THE ALGERIAN SAHARA. SI 
flags, but not by any Ostrich eggs as some of those at 
Gardaia were. 
On the 14th news came that the Touareg—a lawless 
tribe of robbers—were assembling in force on the Waregla 
route; and the following day a letter was brought to me 
(in Arabic) with tidings of a great camel “razzia” at Zergoun, 
(which though not in our road, lay to the north of us,) in 
which 2,000 camels had been carried off, and it was said six 
men killed, but I did not place much reliance on this latter 
statement. The “Spahis,” Arab soldiers in French pay, 
were in hot pursuit, but with little chance of coming up with 
the fugitives. Trusting that they would not come on our 
way, we on the 16th left Berryan and travelled to Gardaia, 
which is the chief city of the Mzab confederation. 
Our road lay through a dreary tract of country—stony, 
brown, and mountainous—save at rare intervals, where the 
dull prospect was suddenly broken by a patch of green, 
formed by the rain collecting in a hollow; but these fresh 
spots were few and far between. In this ride Canon Tristram 
got Dupont’s Lark, a species I never met with. 
And now by narrow defiles our cavalcade drew near the 
capital. I could not help thinking, as often as I reined in 
my mule, what awful havoc the long guns of the Arabs 
would make with an invading army in sucha place; and 
no doubt for them many a winding pass teems with 
historic interest. That the city has figured in more than 
one sanguinary conflict the bullet marks on the walls testify. 
But who will forget the first view of Gardaia? Standing 
upon a gentle eminence, crowned by the never-failing 
Mosque—her flat-roofed houses rising tier over tier above 
the evergreen Palm trees, the ancient Arab city bursts upon 
your view. 
It is too hot to go out in the middle of the day, her 
gardens therefore should be visited in the cool of the 
morning, or in the red blush of sunset. Then the woods 
