A few palm-trees appear, growing about a white caravanserai, while mud houses cluster in a dip. It is the miniature oasis of Sidi Maklouf. The road turns sharply to the right, runs down into a dried-up river-bed, and then stretches straight away to the south. The barren hill on the right looks like the edge of a saw; ahead there is a distant horizon in a haze of blue; the eyes would like to be there and see what is beyond. Again the road bends, this time to the left, a dark mass appears, which, gradually getting more distinct, reveals itself as trees—palm-trees in thousands. Rosy rocks break the horizon, a white column leaps to the sky; it is the minaret of Laghouat. The car passes through the sandy bed of a broad river, usually a trickling stream, but sometimes in the autumn a roaring torrent, making access to the oasis impossible. The road slips through plantations of tamarisk, and in a few moments an avenue of plane-trees is entered. Gardens and quiet little villas are on either side, until, reaching the fortified walls, the car draws up before the Transatlantic Hotel, nestling picturesquely amid the tall palms. There is an atmosphere of peace and quiet, and a welcome which is pleasant after the long journey. The interior of the hotel does not belie the exterior, and, when one realizes that it was once the _bash agha’s_ Turkish bath, the charm of the surroundings is complete. An English tea awaits one, and when it has been consumed let the traveler climb to the rosy rock near by and get his first glimpse of the Sahara. If it is a clear evening the sunset effect will be a vision never to be forgotten. CHAPTER XXVIII THE OASIS OF LAGHOUAT The first view of the Sahara is perhaps one of the most amazing things in the world. The northern part of the oasis is divided from the southern by a barrier of rocks, and, as one tops the cliff, a sense of awe fills one as one contemplates the immensity of the vision spread out. The mind, unaccustomed to such spectacles, rushes back and tries to compare the scene with anything it has ever seen before, but it fails hopelessly, and remains in wonderment before this wide panorama. And yet, as one gazes at the plain—which seems to roll out from the sand in the foreground to an endless expanse of stones, until it merges into the sky and is lost in an infinite horizon—one can not help being reminded of the sea on a calm evening: the oasis is some tropical island, with its palm-trees growing almost down to the water’s edge; the golden sand lapped by this tideless ocean, and then the sea—away, away, far away—until the next island. “Island” is really the only descriptive word for an oasis in its ocean of desolation. It suddenly springs up and suddenly disappears. Unless the water changes its course, nothing human can cause a tree to grow outside its perimeter, any more than anything could be raised out of the sea.