“Good!” exclaimed the Frenchman, and then he turned to the gendarme, who was sitting as impassively as the leaps and bounds of the carriage would allow, on a small seat immediately behind the other two, and demanded of him in French whether his revolver also was loaded. The man gave a respectful affirmative. “Good!” exclaimed M. Sylvain again, and launched into a description of the wondrous gardens of the Comte Landon, whose walls, on the confines of the oasis, they were just passing. Straight in front could be seen a short line of palm trees, waving in the desert breeze under the desert sun, and Cecil asked what they were. “Sidi Okba,” replied M. Sylvain. “The hundred and eighty thousand palms of the desert city of Sidi Okba. They seem near to you, no doubt, but we shall travel twenty kilometres before we reach them. The effect of nearness is due to the singular quality of the atmosphere. It is a two hours’ journey.” “Then do we return in the dark?” Cecil inquired. “If we are lucky, we may return at once, and arrive in Biskra at dusk. If not--well, we shall spend the night in Sidi Okba. You object?” “Not at all.” “A curious place,” observed M. Sylvain. Soon they had left behind all trace of the oasis, and were in the “real, true desert.” They met and passed native equipages and strings of camels, and from time to time on either hand at short distances from the road could be seen the encampments of wandering tribes. And after interminable joltings, in which M. Sylvain, his guest, and his gendarme were frequently hurled at each other’s heads with excessive violence, the short line of palm trees began to seem a little nearer and to occupy a little more of the horizon. And then they could descry the wall of the city. And at last they reached its gate and the beggars squatting within its gate. “Descend!” M. Sylvain ordered his subordinate. The man disappeared, and M. Sylvain and Cecil drove into the city; they met several carriages of Biskra visitors just setting forth on their return journey. In insisting that Sidi Okba was a curious place, M. Sylvain did not exaggerate. It is an Eastern town of the most antique sort, built solely of mud, with the simplicity, the foulness, the smells, and the avowed and the secret horrors which might be expected in a community which has not altered its habits in any particular for a thousand years. During several months of each year it is visited daily by Europeans (its mosque is the oldest Mohammedan building in Africa, therefore no respectable tourist dares to miss it), and yet it remains absolutely uninfluenced by European notions. The European person must take his food with him; he is allowed to eat it in the garden of a _café_ which is European as far as its sign and its counter, but no further; he could not eat it in the _café_ itself. This _café_ is the mark which civilisation has succeeded in making on Sidi Okba in ten centuries.