Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf/140

 "APPARENTLY NO END AND NO ESCAPE"

Surely it is a privilege to look on scenes like this. But inspiring as it was in reality, I dare not further attempt to make you share in my enthusiasm, for I am but too conscious that both words and pictures must of necessity fail to reveal the full majesty of the Gorges of Chabet. Suffice it to say that at last we reach the middle region of Algeria,—the high plateaux,—where we are welcomed by the whistle of the locomotive, and hear the rumble of the train that is to bear us east and southward toward the gates of the great desert. The high plateaux are singularly unattractive; they are without the verdure and variety of the coast region, and they have not the barren impressiveness, the mysterious monotony of the Sahara. Yet the region is not devoid of interest, as we were forced to admit after our visit to Hamman Meskoutine, where we seeone of the most beautiful natural marvels of Algeria. Waters, seething hot, constantly welling up from the depths of the earth, have in the long course of