At coffee time I invited the Kaids and the Taleb to sip with me, and wondrous tales ensued on their part, and in return I talked of Stambul, its magnificence and fame.
Kaid Abd-el-Kerim informed me he commanded as ‘Kaid Erha,’ or colonel, a body of cavalry at the battle of Isly in 1844, when Maréchal Bugeaud invaded Morocco with a force of twelve thousand men and attacked the Sultan’s army.
Kaid Abd-el-Kerim described the strong position that Sid Mohammed, the eldest son of Sultan Mulai Abderahman, had taken up with his forces on the brow of a hill, and how earthworks had been thrown up, on which field-pieces were placed, under the command of a Spanish renegade, who had been a sergeant of artillery in Spain. ‘But,’ said the Kaid, ‘I do not consider the conflict with the French can be called a battle.’
‘How is that?’ I inquired, ‘for the Moorish forces were routed, the Sultan’s camp and the field-pieces taken possession of.’
‘Yes,’ said the Kaid. ‘Still I maintain it could not be called a battle, for we never had an opportunity of a fair fight, so as to be able to judge whether the Mussulmen or the French were the braver warriors.’
I then asked the Kaid to describe what took place, as also his reasons for not considering it a fair fight.
The Kaid replied: ‘When the French force first came in sight, at a distance of about an hour’s walk (3½ miles), we observed that neither cavalry, infantry, nor artillery were spread out—as ought to be done—in line, before a battle. They had formed together a compact mass like a “berod” (swarm of bees), and thus advanced towards us without a halt, banners flying, and music playing. It was a “fraja” (a very fine sight).
‘Sid Mohammed ordered our cavalry to advance on the plain below the encampment, and the infantry, chiefly composed of tribes of mountaineers, to take up their position on our flanks on the adjoining slopes.
‘On came the French, on, on, without halting, or firing a gun, notwithstanding that our artillery played upon them, and the tribes kept up a running fire from the heights on each flank. On came the French, without a pause that would give us an opportunity of a fair fight to test the prowess of the contending forces.’
‘Explain,’ I interposed, ‘what you consider would have been a battle.’