. One 
can hardly believe the process they employ, it is so primitive and 
so dangerous. An unfortunate wretch, holding in his hands a 
basket or coffer, dives into the well, fills the coffer with sand, 
hastily returns to the surface, and the sand is drawn up by a cord. 
If any obstacle keeps the diver at the bottom of the water, a com- 
rade is bound to jump in and disengage him. I have seen as many 
as three of these poor men drawn up by a fourth more fortunate 
than themselves. It is remarked that these divers seldom live long ; 
the occupation is evidently too laborious; and they are usually 
attacked by complaints on the chest. 
Notwithstanding the drawbacks to the Arab method of boring, 
nothing will induce the natives to change it; they cling with incre- 
dible obstinacy to their old customs. Some years ago, General 
Desvaux, visiting the Oasis of Sedi-Rached, was struck with the 
misery of the inhabitants; water was beginning to fail, the oasis 
was in a perishing state, and the Arabs resigned themselves to their 
fate with a fatalism truly Mahometan—‘it was written.’ But the 
General resolved to falsify the eastern proverb: he sent for an engi- 
neer, furnished by the house of Degousée and Co. of Paris, who 
brought with him the complete apparatus for the most approved 
style of boring, and wells were rapidly bored and proved an entire 
success. ‘They yield 4,000 litres a minute; in fact an actual river. 
Captain Zickel has even profited by the jet of water so far as to 
make a fall and a water-mill, to the great admiration of the Arabs, 
who still crush their grain with the small hand-mills used from the 
time of the patriarchs. The abundance of the water would, it 
might be supposed, entirely renovate the oasis, and increase the 
extent of cultivated ground. Unfortunately that cannot be done 
without washing away the salt with which the soil is surcharged ; 
and as the water itself is more or less brackish, it is easy to foresee 
this would be a work of time. 
The water of these wells is rarely cold; at Tuggurt it is 30° 
Centigrade, and the inhabitants cool it by nocturnal evaporation, 
hanging out the pitchers in which it is contained on the top of the 
perches with which every house is furnished. 
Fish of the Artesian Wells.—It is now three years since Captain 
Zickel, having bored a well at Ain-Tala, remarked some little fish 
struggling in the sand that had been thrown up with the water from 
the mouth of the well. ‘This appeared to him so extraordinary, 
