three men. It is pitched in five minutes, and
serves every purpose of protection against
either night air, sun, or moderate rain. Then,
again, the French soldier's bill-hook, axe, and
spade, serve to dig trenches round his tent in
bad weather, and help to provide him with
fire-wood wherewith to cook his food. In other
respects his health is looked after, although he
is most carefully taught to depend upon his own
good sense, and his own exertions, less than
upon what his superiors or the commissariat
can do for him. He is a very much less helpless
being than his English comrade, and his
officers have consequently far less—indeed, I
may say, none—of the fiddle-faddle work in
camp, billets or quarters, which is
annoying to our captains and subalterns, and
worrying to our men. An English soldier
is everlastingly being inspected by some
person or other. The corporal of his squad
inspects him and his food to see that one
is fitly dressed to sit down to dinner, and
the other fitly cooked to be wholesome. Then
the orderly sergeant inspects the whole
company—men and dinners. After that the orderly
officer inspects the meal of the whole corps,
and finally the captain of the day has his turn
of inspecting the messing of the regiment.
In many corps, by way of adding to the
comforts of the Sunday dinners, each of the
two majors inspects the meals of half the
regiment, whilst the colonel inspects all round
the barracks of the regiment. Judge what
comfort the poor soldier must have with his
dinner, after all this formal worry and bother
is over! The French have none of this. The
men are taught to rely on themselves, to
cook their own dinner in comfort and as well
as circumstances will allow, and the
consequences are, that off parade themselves
and their officers are much less worried
about trifles than is the case in the English
army.

Another circumstance which tends much to
render the French soldier hardy, and which is
certainly of the greatest service to him in a
climate like that of Algeria, is his temperance.
During a service of fifteen years in India, few
men exposed themselves more to the sun in
following field sports than myself, and I never
had a day's sickness which could be attributed
to that pursuit. Judging from myself, and from
others who have at various times been my
companions in the army, I attribute the
impunity with which I braved the effects of heat
entirely to my never tasting spirits. The
French soldier certainly takes his petit verre
once or twice in the day; but, to this day,
in India, a soldier's daily allowance of Bengal
rum or arrack, when on the line of march,
would more than three parts fill an ordinary
dinner tumbler. This too of a spirit
compared with which the most fiery compounds
of the lowest London public-house is as mild
as milk. If any one doubts what effect this
diurnal dose of spirits would have upon men
called upon to endure great fatigue under a
tropical sun, let him try the experiment in
London during the dog-days.

Another reason in my mind for the health
of French troops in the field, is the comparatively
few men who constitute each mess,
and the excellence of their cookery.

The distance we got over each day, varied
from twelve to eighteen English miles, and
the time occupied was from four to six hours.
Sometimes, to get over long tracts of country
where there was no water, we had night
marches, which I shall describe by-and-by.
As a general rule we arrived at the new
encamping-ground about eleven o'clock, and
always found that the place had been
marked out previously by an officer of the
état-major; who, with his mounted orderlies
and his Arab guides, had preceded the troops
by a couple of hours. Once arrived, camp-
guards were immediately formed, with care;
with equal care whether we were near an enemy
or not. Here, too,—although to civilians this
may appear a matter of no moment—the
French exhibit their forethought, and the
care they take of their men without
appearing to do so. In the English service the men
for guard are taken indiscriminately from,
the ten, twelve, or fourteen companies which
compose the regiment—so many from each
company—so that their rations and dinners
have to be brought to them from so many
different parts of the corps; in the French
army a whole company goes on guard
together. Thus, not only can the men carry
on their cooking as usual, but the officers and
sergeants go on duty with their own men,
and have thus much better opportunities of
knowing what each soldier is capable of
performing, and how each one may be entrusted
to guard a post of danger.

The troops pitched their camp with
marvellous celerity. I am within the mark when
I say that in ten minutes after our halt every
tent was ready, and that in another quarter of
an hour,the cooking-pots were in full operation.
The camp-kitchens which the soldiers dug in
the ground, were most ingenious contrivances,
both to economise fuel and to prevent the
wind getting at the fire. One hour after
the camp was formed, the drum sounded for
breakfast. A great wonder to me—who had
long been accustomed to see our own soldiers
devour their ill-dressed, half-raw food—was
the savoury messes which the French soldiers
managed to produce, with very slight means.
The meat served out to them was almost
invariably mutton; beef being rare in the
north of Africa. By mixing with their meat
a large portion of bread or biscuit, and
pepper, salt, and vegetables when procurable,
they managed to produce a most savoury
dish.

The march being over, the men were
left almost entirely to themselves. There
was none of that everlasting looking after
them which is so wearing to all ranks in
the English service. Among the French