Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf/190

 witnesses the passing of an entire people,—the women, children, tents, and all their belongings borne on the backs of thirty thousand camels. Every year, on the appointed day in June, this huge confederation of the Algerian Sahara rises up as one man, and with its horses, its loaded camels, its donkeys, its women, and its dogs commences a migration like those grand displacements of an entire population of which we read in ancient history.

RACING CAMELS By permission

Caravan after caravan files past the kaid of Biskra and wends its way through the gates of the desert and up to the cooler lands north of the Aurés Mountains. There they find pasture for their animals, for although during the greater part of the year the camel is assured of ample nourishment from the dry tufts of dusty green that appear like a sparse incipient beard on the bald face of the Sahara, there comes a time when even the marvelous chemistry of the camel's stomach cannot resolve dry brush into that flesh and blood