smoking the dried leaves of the vine and the fenel; and among our Arabs many smoked hemp which they had carefully preserved, in pipes of about the size of a thimble.

Letters have at last reached us, and French journals. The whole garrison seems seized with vertigo. All are chatting and commenting on the news. As for me, I have not closed an eye the whole night; I have not yet recovered from my emotion. Joy is on all sides, and on all sides hope. The death of our two last couriers, which we have just learnt, has not discouraged our Arabs. Three men are to start this evening for Blidah; one Kabyle of the country named Hamed, and two Zouaves, who have just brought us our letters. Their departure was a solemn one. One of the two Zouaves, just as he was leaving the Colonel's, having his gun already in his hand, took a piece of bread, cut it in four, and giving a bit to the interpreter, who accompanied them to the door, and a bit to each of his two comrades, "Moussa" (Moses), said he to the interpreter, "I make you witness of the equal division I have made of this bread; let each of us eat it, and may it become poison to him who has anything in his head he dares not avow." Then passing his hand over the fire, "May fire, air, and water,

suddenly destroy him who has a thought of betraying his comrades." Thereupon each stretched out his hand to the others, and swearing to stand by each other or die together, they left the apartment.

The Kabyle Hamed, one of the couriers, was well known to us at Bouffarik. This lad has a fine, frank, laughing countenance, and a good character; but having got a taste for brandy, he prefers the life of Algiers to any other. There, indeed, anisette, women, and music, all night long, are to be had at little cost. Having had experience of this, the recollection of Algiers haunted him on his return to his mountains, and he one day ventured to propose to his wife that he should take refuge at Blidah among the French. His wife in alarm denounced him to the chief of the tribe, and Hamed was seized, flogged, robbed of all his fortune-a few sheep and a cow-whilst his wife was taken from him and given to another. Poor and abandoned Hamed came over to us, first to satisfy a sentiment of vengeance, and then to make his fortune-that is, to gain, at the peril of his life, as promptly as possible, a thousand francs. As soon as he has amassed this sum, it is his purpose to carry off a mistress he has his eye upon in a neighbouring tribe, and then to establish himself with her

VOL. I.

L

at Blidah.

This mistress, more loving and

devoted than his legitimate wife, has consented to follow him. At each journey Hamed calls on her, and gives her a silk handkerchief, or some such little present. In return, he gets eggs, cakes, and above all, caresses, which never fall short. He then returns happy, confident, and ready to recommence his adventurous courses. But he always adds a condition: that we will never ask him to pass over the mountain by night. Why? For this reason:

The hill of Mouzaia was the theatre of the principal operations of the campaigns of last year. Many fell there, and the roads on the north and on the south, and even the smallest ravines which adjoin the mountain, are full of bodies horribly shrivelled and distorted by the sun, and atrociously mutilated. This shocking spectacle, so revolting to all, has acted with extraordinary force on the Arab imagination. A legend is current among the natives that these unburied dead can find no mercy with God on account of their mutilation, and that they assemble every night on the top of the mountain to groan and weep together. An unfortunate Arab passing there a short time before, heard the lamentations of these desolate skeletons. Fear drove him mad,

but in a lucid interval he told how that, for more than an hour, he had been pursued by their groans. In vain he fled; every bush uttered a sigh or a sob; at last he lost his senses, and was found in the morning stretched senseless on the ground by the wood of Olives. This story has gained a fixed belief through the country, and hence Hamed's stipulation, that he shall never be asked to cross the hill by night.

About a month ago two European deserters arrived here; the one from the Zephyrs, and the other from the foreign legion. The name of the latter is Glockner. He is a Bavarian, the son of an old commissariat in the service of France, and the nephew of one of the most distinguished military men of Bavaria. His history is almost a romance. He was first a student in the school of cadets of Munich; in consequence of some pranks he was sent thence into a regiment of light horse. His ardent imagination, and his love of adventures, soon, however, drew him into new troubles, and he deserted, and went over to the service of France. Being coldly received, as all deserters are, he was enrolled in the foreign legion. On his arrival in Africa his reception was still worse, and one fine morning, attracted no doubt by a desire to explore the unknown-the will-o'-thewisp of his existence, he passed over to the

Arabs. With them he remained three years. Carried off afterwards by the Kabyles, he was sold in one of the markets of the interior to a chief of the tribe of Beni-Moussa. After the lapse of a year he contrived to escape from the tent of his master, and started off, barefooted, a rug on his shoulders, a camel's halter by way of a turban round his head, and a pilgrim's staff in his hand, towards the south, wherever that direction might lead him. In this way he advanced as far as the desert, stopping every evening among some new tribe, announcing himself by the habitual salutation of the Musselman, "Ho! master of the Douar! here is a guest from God!" In this character he was always well received, was sure of food and shelter, and went away the next morning without ever being asked "Whence come you?" or, "Where are you going?" That concerned nobody, and nobody inquired about it. Following his destiny, Glockner traversed a part of the Sahara, and reached the city of Tedjini-Ain Mhadi; thence he proceeded to Boghar, Taza, Tekedempt, Mascara, Medeah, and Milianah. Being subsequently compulsively enrolled among the regulars of El-Berkani, he took part in the two campaigns of 1839 and 1840. He was decorated by Abd-el-Kader for a wound he received