“And not the saddest I could tell you. Ah! Madame, the life of us poor colonists here on the borders of Morocco is hard enough. Only the good God knows how to understand how hard it is” (le bon Dieu sait seul comment c’est dur.)
“On account of the great insecurity, you mean?”
“Yes, Madame. We have to keep watch-dogs as fierce as tigers, to look well to our bolts and pistols before going to bed, to distrust an Arab as le diable, and, withal, we are always being burned out, robbed, assassinated; and those who burn us out, rob us, and assassinate us, as often as not get across to Morocco safe and sound.”
“But the soldiers protect you?”
“Mon Dieu, Madame! the soldiers have hard work to protect themselves! and the soldiers, you see, are not always hand and glove with the colonists. I often think we should do better in Algeria without soldiers at all. Being a colon myself now, I speak for the colons, of course.”
We were now in a wild and beautiful spot at some distance from the town. On either side rose green hills, sharply shutting in a little river that flowed amid tamarisk and oleander, and, here and there, shone the round white dome of some small Moorish sanctuary.
We sat down to rest a little while and enjoy the perfect solitude of the place, and sketch the nearest of the mosques or marabouts.
“Ah! that is a marabout which will never be forgotten as long as the French hold Oran. A few years ago there was sharp fighting in these parts, and the Arabs, who were very strong, contrived to get a few hundred of our brave fellows here by some diabolical cunning or other, and, being thousands themselves, mowed them down like so much standing corn. But this is only one story of hundreds. If blood of the bravest would make lands rich, we ought to have fine crops here, indeed, Madame.”
“The Arabs seem a very savage set here,” one of us said. “Around Algiers they are, for the most part, harmless.”
“Il y a des Arabes et des Arabes. Voilà, Madame. We are close on Morocco. The Arabs who have burned, murdered, and stolen in other places flee hither, and so we are in a sort of Botany Bay of ’em.”