Biskra may be compared with a Nile town such as Luxor, if one can imagine Luxor without the river, without the temples, and, it must be added, without the flies. But it is a desert town, the town of an oasis, born of springs of water rising in a dry place, and it revels in the desert sun and sky. It is most pleasant when the sky is cloudless and the air still. But its beauty is greater when a moderate wind is blowing and light clouds are passing. Then are glorious deep blue shadows thrown on scarred cliffs of the tawny Aurès range. The tower of the Royal Hotel is a vantage point from which to view Biskra and its landscape. Thence you may note the extent of the oasis, the belts of palm trees in the distance which mark the existence of other oases, and miles to the south the dunes of shifting sand which to the imagination of most of us represent the real Sahara. Especially beautiful is the scene at sunset. The changing lights on the mountains, the ruddy glow all around, the peculiar quality of transparency in the sky when the sun has set, and perhaps Venus appears and hangs like a lamp between earth and heaven,— only in the desert may we behold these last glories of departing day. The shady, bird-haunted garden of this hotel is a very haven of shelter when the desert wind blows strong and raises the light dust of Biskra in the street without. It is surrounded on all sides by the hotel buildings built in the spacious Oriental manner with corridors opening to the garden and pleasant balconies above.