American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1914-04-16

"AAeo C0Roh1O
of desert, silver pale and shining as if encrusted
with gems. A little wind came up from the south.
blowing the fine white sand into my face, re-
minding me of the desolate solitudes that lay be-
yond, the endless empty sands dipping far south
ward. Groves of date palms grew close to the
river bank, and hedges of wild oleander still
showed a few belated blossoms of fragile pink. 1t
is thus almost dramatically that one enters the
desert from the stony alfa-strewn ways of the high
%plateaus. No longer needed now were the fur
coats and footwarmers that had been so neces-
sary at the. hour of our early departure from Con-
s~tantine. We seemed to have passed suddenly
into a sub-tropical land quivering in the burning
sunlight.
1t is the fashion to say of Biskra that she has
been spoilt since The Garden of Allah awakened
the world to her hidden beauty, made her popular
to the hordes of Cooks tourists and gave a fresh
impetus to the loafng profession of guide. which
the Arab is always only too ready to adopt He
is, indeed, somewhat more of a pest than he used
to be; he knows that he has been written about
and perhaps presented in too fattering an aspect,
and it has made him conceited and self-conscious.
But he is really no worse at Biskra than he is In
Tunis. Immense and luxurious hotels have sprung
up to supersede the simpler caravanserais OF for
mer days, when the little town was a favorite but
quite questionable resort of French people in
search of simplicity and sunshine. But l am IN
clined to think that Biskra is unsponable. Tine
Heart of the Desert as the Arabs affectionately
call her. she was the AID Piscinam of the Romans,
and the famous Third Legion sojourned In tnat
wonderful and fertile oasis which can now be
reached on the fifth day after leaving London.
1.-TWO things are necessary" says Stevenson, IN
any neighborhood where we propose to spend a
life-a desert and running water Biskra pos
sesses these essentials in abundance, and she mas
the additional advantage Of constant almost per
petual, sunshine. Her palm and olive and orange
groves are watered by springs that have never
failed. Close to her-so close, indeed, that sne
almost seems to mock at its parched infertihty-
lies the white splendor of the desert with It's pahor
as OF a calm sea family touched with blue haze.
The moonlight-colored city with its blanehed
streets lies surrounded by a fringe OF perpetual
yerdure. Watch the dawn waking fris-nued IN the
eastern sky, painting the Aures mountains TO a
deeper rose and drawing a hlmy amber veil across
the sands. and l think you VIII agree WIN me
that BIskra is unspoilable.
There are many simple sights that cannot fail
10 interest the unaccustomed visitor from the
North. on account of their novelty. The AraD
school with the bright-eyed. inattentive little tur
hanad or befezzed scholars, llstlsssly recluns
varses from the Koran, under the aegis OF the
,olba or schoolmaster; the market-place, TEEN
inc with native vendors. story-tellers and SAND
OWNERS; the groups OF picturesque Arabs
wrapped in their white burnouses or shapDy graz
hacks; the caravans arriving almost daily IRON
the south with their loads Of dates; the s"ayint
palanquins within which the women travel on the
camels' hacks. hidden and mysterious; the fns
garden of Count Landon, with its lovely tropica
trees and flowers; the village of Old bickra, VIII
its clay-built huts swarming with darK-eyed chll
dren-these are but a few OF the picturesque
quaint or beautiful things that Biskra offers to th'
visitor. The nomad camps, too, are a source o
interest with their tents OF cameihalr ciotn
guarded otter BY a white Kabyle dog The noma'