CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT.
I.
It seemed all too good to be true: the rest from labor, the swift flight across southern seas, the landing, amid strange, dark faces on a burnished shore, the slow, delicious journey through tamarisk groves and palm forests, and the halt in the Desert that came at last.
I had been doing for the last twelve months what young artists and authors are constantly doing, to their own ruin and the justifiable ill-humor of critics, namely, working against the grain. A sweet, generous, and beautiful Patroness, seeing me on the high road to brain fever or hopeless mediocrity, stepped forward in time, and sent me to the Desert. If ever I achieve anything excellent, it will be owing to that lady, the Vittoria Colonna of her humble Michael Angelo. My little sister Mary came with me, and, when I tell you that she was a teacher in a school, you will easily understand what an intoxicating thing it was for her to see a new world every day, and have nothing to do from morning, till night. The poor child could hardly believe in an existence without Czerny's scales being played on three or four pianos at once, and a barrel organ and brass band in the street. "Oh, Tom!" she would say to me, a dozen times a day, "I've got C scale and 'Wait for the Wagon' on my brain, and can't get rid of them;" so that I verily believe to my beautiful Vittoria Colonna Mary's present well-being is due as much as my own.
We halted at a little military station on the borders of the Great Sahara, about a week before Christmas-day. The weather was perfect, and not too warm. A delicious, mellow atmosphere enveloped palm, and plain, and mosque; the air, blown across thousands and thousands of acres of wild thyme and rosemary, refreshed us like wine: we seemed to have new souls and new bodies given us, and were as free from care as the swallows flying overhead. Travellers never came to Teschoun, as this little oasis is called; but we had placed ourselves under the guidance of an enterprising Frenchman, who transacted all sorts of business on the road between Mascara and Fig-gig, the last French post in the Desert. His name was Dominique, and I shall always look upon him as the most remarkable man I ever knew. He was as witty as Sydney Smith, as clever at expediences as Robinson Crusoe, as shrewd a politician as Machiavelli, as apt at languages as Mezzofanti, and as brave as Garibaldi. Being a bachelor, Dominique was none the less ready to receive us, and, with the help of an old Corsican named Napoleon, made us very comfortable. When Dominique was carrying His Imperial Majesty's mails to some remote stations southward, or had gone to an Arab fair to buy cattle, Napoleon catered for us and cooked for us, and did both admirably. Both master and servant spiced their dishes plentifully with that mother-wit, never seen in such perfection as in crude colonies where people without it would fare so ill.
"What are we to do for society for poor mademoiselle?" asked Dominique, as he served our first dinner. "Monsieur can amuse himself with the officers of the garrison, but there are no ladies here."
"When my brother is out, I shall stay at home and talk to Napoleon," Mary said, with a mock assumption of dignity. "I don't want to be amused, Monsieur Dominique."
"Mon Dieu, mademoiselle! the officers of the garrison will fall in love with you, and that ought to amuse you better than talking to Napoleon," Dominique answered. "It's a very dull life they lead here, these poor officers; and if it weren't for hunting gazelles and hyenas, and playing the deuce with the Arabs, they'd die of ennui; but a pretty young lady like you will turn their heads soon enough."
Mary blushed, and tried to turn the conversation.
"What do they do with themselves all day long?" she asked.