exploits—not, however, in the manner of these pioneers, with a slowly pacing camel, but behind the energy of the iron horse. Let it not, however, be supposed that the passage of the locomotive through El-Kantara has revolutionized the desert; true, it has facilitated

entrance to it, and has secured a certain passageway farther into the interior. But the desert is still the desert of old; the skeletons of camels and mules lie scattered to the right and to the left—wrecks of vain effort to make the passage—the sands send back