Lippincotts Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 | Page 5

lady and six gentlemen, be thus
accommodated? Mr. M---- and I determined to lay siege to the closed
hotel and try if we could not find an "open sesame" to unclose its
portals.
[Illustration: BISKRA.]
Monsieur and Madame Bourguignon, the landlord and landlady, were
the sole occupants of the hotel. It was impossible, they said: they dared
not admit us, as in consequence of a quarrel with the authorities their
license had been taken from them. At last our importunity triumphed.
On appealing to their humanity in our most pathetic and touching
French, they said if we could get a written permission from the
commandant-supérieur for them to open their hotel, they would do the
best they could for us. We had no resource but to beat up the officer's
quarters, which, under the conduct of an Arab guide, we soon reached.
The servant who answered our summons said, "Monsieur le
Commandant was at dinner." Politeness, however, was at this stage of
the proceedings out of the question; so we coolly replied that he must
leave his dinner and come to speak with a lady. We were not long kept
waiting, and were most kindly and pleasantly received, the
commandant giving us at once a note to M. Bourguignon requesting
him, as a personal favor, to do all he could to make us comfortable,
adding, with true French politeness, that he only regretted that in his
bachelor quarters he had not himself accommodation to offer us.
Thus, one more of our troubles was happily ended, and in a
wonderfully short space of time we found ourselves refreshing
exhausted Nature with an excellent dinner, waited upon by our jolly
landlord, who constantly assured us that we should be very comfortable,
"car on mange très bien à Biskra."
It is only on becoming acquainted with scenes and people which we
have been in the habit of picturing to ourselves that we realize how
feeble a power is the imagination. We found here everything so
different from the creations of our fancy. My idea of an oasis, for
example, had been a clump of trees, a spring of water and a little
verdure. Here we found one several miles in length, and with sixty

thousand palm trees, a considerable population, a market and a fort.
Biskra is, however, the largest and finest of the group of oases which
stud this part of the desert. It is the place of residence of the caid and
the chief seat of Arab commerce.
By the time we had dined it was already too dark to commence
explorations. It was only the next morning, when we rose refreshed and
rested, that we began to take in the various details of the new and
singular life to which we were being introduced.
First, as to our hotel. It consisted of a row of small, self-contained
houses forming two sides of a square. One of these little dwellings was
the dining-room, another the kitchen, and the others respectively the
guests' sleeping-chambers, a separate house being allotted to each. In
the centre of the square there was a charming garden, where roses,
sweet-peas and most of our summer flowers were blooming in full
luxuriance. Then, in the early season, when the springs give out their
fertilizing moisture and the sun has not yet attained its full scorching
power, the garden is one mass of beauty and blossom: later in the year
everything becomes parched and dried up, scarcely a blade remaining.
In the middle of the garden there was a bower overgrown with creepers
and shaded by a thick matting. This formed our saloon and
reception-room, and here we took our coffee, the gentlemen smoked
their cigars and we chatted over our adventures and prospects. Our
rooms, or little houses, all opened on the garden; and never can we
forget the charm of unclosing our door in the early morning. What a
flood of light and freshness and fragrance rushed in upon us while we
dressed and prepared for the business of the day! Our apartment had a
bare stone floor, its furniture consisted of two beds, two chairs and a
deal table--nothing could have been more simple--yet this little nest in
the desert appeared to us about the nearest imaginable approach to an
earthly paradise. How we congratulated ourselves upon having had the
courage to leave the dingy rooms at the other hotel to our travelling
companions, and to force an entrance into this sweet spot! Our hosts,
too, seemed delighted and most happy at having guests in their house
once more.

[Illustration: NEGRO VILLAGE AT BISKRA.]
Every morning we rose at five, took tea in our arbor before six, and
then sallied out to explore and photograph till ten, when we returned to
breakfast. Then we retired either to our