Page:Algeria from Within.pdf/215

THE OASIS OF LAGHOUAT

The first view of the Sahara is perhaps one of the most amazing things in the world. The northern part of the oasis is divided from the southern by a barrier of rocks, and, as one tops the cliff, a sense of awe fills one as one contemplates the immensity of the vision spread out. The mind, unaccustomed to such spectacles, rushes back and tries to compare the scene with anything it has ever seen before, but it fails hopelessly, and remains in wonderment before this wide panorama. And yet, as one gazes at the plain — which seems to roll out from the sand in the foreground to an endless expanse of stones, until it merges into the sky and is lost in an infinite horizon — one can not help being reminded of the sea on a calm evening: the oasis is some tropical island, with its palm-trees growing almost down to the water’s edge; the golden sand lapped by this tideless ocean, and then the sea — away, away, far away — until the next island.

"Island" is really the only descriptive word for an oasis in its ocean of desolation. It suddenly springs up and suddenly disappears. Unless the water changes its course, nothing human can cause a tree to grow outside its perimeter, any more than anything could be raised out of the sea.

Laghouat is a very typical oasis of the south. From the rocky eminence can be seen the town, clustering on either side of the rocky barrier; the mosque on an eminence in the center, modern and rather gaudy, but