Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf/137

 A COLONIST WHO IS NOT A GENTLEMAN

TRAMPS

Chabet there is revealed to us a promise of the greater things to come. We are now about to pass through a defile which pierces the chain of the Atlas Mountains and forms the connecting corridor, seventeen miles in length, between the fertile coast region called the "Tell" and the high plateaux which lie between the coast range and the Aurés Mountains, which form the northern boundary wall of the Sahara. As we smoothly roll along over a perfect road behind our galloping four-in-hand, we cannot realize the difficulties which have been met and overcome by the French engineers to whose courage and perseverance we owe the privilege of looking upon these glorious pages of Nature's wonderbook,—pages which thirty years ago were sealed to human gaze. Even the sure-footed Arabs never attempted to travel through this forbidden corridor until their superstitious fears had been shaken by the building of the road. No longer do they fear the pass; in fact, an Arab has performed the incredible feat of scaling the face of