There is nothing very remarkable about the first part of the route. The country is bare and somewhat marshy. Half way to Batna both rail and road pass close to two salt lakes, which are the haunt in winter of flamingoes and wild duck. A little further on a glimpse is caught of the Medrassen, a remarkable monument recalling the “Tombeau de la Chrétienne,” near Algiers. It is interesting to the archæologist, but perhaps hardly repays an ordinary traveller for the trouble of visiting it. Different opinions are held as to its purpose; it was probably the burial-place of the Numidian kings, perhaps of Massinissa, in which case its date would be about 150 B.C. At Batna the road to Timgad and other ancient cities of the Roman frontier diverges to the eastward. Proceeding northwards we continue to ascend for a few miles, until the watershed is reached, where we enter the valley of the Oued Fedhala, the river which runs southward to Biskra and the desert. East of the road lies the great mass of the Aurès mountains. On their northern side they slope gradually, forming, in the manner of Algerian mountains, great plains, which again, after the lapse of many centuries, have been brought into cultivation. Their southern face rises more or less precipitously from the Sahara, and defines, as has been suggested, the limits of European colonization. The mountain fastnesses of the Aurès, seldom penetrated by the stranger, are the home of a race, the Chawia, which possesses remarkable characteristics. In the main a branch of the aboriginal Berbers, they have been preserved by the seclusion of their mountains, like their cousins the Khabyles, from any Arab admixture. But there is little doubt that they represent also the débris of the Roman, Vandal, and Byzantine colonies driven to the hills by the Arab invasion. Even so were the last remnants of Romano-British civilization driven to the highlands of Wales and Cumberland before the Anglo-Saxon hosts. In their features, their speech and their customs, the Chawia betray their classic origin. Many travellers have dilated on the beauty of their women:—"their well-featured countenances, fair-curling locks, and wholesome ruddy looks." Their language is full of Latin words. “They observe the 25th of December as a feast, under the name of Moolid (the birth), and keep three days’ festival both at springtime and harvest. They use the solar instead of the Mohammedan lunar month, and the names of the months are the same as our own.” In the peculiarities of this isolated people, for which I cannot personally vouch, we seem to see the germ of some of Mr. Rider Haggard’s romances. [Illustration: EL KANTARA] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _VIII—THE ALLURING OASIS_