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Updated: June 10, 2025
At Batna we met with a party of gentlemen, one of whom we had known slightly in Algiers; and they, like ourselves, were bound for Biskra. This complicated matters, as it was understood that the accommodation at the oasis was of a somewhat scanty description. They were three, and we were four altogether, a party of six gentlemen and one lady.
"Biskra, I suppose," he rejoined, "and the nearest oasis, Sidi-Okba, and so on?" I nodded. I saw I was in for another tale, and anticipated some history of shooting exploits under the salt mountain of El Outaya. "Well," he continued, "I know the Sahara pretty fairly, and about the oddest thing I ever could believe in I heard of and believed in there." "Something about gazelle?" I queried.
The town of Thamugadi, now Timgad, lay on the northern skirts of Mount Aurès, halfway between Constantine and Biskra and about a hundred miles from the Mediterranean coast. Here the emperor Trajan founded in A.D. 100 a 'colonia' on ground then wholly uninhabited, and peopled it with time-expired soldiers from the Third Legion which garrisoned the neighbouring fortress of Lambaesis. The town grew.
Born of a camel-driver by a slave; working his way across the desert a score of times before his wages made enough to buy one bale of hides; venturing the earnings of a lifetime on one voyage making a profit, when a loss would have put him back to the beginning venturing again, winning again buying three camels leasing them buying three more starting an express from the Soudan to Biskra one day short of all others; carrying only dates and gold-dust insuring his gold-dust, something he learned from the French in Biskra; buying thirty camels at a plunge at once the master camel-driver of the Sahara and here he was, pacing up and down before a laced tent which held behind it a woman.
Her suave, subservient guide had been leading her the whole time, not in the direction that had been mapped out in Biskra, but towards the man who had bought him to betray his trust. Mustafa Ali's shifting eyes, his desire to hurry her from the oasis where they had rested at mid-day, his tone were all explained. He had acted well.
The only comment she ever made to herself on her own appearance was sometimes to wish that her hair was not such a tiresome shade. She looked at herself now with a tinge of curiosity. "I wonder why I'm so especially happy to-night. It must be because we have been so long in Biskra. It's been very jolly, but I was beginning to get very bored." She laughed again and picked up her watch to wind.
He has a divorced wife in each of those cities. They are the mothers of the dancing-girls. The one in Biskra is Mirza. Every one in Biskra knows Mirza. Doubtless you, master " "Yes," said Abdullah, "but the damsel. Who is she?" "His daughter," replied Ali. "How know you this?" demanded Abdullah, fiercely.
At Biskra in Algeria, two of these jars were found together; the one containing the head, the other the feet of the departed. In some instances the jar was replaced by a large clumsy earthenware basin, some six and a half feet long by three feet wide. Such basins are mentioned as having been found near Athens, but there is nothing to help us to determine their date.
An Arab led a tame lion into the square and the beast held back on his chain as he passed the flesh-pots, for he, too, was fasting. Crowds of little children stood about the circle of the fires, fasting. A God was being placated by the sufferings of His creatures. There is little twilight in the latitude of Biskra.
The guide's face was sullen, but she took no notice, and, when they started, motioned him to her side again with a reference to Biskra that provoked a flow of words. It was the last place she wanted to hear of, but it was one of which he spoke the readiest, and she knew it was not wise to allow him to remain silent to sulk. His ill-temper would evaporate with the sound of his own voice.
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