Bad news greeted us at Algiers. We were to change cars and drivers, so the officials of the company which had charge of our transportation informed us. Harvey, the young New Englander and veteran of the A. E. F., for whom we had formed a sincere affection, was to return with the Cadillac to Tunis, and we were to continue our journey Morocco-ward in a huge black Renault under the guidance of a youthful French colonial named Tomine, whose home town was Casablanca. Tomine—whose name we soon corrupted to Ptomaine—was an easy-going, devil-may-care lad without the slightest sense of responsibility. A safe and skilful driver, he was utterly regardless of sign-posts, which were of no more significance to him than trees or telegraph-poles. And he had, moreover, an incurable aversion to making inquiries as to direction and road conditions. Upon leaving Tlemcen, for example, he took the wrong roads three times running, following each of them a dozen miles or more before he was willing to admit that he might possibly be mistaken. Had I not interfered we would have ended up in the desert instead of at Oujda, and as it was we arrived long after midnight, just as the military authorities were about to send out a searching expedition on the assumption that we had met with an accident or had been waylaid by bandits. [Illustration: THE RESTING-PLACE OF CLEOPATRA’S DAUGHTER Near Kolea, in northern Algeria, is the Kubr-er-Rumia, the imposing mausoleum of King Juba II of Mauretania and of his wife Selene, the daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra] There used to be a current saying in the East that the first thing the British build upon occupying a country is a custom-house, the first thing that the Germans build is a fort, and the first thing the French build is a road. And nowhere have the French been more painstaking or successful in their road-building than in Algeria. When they occupied the country in 1830 the interior could not boast a single road. The splendid Roman highways had long since disappeared. Wheeled vehicles were unknown among the Arabs, whose rough and narrow trails permitted only the passage of horsemen. In the Tell transport was by mules, in the desert regions by camels.