ick. It was not deemed desirable to observe the
strictest military regularity in our march; so that French uniforms
and Arab burnooses, military chargers, camels of the desert, and
pack-saddled mules travelled side by side, pretty much as fancy
dictated.

It was nearly three weeks before we reached the enemy's country. We
had meanwhile met with the usual adventures incident to these regions.
We had set fire to the forests of the Little Atlas Mountains, and been
obliged to raise our camp, and fly in terror from the conflagration.
We had crossed the dreary solitudes of Goor and Shott, through which
our daily march had been enlivened by songs, or beguiled by listening
to the wild legends of our Arab guides; and night after night we had
encamped, like the vagabond tribes of Sahara, either round the mouths
of wells, or without water in the open plains, each man receiving a
scanty supply from the barrels, while the beasts were left to bear
their thirst as they could. But now, after passing the basins of the
Shott, and gaining the slight elevation beyond, we entered on a tract
of desert as yet untrodden by European feet, and met with trials of a
nature the least of all expected.

The wide wastes which lay before us appeared uniform and level as far
as the eye could reach, but somewhat diversified by verdant patches of
halfa (coarse grass of the desert), and by deceitful appearances of
sheets of water, produced by the reflection of the light in the
undulating vapours rising from the burning sand. In the distance,
something like blue waves appeared: it was part of the great Atlas
chain; but close at hand, to our right, was a long line of dunes.
These eminences, smooth and sterile as marble domes, were apparently
as solid too; but we knew that, if the desert wind should blow, they
would be shaken into moving clouds of sand, overwhelming all before
them.

Our column proceeded in silence. The soft sand yielded no echo to the
tread. Every one appeared thoughtful and abstracted. This place has
terrors even for the Arabs; they tell a thousand stories of the Pass
of Sidi-Mohammed-el-Aoori: it was there, in times remote, that great
armies were overpowered and slain by hostile bands, or destroyed by
the scarcely less merciless elements; there many travellers have
disappeared in the storm, or fallen under the hand of the murderer. It
is the 'gate' of the desert; and the tutelar genii have placed the
terrific dunes as a hieroglyphic wa