ABSTRACT
We set out like a fantasia, at a gallop, in the cold wind of the morning, almost all abreast, pell-mell, climbing a hill; and our troop makes a pretty picture, in its medley of uniforms and burnouses, against the green of the hillside. I know not what can have come over the three old negro dolls who guide us, that they make fly so fast the standard of the Sultan ; but our horses, in their freshness, ask nothing better than to follow them, and we no more. And it is joyous and exhilarating, in the early morning, this swiftness, this hurly-burly, this clinking of arms, the whole accompaniment of this rapid flight through good pure air which no one has breathed, which dilates the lungs. Our packmules, which, at the start, tried to keep pace with us, are quickly distanced; some ten or so of them, laden with our cases, come to grief; then there are cries, yellings of Arabs ; the muleteers, their burnouses streaming, swarm like a cloud of birds of prey upon each fallen beast, to raise it, reload it, thrash it. Vaguely we see these things in our uninterrupted flight. After all, they are matters which neither concern nor disturb us: the baggage never fails to arrive, and the kaid responsible must look to it. We race on regardless ; in the wind, in the rain which begins to streak the air, we continue the movement of our fantasia.
