But, before sailing for America to put these laudable resolutions into effect, I met at a Paris dinner-table the gentleman who was at that time charged with the conduct of France’s colonial affairs. We had much in common, it developed, for he too had been on those distant seaboards of the world where the Gallic empire-builders are creating a new and greater France. Lingering over the coffee and cigars we talked shop—the future of Indo-China, Madagascar’s need of harbors, Miquelon and its fisheries, the Syrian mandate, the control of sleeping-sickness in the Congo, cotton-growing in the country round Lake Tchad. “Why don’t you round out your survey of our possessions,” the minister suggested, “by taking a look at what we’ve accomplished in North Africa?” “The North African tour?” I asked, laughing. “Algiers, Constantine, and Tunis, with a side-trip to the Garden of Allah? Thank you, no. After what I’ve seen I’m afraid that I’d find that sort of thing pretty tame. Besides, I’ve already been to North Africa any number of times. I once spent a winter in Tunisia, and Algeria and I was in Morocco back in the bad old days when unsuccessful pretenders to the Shereefian throne were carried about the country in iron cages lashed to the backs of camels.” “I’ll wager that I can name some places in North Africa that you haven’t seen,” the tempter said persuasively. “How about a visit to Djerba—the island of the lotus-eaters, you know—and the desert sky-scrapers of Medenine and the troglodyte dwellings of the Matmata Plateau? Then you could push down into the Sahara, cross the sand-dunes of the Grand Erg by twelve-wheeler to Ouargla and Ghardaia, keep on to the Figuig Oasis, and so over the Atlas into Morocco.” “Yes,” I remarked speculatively, “if I were going to do it at all I should certainly include Morocco. There are some parts of it which I have never seen, and it has rather worried me. I’ve always had a hankering to have a look at some of those _kasbahs_ in the High Atlas, where the grand caïds live like the marauding barons of the Middle Ages, I am told. And, while I was about it, I should like to get into the forbidden Sus, and even to see a bit of Mauretania and the masked Touareg, perhaps.” “That can all be arranged quite easily,” the minister assured me. “If you decide to go, I’ll write to Marshal Lyautey, who runs the show for us in Morocco, and instruct the officers commanding in the Saharan military provinces to give you every assistance.” “Suppose we have a look at the map,” I suggested, half capitulating. (I could feel the old familiar symptoms coming on; already my feet were growing restless.)