Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/196

182 of the North African months, it was not so dreadful as we had anticipated. It is true that the mercury, whether by night or by day, felt little disposed to leave the region of the ninety-eights, unless it was in the direction of an upward journey. During the hours of midday it stubbornly clung to the division line of 110°, passing even beyond it slightly (although, perhaps, not in the most perfect shade); at Biskra, during our brief absence, it stood at 116°. While traveling we were subjected to even a much higher temperature, as at rapidly recurring intervals the heated reflections from the burning sands were blown bodily into us. This temperature was probably not less than 120°, and it was then that we remarked, "This is like an oven." And, in truth, it was very much so. The excessive dryness of the atmosphere doubtless conduced to render it bearable; at least it had the effect of checking excessive perspiration. On the other hand, its extreme quality brings to many a partly suffocating feeling—a feeling as though it were lacking in the proper amount or quality of oxygen. The parched palate asks for a moistener, and for repeated lotions in decreasing periods of time. Still, the whole is both bearable and supportable, and the foreigners who have located at Biskra seem to have acclimated themselves in a comparatively short space of time. What surprised me somewhat was the rather slight difference between the temperature of the open and that of the shade, probably not more than twenty degrees; the highest reading that we found was 132° F. The temperature of the sunny sands was at its highest 123°.

By the time we reached the relay at Chegga our horses had become well tired out; the thirty miles had told hard upon them, but, considering the quality of the road and the excessively high temperature, all of it the temperature of the open sun, we did far better than we had reason to hope for. At almost precisely noon we drew up beside the town walls, where the trio of fresh horses was waiting to meet us. An almost hopelessly dismal lunch, to which the distinctive flavor was given by bottled lemonade heated in the sun, prepared us for the further journey, and at one o'clock we were again en route. The surface of the desert now becomes more undulating, and the telegraph poles, marking the elevations and depressions, rise and fall in rapidly recurring intervals. Without these landmarks thrown against the sky it would have been difficult to detect the inequalities of the desert floor, which to many eyes would have appeared to roll off a flat expanse to the horizon. A feature which by its novelty repeatedly impressed itself upon our minds was the vegetation. A moderately green Sahara is certainly not the ordinary conception of the great desert, but thus far, except for very limited stretches, we had not yet passed the limit of vegetable