I remember once passing a night of anguish when my husband was away in the south. I had changed my house during his absence and taken a smaller one, with a huge garden, in the north oasis, some hundred yards from the river. The autumn rains began, and soon my garden and outer court were under water. The river came thundering down, and the mud house seemed to quiver. Towards ten at night the sound of the swift-rushing flood grew so terrific that my heart almost stood still, and I remembered the catastrophe of seven years back. “Why, oh, why did I leave our solid stone house to inhabit this dangerous hole?” I asked myself. I tramped across the court, knee-deep in water, to my Arab servant’s room. “Mohammed,” I cried, “come with me to see if the pathway to town is in a good enough state to take the children to the hotel. The water frightens me; we shall be drowned like rats in a trap.” We tried to open the garden door giving on the wall-lined pathway along which the irrigation stream ran, and which was the only road to the town for the houses or gardens of the northern oasis. The door opened outward, and fortunately for us the pressure of water against it was so heavy that our united strength could not move it half an inch. Mohammed accordingly climbed on the wall and looked down. The water was nearly six feet deep! He descended hastily, observing calmly, with a critical look at the wall, “It’s a very old wall. It must be the will of Allah that it does not fall.” There was obviously nothing to be done, so I retired indoors and changed my clothes, for I was soaking wet. The waters thundered and swirled all about us, and I was thankful indeed when daylight came and the flood gradually began to subside. The women of Laghouat never go out by day, and at night are closely veiled as they journey under escort from one relation’s house to another; even the lower classes and the dancing women faithfully observe this custom. Only on two feasts, which last three and seven days--the “Aid el Srir” and “Aid el Kebir,” the “little” and “great” Feast of the Sheep, which correspond with the Jewish Passover and killing of the Paschal lamb--do the latter ladies don their finest clothes and strut about barefaced. Their costumes are indeed splendid--silks and brocades of the very best quality and the most lovely hues, with gold, silver, and gem-studded embroideries. The veils hanging from their bejewelled head-dresses are of cloth of silver and gold, their bosoms are covered with precious stones, and the noise of the numerous bracelets they wear on arms and legs can be heard some way off. [Illustration: A SCENE IN THE SAHARA. _From a Photograph._]