very hard in winter. The other day I asked him:
"Don't you get exhausted, Safti, with all this exertion to keep the
Sahara home together? You are getting on in years now."

"Ah yes, Sidi; I am already thirty-two, alas!"

He was thirty-five when I first met him; but he is as clever at
subtraction as a London beauty.

"Good heavens! So much! But, then, how can you keep up the wear and tear
of this tumultuous life? You must have an iron strength. Such work as
you do would break down an American millionaire."

Safti raised his one dark eye piously towards Allah's dwelling.

"Sidi, I must labour for my children. But in the summer, when you
and all the travellers are gone from the Sahara to your fogs and the
darkness of your days, I take my little holiday."

"Your holiday! But is it long enough?"

"It lasts for only five months, Sidi; but it is enough for me. I am
strong as the lion."

I gazed at him with an admiration I could not repress. There was,
indeed, something of the hero about this simple-minded Saharaman. We
were at the edge of the oasis, in a remote place looking towards the
quivering mirage which guards dead Okba's tomb. A tiny earthen house,
with a flat terrace ending in the jagged bank of the Oued Biskra, was
crouched here in the shade. From it emerged a pleasant scent of coffee.
Suddenly Safti's bare legs began to "give." I felt it would be cruel to
push on farther. We entered the house, seated ourselves luxuriously
upon a baked divan of mud, set our slippers on a reed mat, rolled our
cigarettes, and commanded our coffee. When a Kabyle boy with a rosebud
stuck under his turban had brought it languidly, I said to Safti:

"And now, Safti, tell me how you pass your little holiday."

Safti smiled gently in his beard. He was glad to have this moment of
repose.

"Each day is like its brother, Sidi," he responded, gazing out through
the low doorway to the shimmering Sahara.

"Then tell me how you pass a summer day."

The coffee nerved him to this stubborn exertion, and he spoke.

"_Sahah_ Sidi."

"_Merci_."

We sipped.

"A day in summer, Sidi, when the great heats begin in June? Well, at
five in the morning I get up----'

"And light the fire," I murmured mechanically.

The one eye stared in blank amazement.

"Proceed, Safti. You get up at five. That is very early."

"The sun rises at a quarter to five."

"To call you. Well?"

"I eat three fresh figs, and sometimes four. I then mount upon