RAIN.--AN ENGLISH LADY’S OPINION ON THE ARABS.--WILD BIRDS.--THE EARTHQUAKE.
And the blessed rain came. We had heard it pattering and plashing between our dreams, and, when we came out into the open air, it was moist and sweet and cool. For the first time throughout our entire journey we were unable to procure the coupé to ourselves, for the assizes were to commence at Mostaganem, and, what with witnesses, lawyers, plaintiffs and defendants, the diligence was more than crowded.
We could not see our companion, but, from the large share of the coupé that he monopolized, we thought he must be a very stout person indeed; alas, how we had hoped and prayed that he might prove thin! But there was no help for it, and, by the time we began to be cramped in every limb, came the blessed, beautifying daylight and the ever-shifting African landscape, that made us forget everything else.
We forgave our fellow-traveller his burliness after a while, for he proved so full of information and pleasant. He was a barrister, and told us of all the most important cases coming off at Mostaganem, and a fearful list it was. By far the greater number of prisoners were Arabs charged with assassinations. We told this gentleman of what we had heard at Tclemcen.
“In one place,” we said, “the Arabs are represented as harmless, improvable, mild: in another as the incarnation of villany. What _are_ we to believe?”
“Well,” he said, “the fact is this, the Arabs are _pauvres diables_, and they are poorer now than they were before we came--that is to say, the Bedouin, the shepherd and the cultivator of a little land is poorer--and the consequence is, they are led from theft to murder. When we stop to change horses every one will alight to take coffee, and you will see a couple of priests, one looking as if he had just come out of a war-hospital. He was attacked near Tclemcen one evening, robbed, and left on the road for dead. That is one of the worst cases we have, though there are others of a piece with it. The priests ride on the box with the coachman, and in the rotunda are some Arabs who are going to witness on the side of the accused, one of them you must look at, too; he is dressed like a prince and has the face of _le diable_. He is the son of a Bach-Agha.”