er six months of
companionship, of communion of life such as only a Post in the South
offers, I ask myself if the most extraordinary of my adventures is not
to be leaving to-morrow, toward unsounded solitudes, with a man whose
real thoughts are as unknown to me as these same solitudes, for which
he has succeeded in making me long.

The first surprise which was given me by this singular companion was
occasioned by the baggage that followed him.

On his inopportune arrival, alone, from Wargla, he had trusted to the
Mehari he rode only what can be carried without harm by such a
delicate beast,--his arms, sabre and revolver, a heavy carbine, and a
very reduced pack. The rest did not arrive till fifteen days later,
with the convoy which supplied the post.

Three cases of respectable dimensions were carried one after another
to the Captain's room, and the grimaces of the porters said enough as
to their weight.

I discreetly left Saint-Avit to his unpacking and began opening the
mail which the convoy had sent me.

He returned to the office a little later and glanced at the several
reviews which I had just recieved.

"So," he said. "You take these."

He skimmed through, as he spoke, the last number of the _Zeitschrift
der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde in Berlin_.

"Yes," I answered. "These gentlemen are kind enough to interest
themselves in my works on the geology of the Wadi Mia and the high
Igharghar."

"That may be useful to me," he murmured, continuing to turn over the
leaves.

"It's at your service."

"Thanks. I am afraid I have nothing to offer you in exchange, except
Pliny, perhaps. And still--you know what he said of Igharghar,
according to King Juba. However, come help me put my traps in place
and you will see if anything appeals to you."

I accepted without further urging.

We commenced by unearthing various meteorological and astronomical
instruments--the thermometers of Baudin, Salleron, Fastre, an aneroid,
a Fortin barometer, chronometers, a sextant, an astronomical spyglass,
a compass glass.... In short, what Duveyrier calls the material that
is simplest and easiest to transport on a camel.

As Saint-Avit handed them to me I arranged them on the only table in
the room.

"Now," he announced to me, "there is nothing more but books. I will
pass them to you. Pile them up in a corner until I can have a
book-shelf made."

For two hours altogether I helped him to heap up a real library. And
what a lib