Bourroum, passed by Es-Souk. It is to study the possibility of
reestablishing this ancient thoroughfare that the Ministries gave me
this mission, which has given me the pleasure of your companionship."

"You are probably in for a disappointment," I said. "Everything
indicates that the commerce there is very slight."

"Well, I shall see," he answered composedly.

This was while we were following the unicolored banks of a salt lake.
The great saline stretch shone pale-blue, under the rising sun. The
legs of our five mehara cast on it their moving shadows of a darker
blue. For a moment the only inhabitant of these solitudes, a bird, a
kind of indeterminate heron, rose and hung in the air, as if
suspended from a thread, only to sink back to rest as soon as we had
passed.

I led the way, selecting the route, Morhange followed. Enveloped in a
bernous, his head covered with the straight _chechia_ of the Spahis, a
great chaplet of alternate red and white beads, ending in a cross,
around his neck, he realized perfectly the ideal of Father Lavigerie's
White Fathers.

After a two-days' halt at Temassinin we had just left the road
followed by Flatters, and taken an oblique course to the south. I have
the honor of having antedated Fourcau in demonstrating the importance
of Temassinin as a geometrical point for the passage of caravans, and
of selecting the place where Captain Pein has just now constructed a
fort. The junction for the roads that lead to Touat from Fezzan and
Tibesti, Temassinin is the future seat of a marvellous Intelligence