borne the brunt of the storm, such minutes as may count for hours, when finally the General, informed by Lieut. Dariule, who had traversed the ravine occupied by the enemy alone, of what was going on, arrived himself, with a battalion, to their aid. It was the native battalion, commanded by M. Valicon. We then fell back upon the columns, carrying with us the dead, the wounded, and the scattered arms. Then only was it known that a ball had shattered the knee of Commandant Clerc. He had been twenty minutes since on horseback, without uttering a complaint; for he feared that the slightest hesitation in the moment of peril might have been fatal, so suppressed every expression of pain.

As soon as we had joined the column, our first inquiries were after our Colonel. He had been placed on a litter under the shade of bushes to protect him from the heat of the sun. We arrived in time only to hear the death-rattles in his throat. Dr. Bécœur and the surgeons could give us no hope, and the brave man in a few minutes breathed his last. There was no time for lamenting. Hardly was he dead, when his litter was placed on one side of a mule; on the other side was a chasseur, with a broken thigh. The trumpets sounded, the drums beat, and the

column resumed its march. As we were entering the defile of Tifour, the native battalion in its turn supported the burthen of the day.

Captain Valicon, mounted on a white horse, and constantly at the head of the riflemen, when he commanded, seemed to have fascinated the balls. Opposing stratagem to stratagem, thicket to thicket, ambush to ambush, our native sharpshooters glided like serpents among the bushes, and retorted vigorously their own mode of warfare on the Arabs. The officers, always first in danger, set them the example. One of these sharpshooters slipped behind a great clump of mastic trees; a Kabyle approached, a ball whizzed, the Arab fell dead. The sharpshooter reloaded and waited. Another Arab, looking carefully about him, advanced with cautious steps, to carry off the body. A second shot stretched him a corpse. Four of the enemy in this way were by a single rifleman killed, who then, proud of his address and his sang froid, returned to the column.

We were now at Touiza, the place whence we had marched so gaily three days before. Here we bivouacked again. It was three o'clock when we took up our ground. The Arabs had taken up their position on an opposite hill, their multitudinous buzz, and the noise of their tam tam

reached our camp. We each occupied the same place as before our departure. The tent of Colonel Berthier was pitched also in the same spot as before. Silence and respect surrounded it; and two sentinels watched day and night over the bed of death. Six large tents were filled with the wounded; others with the bodies of those who had fallen. At night graves were dug within the camp wherein to bury them. Alas! they were numerous. Great fires were then lit over the graves, that the corpses might escape the profanation of the Arabs; and this duty accomplished, every one returned to his tent.

The next day was a day of rest. The little barley that remained in the sacks was given to the horses, and this was all the food they had, till we should discover some provender in the surrounding country. The body of Colonel Berthier was to be conveyed to Mostaganem, that his tomb might be near his regiment, or rather, for so it might be called, his family. For this purpose it was necessary to embalm it, as the sun of September would have otherwise produced speedy decomposition. Fortunately, therefore, the rivulet near the bivouac was full of aromatic herbs, and with these, in the course of the day, the embalming was performed. The Colonel, dressed in his uniform,

enveloped in his cloak, rolled up in his tent, a fitting coffin, was placed on a strong mule, which travelled twenty-five leagues a day, and thus was transported to Mostaganem.

Not to be quite idle, the Arabs kept up a pastoral fire on our guards; and the day after our departure all their horsemen followed us, but at a respectful distance. From Touiza the valley widens up to the last hills, which gradually decline into the great plain of the Mina. This plain derives its name from a river which takes its source on the high lands of the Sersous, traverses the country of the Sdamas, sweeps round the Flittas, and debouches on the south east of the plain, running nearly in a straight line, for three leagues and a half, to the mountains of Bel-Assel, then bending to the right, it follows for three leagues this new direction, till it forms a junction with the Chelif, that runs from an opposite quarter, the east, when the joint stream, fifteen miles further on, falls into the sea. On this immense plain neither tree nor shelter is to be met with; here and there only are some bushes of the wild jujube, occasionally a slight unduction of earth, and a salt lake. This dead passage is, so to speak, set in the frame of a naked and vapoury horizon. Parts of the plain are so

ravined by rains as to be impassable in the winter. The Mina itself runs between steep banks twentyfive feet deep. The fertility of that portion of the plain called the lower Mina is proverbial. Its alluvial soil may be partly watered by a river lock which the Turks had constructed at Relizann, but which the French have removed. One day this tract will be covered with rich harvests, but in 1845 it echoed only with the musket shots of our Arab enemies. Our rebounding bombs, however, kept them off, and whilst our wounded were conveyed to Bel-Assel, the column, inclining to the left, reached Relizann.

END OF VOL. I.

London: M. S. Myers, 22, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden.