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 AN ARTIFICIAL OASIS

with wax; then, filling his lungs with air almost to the bursting point, he disappears below the surface. I have myself seen the second-hand of my watch go round the dial four times before the diver reappeared. For four minutes he was out of sight beneath the waters; then up he came, bearing a basket filled with the mud that he had scooped away from the "blind eye" of the well one hundred and thirty feet below. This is repeated until the well begins to flow again. It is no wonder that the men of this order are looked upon as little short of saints. As I have said, their efforts are not always successful, and when the French military forces came, they called modern machinery to their aid and bored artesian wells, which greatly increased the productiveness of the oases. Then other Frenchmen came, speculators, visionaries, if you will, and, tempted by the possibilities of a scientific culture of the date, they formed a company, obtained from the French government extensive