REMARKS BY THE EMIR ABD-EL-KADER.
How can any strange people contend with us, who are brought up in the highest sense of honour, even above all the tribes collected in the great assemblies? Do we not advance against the enemy on horses of pure race, terrible as raging lions, that gallop wildly along the perilous mountain path?
I have prepared, against the time when fortune shall be unfavourable to me, a noble courser of perfect shape, and which none can rival in swiftness.
I have also a flashing sabre which severs at a stroke the body of an enemy. And yet fortune has treated me as if I had never tasted the pleasure of bestriding an air-drinker;
As if I had never rested my heart on the virgin bosom of a well-beloved maiden, with legs adorned with bracelets of gold;
As if I had never felt the anguish of separation;
As if I had never taken part in the exciting spectacle of our blood horses surprising the enemy at the break of day;
As if, in short, after a defeat, I had never brought back the runaways to the fight, by crying aloud:—
"Fatma! daughters of Fatma!
"Death is a tax levied on our heads; turn the neck of your horses, and repeat the charge.