It was a party of Arab girls bathing in a small round pool. The bathers and the bathing-place were shut in by lustrous green foliage, above which showed the dark lines of the tents, the bright blue hills, and the brighter sky. A noontide shadow lay on the water, in which, like a flock of young ducks, plashed and played, and dived and ducked, a dozen wild young girls, their dark hair streaming to the waist, their faces expressive of the utmost enjoyment, their limbs glistening as they rose out of the water.
All at once they caught sight of us. There was a short succession of screams, a unanimous splashing, a glimpse of bare feet, and all was still again. They had fled the spot without even a thought of their clothes; and we unfortunate intruders were only harmless women after all!
After this we passed a tawny, monotonous region, all stone and sand, and only here and there varied by oases of cultivation. These little oases, poor patches of wheat and vegetables growing amid the intractable palmetto, were showing green and bright, despite the rudeness of the tillage; but, alas! the locusts had found them out. Both on our journey to Saïda and back we saw swarms of these creatures settling like glittering birds on the corn, or filling the air like snow-flakes. My heart sank within me as I thought of the poor Arabs and the devastation that threatened their little all.
We reached Saïda in good time that afternoon.
OPINIONS, CIVIL AND MILITARY.--A LOOK TOWARDS THE SAHARA.--WILD GEESE.--OUR SPAHIS, AND THE CARE THEY TAKE OF US.--A NORMANDY APPLE-ORCHARD IN AFRICA.--NEW YEAR’S DAY.
Some authorities declare Saïda to be an oasis in the Little Desert, some declare it to be an oasis in the Great Desert, others declare it to be in no desert at all. For my part, I wholly side with those who are of opinion that Saïda stands on the skirts of the Sahara, the Dry Country abounding in Dates, as the old maps have it; but I will leave the matter an open question to the curious, merely describing Saïda as I found it.
We had a comfortable room in the house of our coachman--for as nobody ever goes to Saïda there are no inns--whose wife was Spanish, and as ugly and dull as he was handsome and bright. As he seemed devoted to her, however, it didn’t much matter. They carried on almost as many trades as there are weeks in the year, and were evidently making money. They catered for the officers, they kept the diligence, they owned land, they had geese and cattle, they managed the post--it would be hard to say what they did not do. And they wore good clothes, lived on really dainty food, and were of importance in the place, which must have been some consolation under exile.