The slave of Ben Faka’s coffee-maker interrupted our conversation by bringing the coffee in two little earthenware cups on a tin tray: the cups have no handles, but are fixed in small brass saucers; the coffee seemed to me delicious—it was served with the grounds; and the two cups sweetened with brown sugar, and a couple of pipes to smoke, cost a penny.
Even now I cannot think of that day without emotion: it was so unlike all the rest of my captivity; we suffered neither ill usage, cold, nor hunger; the weather was beautiful, we had plenty of fruits, and Abd-el-Kader and Ben Faka were even kind to us: in short, to us it was a day of positive enjoyment.
It has been asserted that Abd-el-Kader received no supplies from Morocco; this statement is contradicted by facts which I myself witnessed. On the 7th of August, 1836, a convoy arrived at the Sultan’s camp, from Morocco, bringing flints, scull-caps, slippers, trowsers, and cloaks enough for six hundred men. On the 15th of August there came fifteen camels loaded with powder and ball, also from Morocco. On the 25th of August Abd-el-Kader received from Morocco a store of biscuits and saltpetre. Every time that these supplies arrived at the camp the Arabs testified the greatest joy and exultation, and received the chief of the convoy with the same honours that they pay to Abd-el-Kader.
On the 28th of August two Arab spies came to the camp, one of them bringing a number of gun-flints which he had bought at Oran, and the other some despatches entrusted to him by the French authorities at Tlemsen for the Commandant at Oran, and to which he was to take back an answer.
Abd-el-Kader unsealed them, and having sent for Meurice, ordered him to read them. Meurice obeyed, and the Sultan resealed and sent them on to their address.
A few days after, the same Arab filling the double office of courier to the French and spy to Abd-el-Kader, returned to the camp with the answer from General Létang the Commandant of Oran, to the Commandant of Tlemsen. Abd-el-Kader sent for me, and after very carefully unsealing General Létang’s letters, he ordered me to read them aloud. In them the General informed the Commandant of Tlemsen, that he had returned from his expedition against the Beni Amers, having achieved it without striking a single blow, and that he had plundered the silos[5] of the Arabs.
The officers of the brig Loiret, added General Létang, were foolish enough to go out shooting at Arzew, and Lieutenant De France fell into the hands of the Arabs.
I took very good care not to read the first part of the letter, but only what related to myself.
“Is that all?” said the Sultan; “surely thou hast deceived me?”
“Read it yourself,” said I, “and you will see.”