they went into exile in a remote land for the sake of their faith, while still another point of resemblance is found in their form of government, which is by a body of elders, called the Assembly. The laws promulgated by this body are as strict and as rigidly enforced as were the Blue Laws of early New England, a Mozabite found guilty of drinking wine or coffee, of smoking, or of frequenting houses of ill fame being punished by flogging. [Illustration: THE CITY OF THE MOZABITES Narrow lanes between high walls ... dim, covered passageways, inviting in their comparative coolness ... _souks_ teeming with half the races of North Africa ... black shadows falling on orange sand ... a huge, fantastic minaret dominating all ... such is Ghardaia, the capital of the Berber confederation of the Beni-Mzab] The most direct route from Touggourt to the country of the Beni-M’zab lies straight across the desert, via Guerrara, which is also a Mozabite community; but should you be traveling by twelve-wheeler, in which case a few score miles or less do not greatly matter, it will repay you to take the somewhat longer road through Wargla—or Ourgla, as the French spell it—which, barring breakdowns and sand-storms, can be reached from Touggourt quite easily in a day. Ourgla, said to be the oldest town in the Sahara, has a curiously medieval aspect, due, no doubt, to its being encircled by a massive wall pierced by six bastion-flanked gates. For centuries it was independent, a sort of Saharan counterpart of the free cities of the Hanseatic League; but, unable successfully to resist the aggressions of the desert tribes, it eventually was driven to seek the protection of the sultans of Morocco. Moorish protection proved but nominal, however, and about the middle of the last century Ourgla was occupied by the forces of France’s Arab allies, though French authority was not effectively established in the oasis until 1872, since when it has been an important outpost on the Algerine frontier and a base for military operations against the Touareg. In the old, bad days, Ourgla was a thriving trade mart on the trans-Saharan route to the Niger countries, its slave-market crowded with blacks brought from Central Africa and with buyers from all parts of Barbary, but its importance rapidly declined upon France’s suppression of the trade in “black ivory.” In recent years, however, it has regained a considerable measure of its ancient prosperity through the efforts of the French engineers, who, by sinking numerous wells, have expanded the area and enormously increased the fertility of the oasis.