Biskra consists of a modern French town and garrison, and several more or less distinct native villages grouped together on a large oasis, a strip of cultivated ground between three or four miles in length, with an average width of half a mile. It contains an immense number of palm trees, the chief source of wealth in the great Sahara. There is abundant water from springs, and during winter from the river, which conveys the snows of Aurès to the desert, and is finally lost some miles further to the south. It has a swarming native population, of every North African race, and every hue. There is obviously a very great infusion of negro blood; no doubt because Biskra is situate on a highway of the nations, at a point where the caravan routes from the extreme south reach the mountain lands of Barbary. These natives of various races are collected in great numbers in the morning market, and throng the neighbouring cafés throughout the day, where squatting figures play interminable games of dominoes and backgammon. Conspicuous in the crowd are the dancing girls of the Ouled Naïl tribe dressed in tawdry finery, hung with barbaric jewellery and masses of gold and silver coins, their hair mixed with wool and plastered with grease, their faces tattooed and darkened with _khol_ and _henna_. These women delight their patrons with their _danses à ventre_ in the Cafés Maures at night, and later sit— waiting and watching—on little balconies in the street which is assigned to them. Many attempts have been made by French and English writers to shed a halo of romance over these unfortunate beings. The whitewashing of the harlot is a common literary pose. The story that they come to the desert towns to earn their dower and subsequently return to their own tribe and marry may have some foundation; such a procedure is not unknown in other parts of the world; but to judge from the appearance of some of them they are a long time thinking about settling down. It may, at any rate, be said of these girls that they are not a mere “exploitation of local colour,” got up for the benefit of the tourist. They are a genuine native product, flourishing no less in the oases of the Sahara seldom visited by Europeans than under the shadow of the hotels of Biskra. Their _danses_ excite their native admirers to great enthusiasm, they often provoke furious jealousies, and are sometimes the object of extraordinary prodigality. Some of them appear to affect an air _très grande dame_. “Celles des Ouled-Naïl qui sont de grande tente apportent dans leurs relations avec leurs visiteurs toute la générosité et la délicatesse que comporte leur origine. Il suffit d’admirer une seconde l’épais tapis qui sert de lit pour que le serviteur de la noble prostituée apporte à son amant d’une minute, dès qu’il a regagné sa demeure, l’objet qui l’avait frappé.”[8] Footnote 8: Guy de Maupassant, “Au Soleil.”