ABSTRACT
ACCIDENT often determines the course of a man's life. The greater part of human actions, however humiliating to our moral and intellectual dignity, is the result of sheer accident. That the accidents of life should harmonize with the immutable decrees of Providence, is the great mystery of an honest and thinking mind. The reading accidentally of a fugitive brochure, thrown upon
the table of the public library of Algiers, gave me the germ of the idea, which, fructifying and expanding, ultimately led me to the design of visiting and exploring the celebrated Oasis of Ghadames, planted far-away amidst the most appalling desolations of the Great Saharan "Wilderness. This should teach us to lower our pretensions, and take a large discount from our merits in originating our various enterprises ; but, alas! our overweening self-love always manages to get the better of us. The brochure alluded to was a number of the Revue de U Orient, published at Paris, containing a notice of Ghadames by M. Subtil, the notorious sulphurs-explorer and adventurer of Tripoli.
