* * * * *

It was about five o'clock when Eg-Anteouen who was leading the way,
came to a stop.

"Here it is," he said, getting down from his camel.

It was a beautiful and sinister place. To our left a fantastic wall of
granite outlined its gray ribs against the sky. This wall was pierced,
from top to bottom, by a winding corridor about a thousand feet high
and scarcely wide enough in places to allow three camels to walk
abreast.

"Here it is," repeated the Targa.

To the west, straight behind us, the track that we were leaving
unrolled like a pale ribbon. The white plain, the road to Shikh-Salah,
the established halts, the well-known wells.... And, on the other
side, this black wall against the mauve sky, this dark passage.

I looked at Morhange.

"We had better stop here," he said simply. "Eg-Anteouen advises us to
take as much water here as we can carry."

With one accord we decided to spend the night there, before
undertaking the mountain.

There was a spring, in a dark basin, from which fell a little cascade;
there were a few shrubs, a few plants.