M. le Commandant opened his eyes, and shrugged his shoulders expressively.
“Madame, no one knows in Oran what is going on at Saïda. It is not practicable. I tell you the simple truth when I say that. It is not practicable. I will tell you what you can see here. You propose to remain two days? Eh, bien! to-morrow I will send an escort of Spahis with you as far as the marabout of Sidi-ben-Baila, from whence you can look over the plateaux which commence the Desert; you will see then what sort of country it is; and if you went on as far as Géryville, our next post, and Fig-gig our last, you would see no more. The next day you would like to sketch, probably? Bien, I send my servant and a Spahi with you to the ravine, and you will find fine things to draw; and when my work is done, I will ride round and show you what else is to be seen in our little Saïda;” and, after telling us a great deal more that was interesting, the good-natured Commandant left us.
We carried out these plans, and all turned out satisfactorily. There was only one sort of vehicle to be had, a sort of wheel-barrow on four wheels, belonging to a butcher, which we gladly accepted for the drive to the marabout. Our driver, the owner of the cart, proved a most entertaining person. He was a Parisian by birth, an African by right of long residence, and as rich in mother-wit as an American.
“You don’t mean to say that you think of leaving Saïda without going to see the waterfalls?” he asked; “why, that is the only thing that is really beautiful in the place.”
We said that we had been dissuaded from the excursion on account of the unsafety of the roads; and, thereupon, the incredulity of the butcher’s face was a sight to see.
“Mon Dieu, Madame, you mustn’t listen to what the military authorities say—they always make mountains of mole-hills. I would undertake to carry you safe to Fig-gig in this trap without as much as a pistol in my belt. Voilà!”
“But you don’t attempt to convince us that the roads are safe, do you?”
“Madame, they are safe for you or for me; but I wouldn’t say as much for myself if I were an officer. This is how it is, the Arabs hate the military, and do them an ill turn when they can; but the Arabs, ma foi, are not the bad set of people one would have you believe. Why, I have travelled to Géryville and back, and to Fig-gig and back alone before now alone, with money in my purse too, and the Arabs treated me as if I had been a brother, made me a dish of cous-cous-sou, gave me a bed under their tents, saddled my horse for me at parting, and bade me God speed. Having been so kindly treated by the Arabs, can you wonder at my speaking so of them? For my part I don’t see a pin to choose between a good Christian and a good Mahomedan, a bad Christian and a bad Mahomedan: voilà ce que nous pensons.”
We let our butcher have his way, for his talk was too racy and fresh to be spared in a world where one has to endure so much commonplace. I should fill a chapter if I were to repeat half the stirring stories and original opinions he gave us; but as this little book is intended as a stimulant to others longing “for the palms and temples of the South,” I hope it may lead some to Saïda and the butcher’s acquaintance.
All this time we were driving through what seemed to be a stony desert, flooded with an indescribably yellow, mellow, monotonous light, above all, a pale blue sky. By-and-by, we came to a rocky height where we halted to take in every feature and aspect of a wondrous scene. Below lay a billowy waste of plain upon plain; those nearest to us broken by Arab tents, or the shining dome of a marabout; those farthest off more solitary, vaster, grander, than the surface of an ocean without a sail. Where the plains ended and the sky began was a straight, continuous line; and we looked at this line, so suggestive of distance, and mystery, and unknown existence, till we longed to accept the butcher’s offer, and, coûte que coûte, set off for Fig-gig, and the “Dry Country abounding in Dates!”