“A WHEEL HUNG FOR AN INSTANT OVER BOTTOMLESS SPACE.”
Our journey from Algiers to Affreville was just like any other railway journey. At the last-named town we got out, had a nice breakfast at the station buffet, and at twelve got into the coupé of a diligence so dilapidated and prehistoric in appearance that my heart sank within me; but that was only the beginning. This vehicle was drawn by eight skinny white horses, each of whom seemed to have his own private opinion as to the manner of drawing the vehicle—and all their opinions seemed to differ vastly from that of the driver, whose face wore an “I give it up” sort of expression. So bored was the good man by things in general that during the journey he indulged in sundry snoozes. This was bearable whilst the road was wide and on the flat, but when it wound like a narrow white ribbon round and round the mountains, and one gazed up on the left at a grey wall of rock, and on the right down fathomless precipices, we glanced at our slumbering Jehu and held on by the skin of our teeth, whilst the skinny horses dashed headlong round narrow corners and a wheel hung for an instant over bottomless space. This nightmare ride lasted for eight hours, during which time I tried hard to feel that I was enjoying myself, despite the cramp in my legs and the stiffness of my neck—necessarily slightly bent on account of the lowness of the roof. Finally we arrived at Teniet-el-Haad, which appeared to be composed of one narrow street hemmed in abruptly on either side by the mountains. Thankfully we crawled out of the diligence and walked up the hill to the “bordj,” or fort, where a flat had been provided for us by the Government. So this was to be my home! I gazed eagerly round at the small rooms with their bare, whitewashed walls, and then—when I had a box to sit on—I sat down and cried.
“Nice place, Algeria, isn’t it?” mildly remarked my husband. I felt at that moment as though I could have throttled him cheerfully.
A VIEW OF TENIET-EL-HAAD.
From a Photograph.
Truly my position was not enviable. Accustomed hitherto to be waited on hand and foot, I now found myself without a servant of any kind, save my husband’s orderly. I was in a strange country, and was expected to do everything for myself. However, repining would not help matters, so I set to work to teach the orderly the rudiments of the culinary art, he knowing nothing more about it than—than I did. What hard days those were, to be sure! I wonder my husband survived them. My fried potatoes fell into greasy bits instead of frying, my scrambled eggs flew up the chimney, my omelettes were sickening messes, and the meat either would not cook at all or exaggerated the matter and turned into coal. Then there was the washing and ironing. I never thought—until I essayed the work—that there was much difficulty about it; it seemed quite easy. You took soiled things off, put them in water and soaped them; then you wrung them out, ironed them, and there you were. Our linen, however, grew greyer and greyer, yellower and yellower, and I became pensive. “What do you think is wrong with it?” I asked the orderly, who had become our washerman, there being no other.
“Well, madam,” he said, diffidently, “I think it wants sort of boiling gently with something or other. I remember my mother——”
“Oh, what did your mother do?” I asked, eagerly.
“Well, she washed it first, and then put it in a barrel with a hole in the bottom and—and boiled it, I think. Leastways, it was somehow all right after.”