d two coats of paint, expands its wonderful beauty
above it. They seem to be looking at themselves in a glass, and to be a
reflection of each other.

Bougie is a town of ruins, and on the quay, when one arrives, one sees
such a magnificent ruin, that one might imagine one was at the opera. It
is the old Saracen Gate, overgrown with ivy, and there are ruins in all
directions on the hills round the town, fragments of Roman walls, bits
of Saracen monuments, the remains of Arabic buildings.

I had taken a small, Moorish house, in the upper town. You know those
dwellings, which have been described so often. They have no windows on
the outside; but they are lighted from top to bottom, by an inner court.
On the first floor, they have a large, cool room, in which one spends
the days, and a terrace on the roof, on which one spends the nights.

I at once fell in with the custom of all hot countries, that is to say,
of having a siesta after lunch. That is the hottest time in Africa, the
time when one can scarcely breathe; when the streets, the fields, and
the long, dazzling, white roads are deserted, when everyone is asleep,
or at any rate, trying to sleep, attired as scantily as possible.

In my drawing-room, which had columns of Arabic architecture, I had
placed a large, soft couch, covered with a carpet from Djebel Amour,
very nearly in the costume of Assan, but I could not sleep, as I was
tortured by my continence. There are two forms of torture on this earth,
which I hope you will never know: the want of water, and the want of
women, and I do not know which is the worst. In the desert, men would
commit any infamy for the sake of a glass of clean, cold water, and what
would one not do in some of the towns of the littoral, for a handsome,
fleshy, healthy girl? For there is no lack of girls in Africa; on the
contrary, they abound, but to continue my comparison, they are as
unwholesome and decayed as the muddy water in the wells of Sahara.

Well, one day when I was feeling more enervated than usual, I was trying
in vain to close my eyes. My legs twitched as if they were being
pricked, and I tossed about uneasily on my couch, until at last, unable
to bear it any longer, I got up and went out. It was a terribly hot day,
in the middle of July, and the pavement was hot enough to bake bread on.
My shirt, which was soaked with perspiration immediately, clung to my
body, and on the horizon there was a slight, white vapor, which seeme