Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf/240

 we pass the cemetery of the French, its outer walls almost completely buried in the drifted sand—a few of its graves kept clear by loving hands. On one of the little wooden crosses is rudely painted, "Here lies little Eugéne, a soldier, regretted by his comrades." "Little Eugéne, a soldier," a noble epitaph! "Regretted by his comrades," a frank and simple eulogy. And this soldier is only one of the many who have died far from home in the cause of civilization. Only the pure waters of such sacrifices can fertilize this sterile ground, only the unselfish efforts of civilized man reclaim from barbarism the Great Sahara. Reclaim the Sahara! a mighty work! yet one already undertaken by the French. When railways shall connect Algiers with Senegal, Biskra with the Sudan, with Lake Chad, and Timbuctu, when instead of by scores we may count by thousands the oases created by the sinking of artesian wells; when education through its schools—one of which exists to-day in Touggourt—shall have dispersed the clouds of superstition, then may we look for a new era. Then shall man have triumphed over the curse of desolation, which since the beginning of the world has bound suffering Africa in its awful embrace, robbed her of her chance in the great race of the continents, made her a land abhorred, her people, savages, and her hopeless state a reproach to the enlightened nations of the earth.