Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

Mr Urquhart and Mr Dumas each made some stay at Tangiers, but, as will easily be understood, they employed their time very differently, and have scarcely an idea in common on the subject. The one talks politics, dissects languages and makes antiquarian investigations; the other, after the shooting match above detailed, and some rather high-flown attempts at description of scenery, goes fishing and boar-hunting, attends a Jewish wedding, and purchases half the stock in trade of David Azencot, an honest Israelite, and a wealthy dealer in sabres, burnous, scarfs, lamps, chibouks, and a thousand and one other Moorish curiosities. The Scot is didactic and dull; the Frenchman frivolous, but amusing. Of course they both visit Gibraltar, and devote a chapter to that remarkable fortress; and here we must say that M. Dumas carries it hollow, as far as pleasant tone and good taste go. As is customary with him, he is flippant and good-humouredly impertinent; but he shows himself grateful for a hospitable reception, and does not rake up old stories to the disadvantage of the dead. He begins with the notable discovery that Gibraltar has a foggy atmosphere. The English, he says, being used to a fog in their own country, have manufactured one, by the help of sea-coal, upon the coast of Spain. The English, he affirms, strive against and vanquish nature herself. “They have produced dahlias that smell like pinks, cherries without stones, gooseberries without grains, and they are now rearing oxen without legs. Behold, for instance, those of the county of Durham; they have but one joint, and walk almost upon their belly. Soon they will have no joints at all, and will walk quite upon their belly. Thus it is with the fog. There was no fog at Gibraltar before it belonged to the English; but the English were accustomed to fog, they missed it, and they made it.... On entering Gibraltar, I felt that I quitted Spain. Tangiers, which we had just left, was much more Spanish than Gibraltar. Hardly had we passed the gate, when we were transported into England. No more pointed pavements, no more latticed houses and green _jalousies_, no more of those charming _patios_, with marble fountains in the midst of the shops: but clothiers, cutlers, armourers, hotels with the arms of Great Britain, flagged footpaths, fair women, red officers, and English horses. Tom Thumb had lent us his boots, and each step we had taken from the deck of the Véloce had carried us seven leagues. We entered a _restaurant_. We ate raw beefsteaks, sandwiches, butter, moistening them with ale and porter; but when, after breakfast, we asked for a glass of Malaga, they were obliged to send out for it. On the other hand, the tea was irreproachable.” This is a very fair skit on the Englishman’s habit of carrying his country’s usages into climates for which they are totally unadapted. Although feeling, according to his own account, far from at his ease in this British military colony, of whose warlike aspect and regulations he sketches a ludicrous caricature, M. Dumas would not leave it without paying a visit to the governor; and, lest the anonymous lady to whom his African letters are addressed should be unable to comprehend this unusual (?) desire on his part to make the acquaintance of those in high places, he beguiles the time, till the governor returns from his ride, by telling the story of Lavalette. No matter that it has been pretty often told; related _à la Dumas_, that is to say, with a superabundance of detail, it covers a few pages, and explains his wish for an interview with the English general. “Sir Robert Wilson, a magnificent old man, sixty-six or sixty-eight years of age, who still breaks his own horses, and rides ten leagues every day, gave me a charming reception. I was so imprudent as to express my admiration of some Moorish pottery-wares upon his sideboard, and I found them in my cabin on returning to the Véloce. If anything could have induced me to remain another day at Gibraltar, it would have been the pressing invitation Sir Robert Wilson was kind enough to give me. Impressed with a lively sentiment of admiration, I left this noble and loyal-hearted man. May God grant long and happy days to him, to whom another man was indebted for long days of happiness.” All his admiration of Lavalette’s saviour was insufficient to detain him in Gibraltar, which he declares himself to have quitted with as strong a sensation of relief as Napoleon’s ex-aide-de-camp can have felt when, thanks to Sir Robert Wilson’s chivalry, he safely set foot across France’s frontier. French and English are now well used to each other’s jocular sarcasm, and are never the worse friends for it, because it is the interest of both to remain in amity. There is no venom in M. Dumas’ playful satire, which one glances over with a smile, quitting it with regret for the croakings of Mr Urquhart. This gentleman has some very peculiar notions respecting Gibraltar, whose restoration to Spain he strongly advocates, and to whose retention by Great Britain he ascribes a frightful catalogue of evils, including sundry European wars, fifty-five millions sterling unprofitably sunk, and the undying hatred of Spain towards this country—bringing no less a witness than Napoleon to the truth of this last assertion. The fifty-five millions are “suggested as a rough guess” at the actual outlay; and besides them, we are assured, hundreds of millions have been spent on wars entailed by our possession of Gibraltar. All this is too vaguely put, seriously to challenge argument or refutation; and as to the “undying hatred,” why, the anti-English party in Spain may occasionally bluster about the hole in the national honour, and so forth; but the great majority of the nation never bestow a thought upon the matter, and the smuggling portion of the community—no uninfluential class—find Gibraltar exceedingly convenient for their contraband traffic. But Mr Urquhart’s statements on this head are very loose, and some of them very fallacious; and he attains the climax of absurdity and misrepresentation when he says, that “the fiscal regulations of Spain, which sustain this (contraband) traffic, would long since have fallen but for its (Gibraltar’s) retention by England. We therefore lose the legitimate trade of all Spain, for the smuggling profits (which go to the Spaniards) at this port.” The sort of jingle of plausibility in these sentences will impose only upon persons profoundly ignorant of the subject. The assertion is made in the teeth of notorious facts, and is opposed alike to truth and to common sense. The more difficult, dangerous, and expensive smuggling could be rendered, the less would be its injurious effect on the Spanish revenue, and the less likely would be a reduction of duties. The smuggling facilities afforded by Gibraltar, by the Portuguese frontier and the Pyrenean line, (Mr Urquhart, it has been seen, wholly ignores the two latter channels, and lays the high-duty system entirely at the door of Gibraltar,) have, by limiting the custom-house receipts to the merest trifle, contributed, more than any other cause, to fix the attention of the Spanish government on the advantage to be derived from reductions in their monstrous tariff—reductions which the last four months have beheld carried out, although as yet but to an exceedingly limited extent. This subject, however, has of late been so fully discussed in our pages that we shall not here pursue it further, particularly as it is evident that Mr Urquhart has still to become acquainted with its rudiments. It were more amusing, although scarcely more profitable, to dwell upon a subsequent chapter, where, reverting to Gibraltar, the honourable gentleman tilts at its late governor, and raises the Russian bugbear—a goblin which he would doubtless always manage to evoke, in whatsoever part of the world he chanced to find himself. In portentous italics he tells us as how “a Russian steam-vessel of war was admitted to the quay of her Majesty’s vessels to get coal, which was furnished her from the royal stores, while French men-of-war were allowed no such indulgence; on departing she _was saluted by the fortress with twenty-one guns_! This I witnessed with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears. The assembled crowd said, ‘_Es loco_’—‘he is mad.’” Is Mr Urquhart certain to whom the crowd’s exclamation referred? His pet crotchet is by this time pretty generally recognised; and even his best friends, and a few partial admirers, cannot choose but smile at the tenacity of his monomania, and at the moonshine illumination he throws upon Russian designs and their British abettors. Truly he is a dead hand at a mare’s nest. With a scuttle of coals and a blank cartridge, he would build up a powder-plot, and talks darkly and ominously about “the system of government (in England) by secresy and intrigue.” We do think, however, he would have done more gracefully to let Sir Robert Wilson alone. “Since the above was written,” he says, “Sir Robert Wilson has disappeared from the scene. I do not on that account suppress what I have written, as I have not brought any charge against him.” No new charge; but he has revived and dragged forth an old one, wellnigh forgotten under the moss of years and the laurels of the departed veteran. It is no generous hand that will approach, otherwise than kindly and with reverence, the memory of the gallant soldier of the Peninsula, the brave defender of Portugal, the stout fighter by Dresden, of whom it has so truly been said, that “he ever was foremost where danger was to be encountered or glory won.”[8]

Totally dissimilar in character as are the two works under examination, the transitions from the one to the other are yet astonishingly easy. Thus Mr Urquhart’s Muscovite nightmare leads us, in the most natural manner possible, to a tale of a cotton nightcap, related by his witty contemporary. At Tunis, M. Dumas was quite confounded by the prevalence of this unpoetical but comfortable head-dress, which he constantly met with in the streets and on the quays. Puzzled at its naturalisation in a clime so remote from its native country, (an honour which he claims for France,) and being of an inquisitive turn of mind, he instituted inquiries, and received for explanation an anecdote, which we shall here transcribe, as nearly as possible, in his own phraseology. We feel that we neglect Mr Urquhart, and ought by right to give precedence of extract to his muffin-investigation; but really the nightcap story is much more amusing, and quite as important, although it may possibly owe more to its narrator’s imagination.

About twenty years ago, according to M. Dumas, under the reign of a former Bey, a ship bound from Marseilles to Gibraltar, with a cargo of cotton nightcaps, was driven by a gale into Tunis roads. At that period a duty was levied on vessels availing themselves of the port of Tunis; and this duty, depending on the caprice of the Raïa-marsa, or captain of the port, was very arbitrary. The Marseilles captain was naturally subjected to this impost; still more naturally the Raïa-marsa fixed it at an exorbitant sum. There was, however, no alternative but to pay: the unlucky speculator in nightcaps lay beneath the paw of the lion. With the loss of part of his skin, he slipped between the beast’s claws, and ran to throw himself at the feet of the Bey. The Bey hearkened to the complaint of the Giaour. When he had heard it, and had satisfied himself that the amount of extortion had been rightly stated by its victim, he said:—

“Do you desire Turkish justice or French justice?”

After long reflection, the Marseillese, with a confidence that did honour to the legislation of his native land, replied:

“French justice.”

“’Tis good,” replied the Bey; “return to thy ship and wait.”

The seaman kissed his highness’s papooshes, returned to his ship, and waited. He waited one month, two months, three months. At the end of the third month, finding the time rather long, he went ashore, and watched for the Bey to pass by. The Bey appeared: the captain threw himself at his feet.

“Highness,” said he, “you have forgotten me?”

“By no means,” replied the Bey; “you are the captain of the French ship who complained to me of the Raïa-marsa?”

“And to whom you promised justice!”

“Yes; but French justice.”

“Certainly.”

“Well, of what do you now complain?”

“Of having waited three months for it.”

“Listen,” said the Bey. “Three years ago your consul treated me with disrespect; I complained to your king, claiming justice at his hands, and three years have I waited for it: come back in three years, and we will see.”

“The deuce!” exclaimed the captain, who began to understand; “and is there no means of abridging the delay, your highness?”

“You asked for French justice.”

“But if I had asked for Turkish justice?”

“That were different: it had been done you on the instant.”

“Is it too late to change my mind?”

“It is never too late to do wisely.”

“Turkish justice then, highness—grant me Turkish justice!”

“’Tis good. Follow me.”

The captain kissed the Bey’s papooshes, and followed him to his palace. Arrived there: “How much did the Raïa-marsa exact from you?” inquired the Bey.

“Fifteen hundred francs.”

“And you consider that sum too large?”

“Highness, such is my humble opinion.”

“Too large by how much?”

“By at least two-thirds.”

“’Tis just; here are fifteen hundred piastres, making exactly a thousand francs.”

“Highness,” said the captain, “you are the balance of divine justice,” and he kissed the papooshes of the Bey, and was about to depart. The Bey stopped him.

“Have you no other claim to prefer?” he said.

“One I certainly have, highness, but I dare not.”

“Dare, and speak.”

“It seems to me that I deserve compensation for the time I have lost, whilst awaiting the memorable decision your highness has just pronounced.”

“’Tis just.”

“The rather,” continued the captain, emboldened by the Bey’s approbation, “that I was expected at Gibraltar in the beginning of the winter, which is now over, and the favourable season for the sale of my cargo is past.”

“And of what does thy cargo consist?” demanded the Bey.

“Highness, of cotton nightcaps.”

“What are cotton nightcaps?”

The captain took from his pocket a specimen of his goods, and presented it to the Bey.

“For what purpose is this utensil?” said the latter.

“To cover the head,” replied the captain. And joining example to precept, he put on the nightcap.

“It is very ugly,” quoth the Bey.

“But very comfortable,” retorted the captain.

“And you say that my delay to do you justice has occasioned you a loss?”

“Of ten thousand francs, at least, highness.”

The Bey called his secretary. The secretary entered, crossed his hands upon his breast, and bowed to the ground. Then he took his pen, and the Bey dictated to him a few lines, which, being in Arabic, were totally unintelligible to the captain. When the secretary had done writing: “’Tis good,” said the Bey; “let this decree be proclaimed throughout the city.” Again the secretary crossed his hands upon his breast, bent himself to the earth, and departed.

“Craving your highness’s pardon,” said the captain, “may I venture to inquire the substance of that decree?”

“Certainly; it is an order to all the Jews in Tunis to cover their heads, within twenty-four hours from this time, with a cotton nightcap, under penalty of decapitation.”

“Ah! _tron de l’air_!” exclaimed the Marseillese; “I understand.”

“Then if you understand, return to your ship, and make the best profit you can of your goods; you will soon have customers.” The captain threw himself at the feet of the Bey, kissed his papooshes and returned to his ship. Meanwhile, by sound of trumpet, and in all the streets of Tunis, the following proclamation was made.

“Praises to Allah, the universal, to whom all things return!

“The slave of Allah glorified, who implores his pardon and absolution, the Mouchir Sidi-Hussein-Pacha, Bey of Tunis:

“Forbids every Jew, Israelite, or Nazarene, to appear in the streets of Tunis without a cotton nightcap upon his accursed and infidel head.

“This, under pain of decapitation.

“Giving to the unbelievers twenty-four hours to provide themselves with the said covering.

“To this order all obedience is due.

“Written under date of the 20th April, in the year 1243 of the Hegira.

(Signed,) “SIDI HUSSEIN.”

You may fancy the sensation excited in Tunis by such a proclamation as this. The twenty-five thousand Jews who compose the Israelite population of the city looked aghast, and asked each other what was this eighth plague which thus descended upon the people chosen of the Lord. The most learned Rabbis were appealed to, but not one of them had a clear notion of what a cotton nightcap was. At last a _Gourni_—it is thus the Leghorn Jews are named—remembered to have once seen the crew of a Norman ship enter that port with the head-dress in question. It was something to know the article required; the next thing to be ascertained was, where it could be procured. Twelve thousand cotton nightcaps are not to be picked up at every street corner. The men wrung their hands, the women tore their hair, the children ate the dust upon the highway. Just when the cries of anguish were most piercing, and the desolation at its climax, a report spread through the multitude. It said that a ship laden with cotton nightcaps was then in the port. Inquiry was made. It was, said rumour, a three-master from Marseilles. The question was, would there be nightcaps enough? Were there twelve thousand of them—a cotton nightcap for everybody? There was a rush to the water side; in an instant a flotilla of boats, crowded almost to sinking, covered the lake, and it was a hot race out to the roads. At the Goulette there was fouling, and four or five boats were capsized; but as there are but four feet of water in the lake of Tunis, nobody was drowned. They cleared the narrow passage, and approached the good ship _Notre Dame de la Garde_, whose captain was upon deck expecting their arrival. Through his telescope he had beheld the embarkation, the race, the accidents—everything in short. In less than ten minutes three hundred boats surrounded his vessel, and twelve thousand throats vociferated, “Cotton nightcaps! cotton nightcaps!” The captain signed with his hand for silence, and the noisy mob were mute as mice.

“You want cotton nightcaps?” said he.

“Yes! yes! yes!” was the reply on every side.

“All very well,” said the captain; “but you are aware, gentlemen, that cotton nightcaps are just now in great request. My letters from Europe advise a rise in the article.”

“We know that,” said the same voices—“we know that, and ve vill make a sacrifice.”

“Listen to me,” said the captain; “I am an honest man.”

The Jews trembled. The captain’s words were their invariable exordium when about to rob a Christian.

“I will not take advantage of your position to impose upon you.”

The Jews turned pale.

“The cotton nightcaps cost me two francs apiece, one with the other.”

“Vell, it ish not too dear,” muttered the Jews in their beards.

“I will be satisfied with a hundred per cent profit,” continued the captain.

“Hosannah!” cried the Jews.

“At four francs apiece, cotton nightcaps!” said the captain, and twelve thousand hands were extended. “Order!” he continued; “come up on the larboard side, and go down on the starboard.” Every Jew crossed the vessel in turn, carried away a nightcap, and left four francs. The captain’s receipts were forty-eight thousand francs, whereof thirty-six thousand were clear profit. The twelve thousand Jews returned to Tunis, every man plus a cotton nightcap, and minus four francs.

The next day the captain presented himself at the palace of the Bey, at whose feet he prostrated himself, and kissed his papooshes.

“Well?” said the Bey.

“Your highness,” said the captain, “I come to thank you.”

“You are satisfied?”

“Delighted.”

“And you prefer Turkish justice to French justice?”

“There is no comparison between them.”

“This is not all,” said the Bey. And, turning to his secretary, he bade him take his pen and write at his dictation. The writing was a second decree, forbidding the Jews, under pain of death, to appear in the streets of Tunis with cotton nightcaps on their heads, and granting them twenty-four hours to dispose of their recent purchases as advantageously as possible.

“Do you understand?” said the Bey to the captain.

“Oh, highness!” cried the Marseillese in an ecstasy of delight, “you are the greatest of all Beys, past, present, and to come.”

“Return to your vessel, and wait.”

Half an hour later, the trumpets sounded in the streets of Tunis, and the town’s-people thronged to the unusual summons. Amongst the listeners the Jews were easily recognised by their triumphant air, and by their cotton nightcaps cocked over one ear. The decree was read in a loud and intelligible voice. The Jews’ first impulse was to throw their nightcaps into the fire. On reflection, however, the head of the synagogue saw that twenty-four hours were allowed to get rid of the proscribed articles. The Jew is essentially a calculating animal. The Jews of Tunis calculated that it was better to lose one half, or even three quarters, than to lose the whole. Having twenty-four hours to turn in, they began by driving a bargain with the boatmen, who on the previous occasion had abused their haste, and overcharged them. Two hours later, the French ship was again surrounded by boats.

“Captain! captain!” cried twelve thousand voices. “Cotton nightcaps to shell! cotton nightcaps to shell!”

“Pooh!” said the captain.

“Captain, itsh a bargain; captain, you shall have them sheap.”

“I have received a letter from Europe,” said the captain.

“Vell! vell!”

“It advises a great fall in cotton nightcaps.”

“Captain, ve vill looshe upon them.”

“So be it,” said the captain. “I can only give you half price.”

“Ve vill take it.”

“I bought them at two francs. Let those who will give them for one come on board by the starboard gangway, and depart by the larboard.”

“Oh, captain!”

“It’s to take or to leave, as you like.”

“Captain.”

“All hands to make sail!” shouted the captain.

“Vat are you doing, captain? vat are you doing?”

“Lifting my anchor, to be sure.”

“Ah now, captain, can’t you shay two francs?”

The captain continued to give orders for sailing.

“Vell, captain, ve must shay thirty sous.”

The mainsail expanded its folds, and the capstan began to creak.

“Captain, captain! ve vill take your franc!”

“Stop,” cried the captain.

One by one the Jews ascended the starboard side and descended to larboard, leaving their cotton nightcaps, and receiving a franc apiece. For a miserable three francs they had twice saved their heads: it was not dear. As to the captain, he had got back his goods, and made a clear profit of thirty-six thousand francs. As he was a man who knew how to behave, he put eighteen thousand francs in his boat, went ashore, and presented himself before the Bey, at whose feet he again prostrated himself, and whose papooshes he once more kissed.

“I come to present my humble thanks to your highness.”

“Are you satisfied?”

“Overjoyed.”

“Do you consider the indemnity sufficient?”

“Too much. And I come to offer your highness half my net profit of thirty-six thousand francs.”

“Nonsense!” said the Bey. “Have you forgotten that I promised you Turkish justice?”

“I perfectly remember.”

“Well, Turkish justice is done gratis.”

“_Tron de l’air!_” cried the captain: “in France a judge would not have been contented with half; he would have taken at least three quarters.”

“You mistake,” said the Bey; “he would have taken the whole.”

“Aha!” exclaimed the captain, “I see you know France as well as I do.”

And once more he went down into the dust to kiss the Bey’s papooshes, but the Bey gave him his hand. The captain returned to his ship, and a quarter of an hour later he left the African coast under press of sail. He feared lest the Bey might change his mind.

Their brief experience of the nightcap convinced the Tunisian Jews of its superiority to the yellow caps and black turbans with which they were wont to cover their infidel heads; and upon the death of the Bey they obtained permission from his successor to adopt the cotton covering, whose wear previously entailed decapitation. Such, at least, is the explanation given by the ingenious M. Dumas of the naturalisation of Paris nightcaps on the Barbary coast.

Incidentally, and rather as things told him than of his own knowledge, Mr Urquhart gives some brief details of the celebrated French campaign against Morocco, in which Marshal Bugeaud won his dukedom, and Admiral Joinville immortalised his name. His account of the affair of Isly is contemptuous enough, and will assuredly entail upon him the indignation of France, or at least of that portion of Frenchmen who believe, or affect to believe, that there was a battle and a victory—not a surprise and a scamper, unexpected by the assailed, and bloodless to the assailants. “On the 14th August,” says Mr Urquhart, “the son of the sultan is awakened by an alarm, ‘_The French army is in sight_.’ He tells his people the marshal is coming to pay him a visit, before his departure; and after giving orders for a tent to be pitched, and coffee—which he knew the French liked—to be sought for and prepared, he again assumed, to use the phraseology of Antar, ‘the attitude of repose.’ He is again awakened—‘_The French are on us_’—and the French _were_ on them—found _the coffee ready_, and, instead of drinking, spilt it. The loss of the Moors was eight hundred men by _suffocation_.” Compare this statement with the reflection of Alexander Dumas, on approaching the mountains of Djema-r’ Azaouat. “Behind yonder hills,” he fervently exclaims, “are two great mementos, equal to Thermopylæ and Marathon—the combat of Sidi-Ibrahim, and the battle of Isly.” Funny Mr Dumas! how gravely he says these droll things. How many persons, out of France, remember to have heard of this modern Thermopylæ? We seriously suggest to Mr Dumas, whose indefatigable pen, although more particularly devoted to romance and the drama, occasionally flies at history, to write that of the conquest and colonisation of Algeria, in which would naturally be included the episode of the campaign against the Moors. We are quite sure his account of the battle of Isly will differ widely from that of Mr Urquhart: as widely as, or still more so than that of Admiral Bruat, which was addressed to the inhabitants of the Society Islands, in a proclamation quoted as a note to _The Pillars of Hercules_, and which Mr Urquhart declares, with much truth, to be highly deserving of a place in history. M. Dumas seems to us to be exactly cut out for the historian of his countrymen’s African exploits. The razzias and crop-burnings, the bloody skirmishes of Zouaves and Bedouins, the constant pursuit and many narrow escapes of the Emir, will acquire additionally romantic interest from the picturesque handling of the author of the _Mousquetaires_, who declares, in the pages of _Le Véloce_, that he is not only a soldier’s son, but himself a soldier at heart. With what glowing eloquence will he refute the various charges brought against his countrymen in Africa! “If Abd-el-Kader,” says Mr Urquhart, “had not been playing a game, at all events a game was played in his person. He was necessary to the French military system of Algiers. He is known to have been three times in their hands, and to have been suffered to escape.” This accusation has frequently been brought against the French generals in Africa. If such collusion existed, it was not subscribed to, according to M. Dumas, by Colonel Montagnac, who commanded, in the year 1845, the garrison of Djema-r’ Azaouat, and who had repeatedly sworn to take the Emir or lose his life. One day an Arab presented himself at the colonel’s quarters. He came from the chief of the neighbouring tribe of Souhalias, who was, he said, more devoted than ever to the French cause; and who sent word that, if the garrison would make a sortie, and place themselves in ambuscade on the territory of his tribe, he engaged to deliver Abd-el-Kader into their hands. Confiding in the Arab’s promise, Montagnac issued forth at the head of four hundred and eight men and twelve officers, including sixty-five cavalry. But on the second day he found he was betrayed, and that the promised capture was but a bait to lure him from his stronghold. The little band retraced their steps, and were within five leagues of Djema-r’ Azaouat, when they were menaced by an overwhelming force of Arabs and Kabyles; and in the distance the Emir himself, his banner displayed at the head of his regulars, was seen descending the hills. Two companies of French riflemen remained to guard the baggage; and the others, with the cavalry, advanced against the foe. After a desperate struggle, the main body was cut to pieces, or made prisoners; and a company, advancing from the bivouac to its support, was surrounded and exterminated. Of these combats, Mr Dumas gives a minute account, introducing dramatic dialogues between the men and officers, and imparting to the whole scene his usual vivid and animated colouring. Thus, when the company from the baggage-guard is marching up, only sixty strong, to the assistance of its comrades, and is suddenly surrounded, we find the following graphic account of its proceedings:—

“The commanding officer had but just time to order formation of square. The manœuvre was executed under the fire of ten thousand Arabs (!) as it would have been in the Champ-de-Mars. Of all these men, only one showed signs of regret—none of fear. This was a young rifleman, twenty years old, named Ismaël.

“‘Oh, _commandant_!’ he exclaimed, ‘we are lost!’

“The commandant smiled upon the poor lad; he understood that at twenty years of age he knew so little of life that he had a right to regret it.

“‘How old are you?’ he asked of the young soldier.

“‘One-and-twenty,’ was the reply.

“‘Well, you will have eighteen years less to suffer than I have had; look at me, and learn how to die with firm heart and head erect.’

“He had scarcely spoken, when a bullet struck his forehead, and he fell as he had promised to fall. Five minutes later, Captain Burgaud had likewise fallen.

“‘Come, my friends,’ said the non-commissioned adjutant Thomas, ‘one step forward: let us die upon the bodies of our officers.’

“These were the last distinct words that were heard; the death-rattle followed them, then the silence of the grave. In its turn, the second company had disappeared. All that now remained was the company under Captain de Géreaux, left in charge of the camp.”

Mr Dumas’ habit of writing melodrama renders him very effective in this sort of romantic military chronicle, which is pretty well received in France, where people are used to the style. It is compounded upon the plan of all his historical romances and romantic histories, with the sole difference that, in these, he frequently audaciously perverts historic truth; whilst the African business is so recent that he cannot venture to be unfaithful to the outline, and confines himself to filling up and extending with his own fantastic details. Having been on the spot, and one of the first to welcome the few survivors of the prisoners taken in the above bloody affair, when they were ransomed from the Arabs, he doubtless picked up a number of the tales that always circulate in such cases; and these he has very cleverly amalgamated and patched up into a consecutive narrative—perhaps the most amusing section of those two volumes of _Le Véloce_ which alone as yet have reached us. His account of the fate of the last company—the one that stopped with the baggage—is the best bit of all, although certainly very French, and strongly impregnated with that peculiar flavour of theatrical fanfaronade which is inseparable from the character of our vain and volatile neighbours, which they cannot see, and consequently are not likely to lose, and which stirs the gall of prejudiced and untravelled Englishmen, and brings a smile to the lip of those who, with greater justice and in a better spirit, will not allow peculiarities of tone and manner to blind them to the good qualities of a gallant and ingenious nation, whose soldiers, although of late years they have more than once been employed in wars and expeditions unworthy of their prowess, have never lost an opportunity of proving that, in valour at least, they are no way degenerate from their fathers who fought under the banners of Napoleon the Great. And although one cannot but be amused at the ambitious comparison with Thermopylæ, the affair of Sidi-Ibrahim was unquestionably most honourable to the handful of brave fellows who defended the Marabout of that name against fifty times their number. The term _Marabout_ is applied, in Africa, not only to a saint, but to the small, round-roofed, stone edifice which serves as his mausoleum after death, and, not unfrequently, as his habitation during life. In a building of this description, after driving out the Arabs that occupied it, and when the cessation of the musketry warned them that their comrades were slain or prisoners, the last company of Colonel Montagnac’s ill-fated detachment took refuge, under the orders of its captain, de Géreaux, and there withstood the fierce and reiterated attacks of a host of Arabs and Kabyles. Abd-el-Kader himself approached the little fortress, and was wounded in the cheek by a French bullet. He offered quarter on surrender: it was refused. Thrice he summoned the handful of beleaguered warriors, who spurned his proposals, and would not trust themselves to the word of an Arab. Then the combat recommenced and lasted till night, whose arrival found the French still in possession of their post. At daybreak, hostilities were resumed, and continued till ten o’clock in the forenoon, when Abd-el-Kader took his departure, and the Arabs, whose loss was very heavy, converted the siege into a blockade. Night returned, and Captain de Géreaux, who was on the watch, saw an Arab creeping stealthily towards the Marabout. He awoke Dr Rosagutti, the interpreter; they called to the Arab, who came to them; they gave him all the money they had about them, and a letter to take to the camp of Lalla Maghrnia. The Arab was faithful; he delivered the letter; but none knew the signature of Captain de Géreaux; a stratagem was suspected, and no relief was sent. Hope of succour, however, buoyed up the spirits of the besieged of Sidi-Ibrahim, and they waited another day, without bread or water, almost without ammunition, their gaze fixed in the direction of Lalla Maghrnia. But the next morning at six o’clock, despairing of relief, they resolved to sally forth and cut their way to Djema-r’Azaouat. There were four leagues to get over, and thousands of Arabs were echeloned along the route. With desperate courage, the fifty-five or sixty Frenchmen repulsed numerous attacks, forming square when hard pressed, receiving many wounds, marking their track with corpses, but still, by their steadiness and deadly fire, keeping the undisciplined Arabs at bay. Some five-and-twenty succeeded in arriving within half a league of Djema-r’Azaouat, but then their ammunition was expended; the Arabs pressed upon them, and a volley at twenty paces stretched half their number, including the brave de Géreaux, lifeless in the dust. The remainder dispersed, and sought concealment and safety amongst the copsewood and bushes. Three of them reached the lines of Djema-r’Azaouat, told the sad tale, and died, unwounded, of mere exhaustion. A sortie was made, and five or six men, who had escaped the Kabyle sabres, were brought in. Eight men were all that survived of the gallant eighth battalion of the Chasseurs of Orleans. The disaster, however, was signally revenged. The Arabs who had brought it about, by the false message sent to Colonel Montagnac—the tribe of the Beni-Snanen—were cooped up by General Cavaignac on a narrow projection of the coast, and driven into the sea or put to the sword, to the number of four or five thousand. “The furious soldiers gave no quarter,” adds M. Dumas, “and General Cavaignac perilled his popularity with the army by saving a remnant of this unfortunate tribe. The trumpeter, Roland, the only survivor of the massacre of the m’Louïa, (when the prisoners taken by Abd-el-Kader were put to death in cold blood,) was in this affair: he had a terrible revenge to take, and he took it, and declared himself satisfied, for he had slain with his own hand more than thirty Arabs.”

Great as is the press of more important matter, and prolonged though this paper has been by the extracts to which the diverting Dumas has tempted us, we yet cannot close it without a glance at Mr Urquhart’s remarkable chapter, entitled “THE BATH.” On this subject his notions and prepossessions are completely Oriental. His residence in the East has given him a distaste for the modes of washing customary in Western Europe, and which he styles “dabbling in dirty water.” Nothing less than the running stream can come up to his standard of cleanliness. And as it is not always practicable to have fountains in dwelling-houses, he tells us how he manages without one. “I find the most convenient substitute a vase holding about two gallons of water, with a spout like that of a tea-urn, only three times the length, placed on a stand about four feet high, with a tub below: hot or cold water can be used; the water may be very hot, as the stream that flows is small. It runs for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.” This is his plan in the West, we understand; but when the member for Stafford gets amongst Mussulmans, oh, how he revels in the shampoo! The gusto of his descriptions positively makes us shudder. The bathman, we are told, “stands with his feet on the thighs and on the chest, and slips down the ribs; then up again three times; and, lastly, doubling your arms one after the other on the chest, pushes with both hands down, beginning at the elbow, and then putting an arm under the back and applying his chest to your crossed elbows, _rolls on you across till you crack_. You are now turned on your face, and, in addition to the operation above described, he works his elbow round the edges of your shoulder-blade, and with the heel plies hard the angle of the neck; he concludes by hauling the body half up by each arm successively, while he stands with one foot on the opposite thigh. You are then raised for a moment to a sitting posture, and a contortion given to the small of the back, and a jerk to the neck by the two hands holding the temples.” This has rather a dislocating, formidable, and certainly a most disgusting sound; but Mr Urquhart assures us the process is delightful, and particularly gentle compared with the mode of operation in a Moorish bath, where, practised bather though he is, he shrieked under the rough usage of his manipulator. The conclusion of this latter bath he describes as follows:—“Thrice taking each leg and lifting it up, he placed his head under the calf, and raising himself, scraped the leg as with a rough brush, _for his shaved head had the grain downwards. The operation concluded by his biting my heel._” We should like to see any human being, whether Turk, Pagan, Jew, or Christian, attempt such revolting liberties with our person. By the bones of Belshazzar! we would brain him with the bath-brush. The member for Stafford should be ashamed of himself. He positively makes us scunner. We have a firm and wholesome faith in the efficacy and cleanliness of a British spunging-bath and rough towel; we repel with abhorrence Mr Urquhart’s manipulatory innovations, and feel intense disgust at the Mahometan kneading, pummelling, trampling, sweating, soaping, and scraping, which he dwells upon with such nauseous minuteness, and whose results he describes as so wonderfully salubrious and delightful. We really hesitate at transferring to our page any more of his nasty details. We venture, however, to present him to our readers in the character of Marsyas, undergoing the flaying process which, it appears, forms an essential stage of the Turkish bathing operation. With a glove of camel’s hair, the bathman “commences from the nape of the neck in long sweeps down the back till he has started the skin; _he coaxes it into rolls_, keeping them in and up, till within his hand they gather volume and length; he then successively strikes and brushes them away, and they fall right and left as if spilt from a dish of macaroni. The dead matter which will accumulate in a week forms, when dry, _a ball of the size of the fist. I once collected it and had it dried—it is like a ball of chalk._” Well may the honourable gentleman declare the human body “a fountain of impurities,” when he can back the assertion by such a startling statement of the weekly amount of his own cuticular incrustations. No wonder he commiserates the condition of the unwashed portion of his countrymen, and urges the establishment of public baths on a scale more magnificent than practicable. Cleanliness is so nearly a virtue, that all deserve well of their country who efficaciously promote its spread amongst classes by whom it is too often neglected. But the carrying out of such plans must devolve upon philanthropists of a more practical stamp than this fantastical theorist and crotchety M.P. It were ridiculous to suppose that all the advantages would be realised which he predicts, from the adoption in this country of a universal system of bathing; but so manifold and enormous are they, that, if only a tithe of them were guaranteed, it would suffice to make us sigh for the days when in London there should be “no gin palaces, but a thousand baths!”

GOLDSMITH.