These positions are so impregnable that the Bedouins could have driven us back merely with stones if they had had any resolution. I am convinced that the Kabyles of Budschia and Dschigeli would have sent us home in a fine plight. As we had to wait for the arrival of the main body, we established ourselves on the mountain top as well as we could. Greatly to our annoyance, however, no water was to be found in the neighbourhood, and we were obliged to fetch it a whole league from the Fontaine de la Croix.
Towards mid-day, when the fog cleared off, we discovered the blue Mediterranean beyond the plain of Metidja and the Sahel mountains. We greeted it as our second home, with loud cheers and cries of “Land,” for the sea was to us what the harbour is to the sailor after a long and perilous voyage. From this point, one of the highest of the lesser Atlas, we enjoyed the most glorious prospect. On one side we saw the vast plain of Metidja and the sea beyond it; on the other, several small valleys, where pastures still green proved the fruitfulness of the soil. In one of these little valleys we espied a few huts and a flock of sheep grazing in peaceful ignorance of their danger. This time the poor inhabitants of the hovels were protected by their poverty: had the prey been better worth taking, a division of cavalry would soon have been down upon them.
The sharp and broken outlines of the mountains and the dark foliage of the olives, pines, and cedars, which clothe their sides, give a singularly wild and sombre character to the Atlas range. The air at this height is sharp and piercing even in summer; and while we could scarcely breathe for the heat below, we here buttoned our capotes up to our very chins. This appeared to be the land of vultures and eagles, which soared and screamed around us by hundreds, apparently highly offended at their unexpected guests. They came so near to us that several of them were shot by the soldiers with split bullets; but they were a perverse and stiff-necked generation, which even when mortally wounded did not cease from biting and clawing.
The main body arrived towards evening, and on the following morning we continued our march towards the Metidja, with great alacrity and good humour. Our knapsacks were light, and the prospect of making up at Blidah for the hardships we had undergone infused new life into all of us.
At noon we were already at the foot of the mountains, and a few hours later the mosques and orange groves of Blidah lay before us.
It was indeed high time for us to return to the camp, for the number of sick had increased frightfully of late; horses, mules, and donkeys were all overloaded with them, and many a one who would long since have been given over by the physicians in Europe still crawled in our ranks. Our shoes and clothes were in rags; many even had wound pieces of ox hide about their feet in default of shoes. We bivouacked close by the town on the bank of a small brook. All the people in the town came out to see us and to convince themselves that we were still alive, for it had been reported several times that the column was utterly destroyed. They lifted up their hands in amazement at our deplorable appearance; and it was only on comparing ourselves with these sleek and well-fed citizens that we perceived how wild and wretched we looked, and that our faces were dingy yellow, and our bodies dried up like so many mummies. I am convinced, that except on the persons of the attendants on the sick, and some of the superior officers, not even Shylock himself could have cut one pound of flesh out of the whole column.
Arabs, Jews, and Christians vied with each other in offering us wine, fruit, bread, &c., at very sufficient prices, for in Africa nothing is gratis.
All discipline was now at an end: the officers were soon dispersed among the various cafés and restaurants, and the soldiers bought as much bread, fruit, and wine as they could get for their few sous, and seated themselves under the first shady tree they could find, where they drank till all the miseries of life were forgotten.
[1] We are tempted to quote from “Two Years Before the Mast,” a passage describing the effect produced by the sad spectacle of a man overboard:—“Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea; a man dies on shore, his body remains with his friends, and ‘the mourners go about the streets;’ but when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and a difficulty in realizing it, which gives it an air of awful mystery. * * * All these things make such a death particularly solemn, and the effect of it remains upon the crew for some time. There is more kindness shown by the officers to the crew, and by the crew to one another. There is more quietness and seriousness. The oath and the loud laugh are gone. ”—Page 12.—Trans.