Atlantida

"There, scarcely a hundred kilometers from Algiers, the railway

stopped. Going in a straight line you won't find another until you get

to the Cape. The diligence travels at night on account of the heat.

When we came to the hills I got out and walked beside the carriage,

straining for the sensation, in this new atmosphere, of the kiss of

the outlying desert.

"About midnight, at the Camp of the Zouaves, a humble post on the road

embankment, overlooking a dry valley whence rose the feverish perfume

of oleander, we changed horses. They had there a troop of convicts and

impressed laborers, under escort of riflemen and convoys to the

quarries in the South. In part, rogues in uniform, from the jails of

Algiers and Douara,--without arms, of course; the others

civilians--such civilians! this year's recruits, the young bullies of

the Chapelle and the Goutte-d'Or.

"They left before we did. Then the diligence caught up with them. From

a distance I saw in a pool of moonlight on the yellow road the black

irregular mass of the convoy. Then I heard a weary dirge; the wretches

were singing. One, in a sad and gutteral voice, gave the couplet,

which trailed dismally through the depths of the blue ravines: "'Maintenant qu'elle est grande,

Elle fait le trottoir,

Avec ceux de la bande

A Richard-Lenoir.' "And the others took up in chorus the horrible refrain: "'A la Bastille, a la Bastille,

On aime bien, on aime bien

Nini Peau d'Chien;

Elle est si belle et si gentille

A la Bastille' "I saw them all in contrast to myself when the diligence passed them.

They were terrible. Under the hideous searchlight their eyes shone

with a sombre fire in their pale and shaven faces. The burning dust

strangled their raucous voices in their throats. A frightful sadness

took possession of me.

"When the diligence had left this fearful nightmare behind, I regained

my self-control.

"'Further, much further South,' I exclaimed to myself, 'to the places

untouched by this miserable bilgewater of civilization.' "When I am weary, when I have a moment of anguish and longing to turn

back on the road that I have chosen, I think of the prisoners of

Berroughia, and then I am glad to continue on my way.

"But what a reward, when I am in one of those places where the poor

animals never think of fleeing because they have never seen man, where

the desert stretches out around me so widely that the old world could

crumble, and never a single ripple on the dune, a single cloud in the

white sky come to warn me.