“The Moghreb (original name of Algeria before the Phœnician settlements) is especially suited for the cultivation of cereals, vines and olive-trees, and for sheep-breeding. . . . the Numidians were excellent horsemen who lived by pillage and by the produce of their great flocks.” Further, speaking of the invasion of the Hillals in the twelfth century, they say: “The newcomers were fierce nomads who did not invade as did the first Arabs, in small groups, but in hordes, millions of men followed by equally vast flocks.” The greatest sheep-breeding centers are in the southern part of the department of Algiers, some two hundred miles from Algiers, and right away to the south as far as Ghardaïa. There is also a certain amount of breeding in the southern tracts of Oranie and in Constantine, but the inhabitants of these areas are more interested in cereals, and the Arabs of Biskra are specialists in dates. The district known as the Sersou, on the high level above the Sahara, must not be forgotten as one of the finest pasture-lands of Algeria, but the majority of the flocks there have come up from Laghouat and Ghardaïa to escape the intense heat of the summer. Many people who have only visited the country in a superficial or tourist manner, are filled with incredulous surprise when they are told of sheep-farming in the Sahara. “But what do the sheep eat and drink?” they exclaim. It is difficult to explain this to those not versed in the constitution of a sheep, but when one realizes that in winter a sheep can go for three months without drinking, and finds nourishment and water in the rough scrub which grows all over the Sahara, it is not surprising that these great flocks thrive and that the sheep grow as fat as their cousins in Europe. Presumably if an animal is brought up to live on scrub and do without green grass it has no taste for other nourishment, and there is little doubt that if a camel was let loose on the Scottish moors it would be unable to assimilate the rich food owing to the formation of its digestive organs. However, whatever the best diet for a sheep may be, the result is enormous flocks all along the northern belt of the Sahara, which are a source of great revenue to the Arabs. Few Europeans have ventured into this business, in the first place, because the Frenchman has not that adventurous spirit which characterizes the British colonist, and in the second because unless one knows the country and its people well it is difficult to enter on a venture of this kind alone. But those who have had the courage to start are delighted and amazed at the results.