[Original]
The Kabyles came round our tents in the morning before leaving, and the last we saw of our model patriarch, was flying before an enraged vivandière, who pursued him down the hill with a dish-cloth. He had been prowling about since dawn, and had forgotten the distinction between 'meum' and 'tuum.'
It has been said that there is 'no such thing as Arab embarrassment, and no such dignity as Arab dignity;' but the Arab or the Kabyle, as we hinted in a former chapter, appears to great disadvantage in contact with the French, and seems to lose at once in morale.
Another day, there is a flutter in our little camp, for 'the mail' has come in, in the person of an active young orderly of Zouaves, who, leaving the bulk of his charge to come round by the road, has anticipated the regular delivery by some hours, scaling the heights with the agility of a cat, and appearing suddenly in our midst. If he had sprung out of the earth he could not have startled us much more, and if he had brought a message that all the troops were to leave Africa to-morrow, he could scarcely have been more welcome.
And what has he brought to satisfy the crowd of anxious faces that assemble round the hut, dignified by the decoration of a pasteboard eagle and the inscription 'Bureau de Poste.' It was scarcely as trying a position for an official, as that at our own Post-office at Sebastopol in Crimean days, although there was eagerness and crowding enough to perplex any distributor; but it was very soon over, in five minutes letters and papers were cast aside, and boredom had recommenced with the majority. It was the old story—the old curse of Algeria doing its work; the French officers are too near home to care much for 'news,' and hear too frequently from Paris (twice a week) to attach much importance to letters. Newspapers were the 'pièces de résistance,' but there was not much news in 'La Presse' and its feuilleton consisted of two or three chapters of a translation of Dickens' 'Martin Chuzzlewit'; there was the 'Moniteur,' with lists of promotions in the army, and the usual announcement, that Napoleon, 'by the grace of God and the national will,' would levy new taxes upon the people; there was a provincial paper, containing an account of the discovery of some ruins near Carcassonne; there was 'Le Follet' for 'my lady commandant,' and a few other papers with illustrated caricatures and conundrums.
Some of the letters were amusing, as we heard them read aloud; one was too quaint not to mention, it was from a bootmaker in Paris to his dear, long-lost customer on the Kabyle Hills. He 'felt that he was going to die,' and prayed 'M'sieu le Lieutenant' to order a good supply of boots for fear of any sudden accident, 'no one else could make such boots for Monsieur.' And so on, including subjects of about equal importance, with the latest Parisian gossip, and intelligence of a new piece at the 'Variétés.' One other letter we may mention, that came up by the same post, to one other member of that little band, perched like eagles on the heights; it was also unimportant and from home, and the burden of it was this—'Broadtouch' had stretched ten feet of canvas for a painting of one rolling wave, and 'Interstice' had studied the texture of a nut-shell until his eyes were dim.
We finish the evening as usual with dominoes and coffee; enjoying many a long and delightful chit-chat with our military friends. These pleasant, genial, but rather unhappy gentlemen do not 'talk shop,' it is tabooed in conversation, as strictly as at the 'Rag': but the stamp of banishment is upon their faces unmistakeably, and if they do speak of this foreign service (now that the war is nearly over), it is in language that seems to say,—'all ye who enter here, leave Hope behind.'
