THE ZOUAVE.
Many have talked of the zouave: few know him.
Everybody has seen him lazily squatting at the gates of the Tuileries, like a granite sphinx on the threshold of the Assyrian palaces. He is on guard. He performs his duty with a profoundly melancholy air, smoking his pipe with feverish impatience, or, rather, watching with feverish impatience all the while he is smoking his pipe, some ray of our Parisian sunlight, which seems like moonlight when compared with that fierce African sunshine, which pours down upon the head like molten lead.
A scrap of green or white calico, twisted around a red fez; a blue jacket, trimmed with red or yellow braid, and which leaves the throat entirely bare; full scarlet trousers, cut in the Oriental fashion; white gaiters buttoning above the ankle; this is his costume.
How can one describe the man?
Short, spare, compactly built and muscular, with broad shoulders, square fists, closely shaven head, keen eyes, a mocking smile, and a bold and decided bearing—such is the zouave, the best soldier in the world for bold ventures, skirmishes with outposts, impossible ambuscades, and rapid marches.
Accustomed to the pursuit of the Arab, his constant enemy, the zouave is thoroughly conversant with all the stratagems of desert warfare. He has learned to outwit his savage foes, so he will always surprise the armies of Europe.
“The Arab is very cunning, but the zouave is more cunning still.”
He knows how to conceal himself in a little clump of shrubbery, and steal imperceptibly upon the sentinel whom he wishes to capture; he can advance without a sound, remain motionless for hours together, hide behind the slightest irregularity in the ground, crawl, leap, bound, disappear in the undergrowth that surrounds him, follow a track, and shun all the traps that are set for him.