The younger man, his eldest son, treats him with the utmost
deference. "How rich is he?" I ask the driver. "Oh! very wealthy for a native; he must have at least 10,000 francs." Two thousand dollars! And we redouble our attentions to this desert Rothschild, and even go so far as to offer him a glass of our precious champagne, of which only one pint remains; certain that, being a Moslem, he will not dare accept. But alas! his courtesy overruled his principles, although thereafter he prayed long and fervently during every halt, bowing repeatedly toward Mecca.
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HOBBLED
Often throughout the day the painful sameness of our progress is relieved by the passing of some desert express composed of a train of Saharan sleeping-cars in which travel the veiled beauties of some kaid or agha, some chief of a nomad tribe. At the approach of summer the tribes inhabiting the oases make their way northward to the pastures on the high plateaux to escape the intense heat. Then Biskra