The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-12

| roofs in the evening and the people often sleep there at night
 l wish l could take a walk with you through one of these Sahara towns. Even i in French Biskra the scenes would seem strange. There are Moors who sit right out in the street, or upon the sidewalks, upon mats which they have laid down , for the purpose, and play dominoes. They have little tables about as high as | footstool, and thus sitting, with their bare feet under them, they will move the blocks for an hour or more without say ! ing a word. Many of the players are sray-bearded and gray-headed, but age i does not seem to affect their love for the game
 Some Bible Characters.
 Everywhere 1 go here l meet the char acters of the scriptures As l write these notes l can see in one group an old Abraham with the aged Sarah beside him and his buxom Hagar behind. That lit- tie baby in Hagars arms might have been young Ishmael, and l observe that Abraham looks upon him with love. At the same time Sarah seems to be Jeal- ous and glares at both baby and mother out of the tall of her eye.
 That Moor coming down the street might be Joseph, the friend of King Pha- raoh. Observe his costly raiment of fine silk and wool; he walks with a strut and
 
 On that donkey, trotting towards us, is an old man whom one might easily irn- agine to be Balaam and To! the donkey stops and opens his mouth and brays. His message. however, we do not understand, for he has not the power of speech as had the ass of the scriptures. And so l might go on finding a character at every step which would correspond to one in the Bible. This is the Simonpure orient, where the natives are about the same to- day as they were three or four or more thousand years since They are all Mo- hammedans, and believe only in Allah and the prophet.
 How the Oasis Is Watered.
 But let us go out to the oasis and visit the people who live under the palm trees. We drive along the Rue Bertha by walls of yellow mud inclosing date trees, which rise high above them and are loaded with ripe yellow fruit The walls are as high as my head, and on their top dried thorn bushes have been set in while the mud was still wet, protecting the fruit like so much broken glass.
 The gates to these gardens are rude doors of palm wood, and the only other openings are through drains seen here and there where the water flows in or out This oasis is fed by springs from the River Biskra, which is dry the greater part of the year. Wells have tapped the springs, and there is a flow of sev- eral thousand gallons a minute The water is somewhat alkaline. but 1t puts the sugar into the dates and the sun Is so hot that the fruit Is delicious. According to the Arabs, to make good dates the head of the tree must be in the burning sun the greater part of the year. The thermometer here even in mdWhter never falls below 60, and the climate seems just right, although 1t is not so at Kantara, which is thirty or forty miles farther north. Biskra is annually produc- ing something like 1O,OOOoOO pounds of dates, enough to furnish A handful to every boy in the United States and leave some to spare.
 As we ride on into the oasis we can see men picking the dates, or rather cutting them off They are in enormous punches, and a good tree will produce on the av- craze about 120 pounds annually. The fruit is not good until it is dead ripe. bit into some green dates today and they puckered my mouth like unfrosted persmmons
 In Old Biskra.
 l have already written of the oases of Figuig and Harla. Biskra is somewhat the same Its area is about that of an Ohio township, and it is altogether about six miles in length. It Is divided up into little fields of garden patches, each or which is surrounded by these mud walls of sun-dried brick. There are no pave ments The streets are dirt roads, with here and there wide irrigation stream running through and with bridges or palm