ABSTRACT
Early in the following spring Vansittart again journeyed to the desert, accompanied, of course, by the ever faithful Jim, and this time by Dick Harland, who growled unceasingly when the millionaire sought to convince him that he should still remain in Paris. The outer rims of the great central basin were most readily approached at Boca Grande on the west, and Biskra on the east. At Boca Grande the works for distilling the salt water into fresh, elevating it, and discharging it by an aqueduct into the huge plain that lay beyond the intervening fourteen-mile barrier of volcanic rock, were situated on the verge of the Atlantic Ocean. At Biskra, on the eastern or Mediterranean side, Maclaren's operations, already detailed, brought the sea through canals and lakes two hundred miles into the interior of the country, providing a splendid passage for vessels of any capacity.
