information and listened to suggestions on all sides, and allowed any one to tell him, and to prove to him, that he was wrong, when he indulged in the brilliant paradoxes to which his enterprising temper was not a little prone. We all of us lived together in the most intimate harmony. The oldest and most tried friends of the general, such as the commandants Illiers and Bentzman-the philosophical captain, as we called him—were the first to join in our amusements. The captain good-naturedly allowed us to rally him on his favourite subject, political economy, and the grave meditations thereupon that sometimes carried him up into the clouds. Thus passed the hours rapidly away, and yet we sighed over this monotonous peace, which seemed as if it would last for Doubtless our social meetings and occupations at Chateau Neuf were pleasant, but we should have preferred nevertheless incursions into some unknown country, and bivouacking amidst enemies' balls. This was the opinion also of two native officers, two Douairs, attached to the person of the General. One of them, Caddour-Myloud, an out-and-out fox, knew better than any shearer of Arab sheep, how, as the proverb says, to fish in troubled waters; but his cunning,

ever.

his intelligence, his knowledge of men and things in the country, and the numerous services he had rendered and still rendered us, gave him a long tether of impunity for his misdeeds. The other Ismäel-Ould-Caddi, was one of the bravest of the Douairs. He was the nephew of Mustaphaben-Ishmäel, whose renown has reached France, and a true Moorish Knight, of the same stamp as old Spanish chronicles represent the Abéncérages of Grenada, so valiantly the foremost in danger. One of these heroes, then, from the love of the smell of powder, and the other longing for prey and plunder, desired as much as we did to hear the sound of bullets. And partially to content us all, an order was given in the month of December, 1846, to hold ourselves in readiness for a march. But our expedition was not a very perilous one. The General treated us like children, giving us just "a-rub-a-dub-dub," of the drum to satisfy our caprice. We were only to walk in fine military procession through tracts of country, where, instead of finding rebel tribes to fight with, we should meet but with Arab friends hastening to salute the governor of the province.

Our little troop was soon ready. vitation of the general we were

On the injoined by

M. de Laussat, his son-in-law, who had become possessor of the beautiful property of Akbeil, ten leagues from Oran. We all liked him greatly. His cheerful and serious temper, and his kindheartedness as delicate as a woman's, had gained him our most cordial regard. It was with joy, then, that we shook him by the hand, when he appeared at the rendezvous, the court of Chateau Neuf, precisely at eight o'clock in the morning. He was mounted on a bay horse, the only one that he could procure at the moment; but the poor brute was so thin, so transparent, and had such a famished look, that we could not restrain our laughter, and gave him on the spot, laughing heartily the while, the name of the Apocalypse. In spite of the bad weather with which we were menaced, we were not, you see, in a melancholy mood when we took the road to Mascara.

General Alava, formerly Spanish ambassador at Paris, when on a visit to Ceuta in his youth, wished to get on the top of the ramparts of the city, to take a view of the surrounding country. An old officer who was with him held him back, and then raised up a hat on the top of a gun, which was immediately shot at from beyond the walls. "Recollect in future," added the officer,

"that as sure as a Castilian shows himself, there is an Arab to aim at him." So it was for ten years with the French at Oran. Hardly could the cannon of the ramparts protect Douaires and Zmélas who came over to us during the years of our occupation. The escort of the General was chosen from among these famous tribes; and the most illustrious of our allies solicited the honour of accompanying the bou-haraoua (literally the father of the baton) through his own territory. This was Mohamed-Ould-Caddour, the man of iron, with the eye of fire. At the smell of powder, always the first, his arm struck, without tiring, till commanded to stop. But he knew not why he struck, else why had he got the name of Caddour the Brute, for Caddour the brave would otherwise have been his better merited designation. Then came Addaould-Athman, the knight of the black morning, and El-Arbi-ben-Yusef, the head of the goum; but the son of the brave General Mustapha, who had been struck by a ball in the wood of Flittas, still hardly more than a lad, was better received by the General, and more respected by the Arabs, than any of our native escort. Everywhere on our route there sprung up souvenirs of the Douair tribe, and of the noble General whose son was with us.

At the moment of our departure, a violent west wind swept over the clouds. Nothing after the first league, from the fort St. Croix and the barren ridges west of Miserghin, to the salt lake to our right, and the mountains of Tessalh before us, parallel to the sea, met our wearied gaze, but plains, and stretches of land uncultivated and waste; far from the basin of Oran the olive forest of Muley-Ismaël could not be seen. In the east, near the sea, were mountains and hills, and broad capes of land; but everywhere the prospect was most cheerless. In proportion as we advanced, however, the tents of the Douairs became more numerous; and we soon entered on the fertile plain of Melata, where the Arab labourers trace the furrows, of very slight depth, in their fields, with a plough like that which may be seen in prints of the earliest ages of Rome. Those populous and powerful tribes, the Douairs and the Zmélas, came, originally, if we may believe the popular tradition, in 1707, from Morocco, in the time of the Bey Bou-Chelagrham (the father of the Mustachio) as followers of the Cheriff MuleyIsmaël. They were beaten by the bey of Mascara, yielded, became his faithful anxiliaries, and contributed powerfully towards the expulsion of the