"The Traveler's Story" by Guy de Maupassant

Published in 1882.

This story is sometimes published under the title "Fear".

The author uses the word 'Onargla', but there is no such area. There is, however, Ouargla, a province in present day eastern Algeria, and contains a part of the Issaouane Erg, which is itself part of the Sahara Desert. So this is surely the area intended.

Spahi: light cavalry the French army recruited primarily from the Arab and Berber populations of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The use of this specific term tells us this story can be set no earlier than the 1830s. And recall this tale of Africa is 10 years prior to the present temporal setting of the story. There continues to be one regiment of Spahi in the French army in the present day, and it is not just ceremonial, they fought in the Gulf War, they continue to be a modern fighting force despite their reduced numbers.

I wasn't sure what meaning the word 'buffet' takes here, thus was unsure of which pronunciation to use for it. But since this part of the story is set in France, I decided to go with the more French style of pronunciation regardless of meaning.

The picture used are:

1) Moonlight over the Mediterranean Sea, by calperman, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en).

2) photographie personnelle prise en décembre 2004 représentant des dunes du Grand erg oriental dans le Sahara tunisien près de Ksar Ghilane, by Elcèd77, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en).

3) La Voie Royale, by Philippe Manguin, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en).

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12758/pg12758-images.html#fear