It is surprising that the African campaigns have not been more prolific of military sketches and memoirs from the pens of French officers. Although tolerably familiar for many years past with French literature, we can remember but few such works. _La Captivité d'Escoffier_, noticed, in conjunction with an English volume upon an analogous subject, in a former Number,[22] is the only French book of the kind we have met with for a long time; and that was of inferior class, and of less authentic appearance, than M. de Castellane's agreeable _Souvenirs_. We should have thought the war in Africa, the adventurous and often severe marches of the troops, the exploits of the hunting-field, the humours of garrison life, and the tales of the bivouac, would have found innumerable chroniclers amongst the better educated portion of French officers. The French soldier is a good study for painter or humourist; whether as the stolid recruit with the ploughman's slouch and the smell of the furrow still hanging about him, or the smart and wide-awake trooper of four or five years' service, or the weather-beaten old sergeant, all bronze and wrinkles, with his grizzled moustache, his scrap of red ribbon, his tough yarns and his mixture of simplicity and shrewdness, his lingering prejudices against English and Germans, and his religious veneration of Napoleon the Great. We believe M. de Castellane would be successful in portraiture of French military character and eccentricities, and we regret he has been so sparing of it. Here and there we find a characteristic bit of camp-life, or a pleasant sketch by the watch-fire.
"During our marches, we were never weary of admiring the constancy of the infantry-man, so heavily loaded that, in mockery of himself, he has taken the surname of the _Soldat-chameau_. It was really wonderful to see them make those long marches, under a burning sun, across frightful mountains, always gay and cheerful, and amusing themselves with the merest trifle.... It is on their arrival at the bivouac that their industry is displayed to the greatest advantage. Pause beside this little tent, and watch the chief of the squad; they bring him crabs, tortoises, water serpents, all manner of creatures that have no name, but a flavour, and which experience teaches may be eaten without danger. Or they bring a mess-kettle full of bullock's blood. Thrice boiled and suffered to grow cold, bullock's blood forms a sort of black cheese. Spread upon biscuit, with a little salt, this is tolerable food, and a precious resource for famished stomachs." In presence of such messes as these, it is easy to understand the popularity of a general who, like Changarnier, classed a greasy haversack amongst a soldier's first necessaries, and rarely allowed his men to lack mutton, of either Arab or Kabyle growth. For the loss of their flocks and herds the natives retaliated, when opportunity offered, by the theft of French horses. "In the night we had an alarm; we were in a friendly district, but our friends were not the less arrant thieves. Two horses were taken away. According to their custom, some bold fellows, stark naked and well anointed with grease, so as to slip through detaining fingers, glided between the tents, crawling like snakes. On coming to two fine horses, they cut the thongs that shackled them, jumped on their backs, and were off at a gallop, clearing all obstacles and crouched upon the animals' necks to avoid the bullets of the advanced sentries. A few hours later, another of these gentry was less fortunate. The soldier on guard over the piled muskets, remarked, as he perambulated his beat, a bush of dwarf palm. It was upon his right hand. A minute afterwards the bush had changed its place, and stood upon his left. This struck the sentry as looking like mischief. He took no notice, but quietly cocked his musket and continued his walk. The bush continued to change its place, gaining ground little by little; suddenly it made a rapid advance, and a Kabyle, dagger in hand, sprang upon the soldier; but the soldier received him on the point of his bayonet. The thrust was mortal, and the living bush rose no more." The Kabyles might have taken lessons from the Thugs of India and the Red men of North America. On a large scale, as well as in petty details, stratagem was a prominent feature of the war in Africa. Beneath the spacious tent of one of the Arab allies of the French, M. de Castellane listened one evening, in an atmosphere fragrant with the vapours of pipes and coffee, to the extempore stanzas of a native poet. When the improvisatore had come to an end, and had received his tribute of praise, an old sergeant of the Spahis of Orleansville narrated the death of the Aga of Ouarsenis.