Once or twice we made a round of the cafes, and very grim and solemn the entertainment appeared to us. In one, for example, which was crowded with tall grave men calmly puffing at their pipes and sipping their coffee, we found a danseuse performing--a tall female figure, who glided and swayed about in the mazes of a strange dance, while the musician sat cross-legged in a corner of the room playing the inevitable tom-tom. This Arab danseuse was as unlike our performers of the ballet as she well could be. Her clothing was a loose flowing drapery, which fell from her shoulders to her heels, while instead of agility of motion or sprightliness there was nothing but a dreamy gliding, a kind of somnambulistic movement, apparently without plan or purpose, but not without a certain grace. In another cafe two children were pulling each other about in a less graceful and equally meaningless dance; while in a third we found a professional story-teller holding forth in earnest tones to a group gathered closely round him. From the looks of the spectators it was impossible to say whether or not they took pleasure in the various performances. During the time we remained we beheld not a movement of applause: not a smile relaxed the grave, stolid features; there was but a calm gazing and a quiet puffing of smoke from mouth and nostrils. A day or two after our arrival we deemed it our duty to call upon the commandant to thank him for his politeness, and to tell him how well satisfied we were with our quarters at the Hotel Bourguignon. Seated with him we found the great man of the district, the caid, making a morning call. It was our first introduction to a real Arab gentleman, and we regretted exceedingly that we could not converse with him in his own language, the more especially as he was a travelled man. He had been to Paris, had been received at the Tuileries by the emperor Napoleon, and had made the grand Mohammedan pilgrimage to Mecca. But as a conversation with Arabs, conducted as ours was through the medium of a French interpreter, is necessarily restricted, we had little opportunity of judging whether or not the mind of the caid corresponded with his handsome exterior. [Illustration: ARAB CAMP NEAR BISKRA.]