By-and-by, we came to a little roadside caravansary, and every one got out, the handsome, _nonchalant_ Arabs and their “murdered man,” among the rest. The poor curé looked very ill still, and had a gentlemanly, but shabby, appearance. The Bach-Agha’s son was dressed in purple and fine raiment, and looked a king--till you saw his face closely--when he looked a very Mephistopheles. It was an indescribably cruel, clever, sensual face,--a face from which you turned with repugnance.
After passing through some very lovely tamarisk-groves, amid which wound a broad, bright river, a branch of the Chelif, we entered upon the vast monotonous plain of the Habra. These African plains are only varied here and there by shifting bands of road-makers, military posts, and by little French colonies or Arab douars; and when you commence your journey, you feel as if it would never end. You cross horizon after horizon. You see a white speck in the distance and say, “That must be our halting-place;” but, when you arrive, it is a military post and nothing more--the dogs rush out barking and yelling, French Zouaves, who stand basking in the sun, come up to ask for newspapers and letters; and the Spahis look at us whilst they smoke their paper cigarettes, and show their white teeth as they say “Bon jour.” Then, after getting a glass of water or wine, the diligence moves slowly off, and we leave behind the glistening white post, the red-cloaked, brown-skinned Spahis, and the pack of dogs.
How hot it is! When we alight and walk a little way, ankle-deep in alpha grass and wild thyme, the leaves seem warm and dry as if the soil below were burning away with volcanic fire. We shall be sunburnt to the complexion of Moors before our journey is done, we say, and when inside the diligence, and pin up shawls and cloaks to keep out the wind that is as warm now as it was cold when we started. The plains have each a climate of their own, and travellers should always plan their journeys--as we did--to avoid crossing them at early morning or at night, when a terrible miasma arises from the soil and is never harmless, often as dangerous as poison.
Mostaganem is a lively little place, and on account of the assizes was full of strangers. Greatly to our amusement we encountered our stout _compagnon du voyage_ on the evening of our arrival, as shrunk from his natural size as a rabbit after skinning. What strange metamorphose had changed him in so short a space from the size of a Falstaff to a lean and hungry-looking Cassius? It was very perplexing, but on a sudden it flashed on us like a revelation, that as all his luggage had consisted of a hat-box, and as he had doffed a thick grey travelling dress and donned a suit of shining black cloth, he must have carried his wardrobe on his back. It was very simple.