ething
better, and very original.

In your last letter to me, you say: "When I know how people love in a
country, I know that country well enough to describe it, although I may
never have seen it." Let me tell you, then, that here they love
furiously. From the very first moment, one feels a sort of trembling
ardor, of constant desire, to the very tips of the fingers, which
over-excites our amorous powers, and all our faculties of physical
sensation, from the simple contact of the hands, down to that unnamable
requirement which makes us commit so many follies.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not know whether you call love of the
heart, love of the soul, whether sentimental idealism, Platonic love, in
a word, can exist on this earth; I doubt it, myself. But that other
love, sensual love, which has something good, a great deal of good about
it, is really terrible in this climate. The heat, the burning atmosphere
which makes you feverish, those suffocating blasts of wind from the
south, those waves of fire which come from the desert which is so near
us, that oppressive sirocco, which is more destructive and withering
than fire, that perpetual conflagration of an entire continent, that is
burnt even to its stones by a fierce and devouring sun, inflame the
blood, excite the flesh, and make brutes of us.

But to come to my story, I shall not tell you about the beginning of my
stay in Africa. After going to Bona, Constantine, Biskara and Setif, I
went to Bougie through the defiles of Chabet, by an excellent road
through a large forest, which follows the sea at a height of six hundred
feet above it, as far as that wonderful bay of Bougie, which is as
beautiful as that of Naples, of Ajaccio, or of Douarnenez, which are the
most lovely that I know.

Far away in the distance, before one goes round the large inlet where
the water is perfectly calm, one sees the Bougie. It is built on the
steep sides of a high hill, which is covered with trees, and forms a
white spot on that green slope; it might almost be taken for the foam of
a cascade, falling into the sea.

I had no sooner set foot in that delightful, small town, than I knew
that I should stay for a long time. In all directions the eye rests on
rugged, strangely shaped hill-tops, which are so close together that one
can hardly see the open sea, so that the gulf looks like a lake. The
blue water is wonderfully transparent, and the azure sky, a deep azure,
as if it had receive