The most gallant and dramatic figure in all this company of courageous men is, however, the least known to fame. I refer to Vicomte Charles de Foucauld—“de Foucauld of the Sahara” as he was known—who left among the wild tribes of the desert a name which has already passed into tradition. A son of the nobility, he lost his parents when he was six and was brought up by his uncle, an old colonel of engineers, from whom he got a taste for the classics. When he left school, while still in his teens, young de Foucauld was a confirmed atheist, a fact which is of special significance in view of his end. Joining a hussar regiment, he saw active service in Algeria, an experience which left him with a deep affection for the common soldier, an affection which his troopers warmly returned. Fighting against the Arabs had imbued him with a keen desire to make a study of the race, and with this in view he obtained leave of absence for the purpose of making a journey into the interior of Morocco, which was then a forbidden country to Europeans. Disguise of some sort was imperative, so, deciding to go as a Jew, he applied himself to the study of Hebrew as well as Arabic. He went in rags and barefoot, apparently the poorest of the poor, and was often insulted and stoned; but he always carried in the palm of his left hand a tiny writing-tablet on which he surreptitiously noted all the features of the country or took compass bearings. When he returned to civilization after nearly a year spent in the unknown he had more than doubled the length of routes known and surveyed in the Shereefian Empire and brought back other topographical data of immense military value.