Even this cheerful fellow, who knew so well how to help himself, and in consequence was far better off than the other men in the Legion, was troubled by the simple problem of the Foreign Legion! A problem which so many of the Legion's soldiers have tried to reason out with so many head-shakings. A problem which once an Arabian Spahi put very plainly in a few scornful words:
"The Legion works--the Legion gets no pay!"
The daily exodus to town : Ben Mansur's coffee : The Ghetto : The citizens of Sidi-bel-Abbès and the légionnaires : How the Legion squared accounts with the civilians : A forbidden part of the town : Primitive vice : A dance of a night : The gardens : The last resting-place of the Legion's dead
En ville! Off to Sidi-bel-Abbès! Every afternoon shortly before six o'clock there began a very exodus from the Legion's barracks to the town. A légionnaire would rather clean and polish for an hour after lights out in the semi-darkness of the night-lamp than miss his stroll to town. The daily walk in Sidi-bel-Abbès was part of the Legion's sacred tradition. At five o'clock the gigantic gates of the barracks were closed and only a little side door remained open. Here the sergeant of the guard posted himself and carefully inspected everybody who wanted to go out, so that the Legion's reputation for chic should not suffer. The uniform to be worn in town was prescribed every day by a special regimental order; each légionnaire had to wear the same uniform, red trousers and blue jacket or white trousers and blue overcoat, and everybody took an especial pride in looking as trim and smart as possible.
Three thousand soldiers of the Legion used to stroll about the streets of Sidi-bel-Abbès every evening. For me this daily walk was a wondrous change from the Legion's routine. Above the gleam of the electric arc lamps shone the starry glory of a southern sky. Little black boys in white breeches, whose countless folds might have told endless stories of stolen trifles they had concealed, lounged at the street corners and cried the evening paper, the _Echo d'Oran_; Arabs in white burnouses, carrying in their hands the dangerous Arabian sticks, in which they find a never-failing missile, stood motionless, silently watching with looks of suspicion the "Rumis," the white foreigners who will always remain foreigners to them and whose customs they will never be able to understand. All Sidi-bel-Abbès was promenading; citizens of the town, officers and civilians of the "Bureau Arabe" with their womenfolk. In between came the Legion's heavy soldier-steps and the sound of gently rattling bayonets.