The French Settlement of El Kantara, if such a name can be used for a handful of houses and a station, lies just at the foot of the great wall, at a point where the rift which forms the gorge is scarcely seen. Mountains and rocks tower above the small low houses, crushing into insignificance the attempts at cultivation, the few palms and fruit trees and the treasured vegetable gardens. The inn stands, as the last effort of civilisation, in the face of the great barrier placed between the desert and the Tell.

At the entrance of the gorge, spanning the noisy rushing river, is a Roman bridge, which gives the place its name of El Kantara. It is a single arch, much restored, or rather rebuilt, under the second Napoleon. The Romans had also a fortress here, known as Calcius Herculis, and many traces of their occupation are still found in the district.

The majority of travellers content themselves with admiring as much of the ravine as the three tunnels permit them to see; though it is quite impossible to gain an adequate idea of the grandeur of the Gates of the Desert by peering and craning out of the windows of a train.

The few who know better, or who love less trodden paths, are welcomed by a rush of eager Arab guides as the carriage doors open. Happy the guide who manages to secure a prize! He takes complete possession of his victims and their belongings, puts them into a respectable omnibus worthy of a big town, drives with them, or runs after them, to the little hotel, where he superintends their choice of rooms, and from that moment scarcely allows their steps to stray outside without his sanction.

Vine trellises and a shady tree make the courtyard gay, and brighten the Post Office opposite, whilst beds of violets send up a delicious fragrance to the verandah terrace on the first floor. The house is long and low, with a wing over the stables, reached by an outside staircase; the main building has a large covered terrace, giving a wide, cool shadow. The rooms have windows but no doors, so that every one has to come up the steep staircase to the roof, and then wander round in sociable fashion till he reaches his own room. Out here in the shadow, with dazzling light beyond—light reflected and intensified by the white road and the yellowish rocks—one can sit and watch all the coming and going that make the life of the little colony, or, better still, the caravans that almost ceaselessly pass this way. Strings of camels turn their supercilious faces up as they pace along, their light, soft tread making no sound on the dusty road. They bear heavy loads, wrapped in sacking or camel’s-hair cloth, and carry fodder and corn towards Biskra. Sometimes it is a real caravan with tents and cooking utensils, women and babies as well as men and boys, which swings past with the same rhythmic stride. No longer a study in browns, yellowish greys, and white, but brightened by flashes of colour, the women’s gowns of blue or bright deep red, and the children’s orange and yellow. All walk past with bare feet and stately movement, or perch themselves in an apparently insecure fashion on the top of their goods, and go swaying past into the unknown.

But it is not enough to sit and watch, even though ever and anon new incidents occur. The thirsty come and wind the wheel that brings water from the well. They step into the courtyard without a question, and draw sufficient for their needs; then they smoke and talk. This water is famous for its freshness and purity, qualities usually absent in the desert. The great rocks give shelter from the sun except during the middle of the day, and, what is still more important, from the dreaded sirocco, making it possible for French colonists to live here in comparative comfort even in summer. There is, however, something strange in this life, which sets its impress on their faces—something either in the isolation, the heat, or the absence of amusement, that makes most of them grave and melancholy, taking from them in many cases their natural French vivacity, and giving instead a touch of the more serious, not the laughing side of the Arab character. Not that this is a rule without exceptions, for there are many—notably the man who waits at this very hotel, who is as gay and cheerful a person as it is possible to see. The French talk Arabic, and the Arabs who have dealings with them speak French. As usual there is a school for Arab boys, to teach them useful knowledge, for this is one of the features of the French colonisation; they introduce schools everywhere, supplying French masters, make wonderful roads as well, and bring in post and telegraph, though it is said that Arabic is not a language that lends itself easily to telegraphic form.

The Arab boys are clever and quick, and soon pick up enough to take them far afield. In the summer, as they proudly tell you, it is “too hot” for them in the desert, and they love to migrate to the coast and work in the harbours at BÔne or Bougie, and sometimes even cross to France and manage to make a living at Marseilles. Our boy at El Kantara, Mabrouk by name, had done more. He was the one person in the whole place who could speak English—not much, indeed, but just enough to translate for those tourists who were in the unhappy position of knowing no French. He had been taken to England by an Englishman, in charge of some Arab horses, and had spent a whole summer there, working in his master’s house and running errands for what he was pleased to call a “factor boot,” which by his subsequent explanations we discovered to mean a button factory. He was amusingly conceited over his doings and acquirements, showing his photograph taken with “me chum,” a telegraph boy, the trim uniform and the flowing burnous looking thoroughly out of place side by side, in a way that the two grinning faces did not. His ideas on England and its glories were at any rate original, for he was not struck by either wet or cold; he was evidently made much of, and thought our food a thing to talk a great deal about. Some of his statements, such as, that in England every one has breakfast at 6 o’clock and eats a sort of pudding with sugar, are rather on a par with those of a Belgian who once told us that English ladies always breakfasted in bed, though certainly Mabrouk’s theory promises better for an active nation. El Kantara has been a favourite haunt of French artists for the last few years, and many pictures painted here have gained success in the Salon, so, naturally, Mabrouk looked upon himself as a judge of art, and was prepared to show all the best points of view.