“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary

January 3, 1939

Headed south for the desert with Batna our destination for the night. All morning it drizzled and rained. Our arrival in North Africa was just after the first rain in three years in some places and it was still rainy, cold, changeable weather. The little tiny houses these poor Arabs live in are terrible. There are hardly any trees and the land is rocky and desolate. They paste fertilizer on their homes to dry and later to be used for fuel. Haystacks are covered with mud. All of a sudden, it seemed, we arrived near Constantine which loomed up before us. A huge gorge divided the modern up-to-date appearing city, though it was very old and interesting. We had a late lunch of couscous, fruit and Algerian tea (very good), under much local color. Reached Batna at dusk.