We left our camp ground, with its palm trees down by the river, and
with our tent and belongings packed on to two mules, and our two Arabs
as guides, trekked across a wide, stony plain under a blazing hot sun.
Not a particle of shade the whole way, nor a drop of water; every
footstep had to be picked among the loose, jagged stones, and our way
was continually barred by deep, dry water-courses, which had to be
carefully clambered into and scrambled out of.
It was a very trying day's march, but yet we enjoyed it.
The views of the mountains around us were splendid.
[Illustration: EL KANTARA]
We were marching parallel with the wonderful range which stands like a
turreted wall between Algeria and the Sahara. It is so regular in its
outline that it looks almost as if built by the hands of giants, and
in the centre is a narrow, broken gap, El Kantara, through which run
the road, the river, and the railway.
[Illustration: "THE TOOTH," or THE RED CASTLE MOUNTAIN.]
We passed on our way close under a solitary peak which stands out from
the rest of the neighbouring mountains exactly in the likeness of a
great red ruined castle, called by the Arabs "The Tooth."
Then we got into a deep ravine with red sandy cliffs on either side,
and marching up its rocky bed we finally got in among the mountains,
and there made our camp.
After getting our tent pitched, and while the men were finding
firewood, my wife and I started a bit of engineering work in order to
obtain a water supply.
We cleared out the little trickle of water which we found in the river
bed, and digging a hollow in the sandy bed, we planted in it our india
rubber bath, and diverted the trickle so that it ran into this, and so
gave us a standing supply of clear water for our camp.
It was quite a triumph of engineering, though we got pretty wet and
muddy in carrying it out.
Then we went exploring among the hills, following up our gorge. We
soon found that it became a narrow fissure between the mountains, so
narrow that the overhanging rocks often nearly touched each other high
above our heads. It was a most weird place--exactly the sort of spot
where one might expect a dragon to dwell.
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