Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf/185

 WHAT WE SEE ALL DAY

the sandy trail, traced by former passings of the same clumsy conveyance. The driver, a rude Frenchman, converses in a guttural patois with the two Arab passengers who sit beside him, or shouts at his team, encouraging them with cries like those which savages might utter. Our fellow-passengers, reserved and proud like all their race, content themselves by rudely nodding at us. A vague apprehension soon takes possession of us. Already Biskra seems more than a thousand miles away. Even the arrival of the dawn does not raise our spirits. To our surprise a cold biting wind springs up with the appearance of the sun. "Oh, what a cheerful expedition!" sighs my friend; "why did we start?" and I from the bottom of my chilled and cheerless soul echo his question. The harsh bells upon the horses' collars play an ear-racking, jangling music; now and then Arabs on foot, bound for Biskra, flit by like specters, while the vista on which we look out, though ever changing, remains ever the same: a waste of sand, here dotted with tiny clumps of sage brush,