Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 399, January 1849Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 399, January 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
When reviewing, about two years ago, Captain Kennedy's narrative of
travel and adventure in Algeria, we regretted he did not speak out
about the mode of carrying on the war, and about the prospects of
Algerine colonisation; and we hinted a suspicion that the amenities
of French military hospitality, largely extended to a British
fellow-soldier, had induced him, if not exactly to cloak, at least
to shun laying bare, the errors and mishaps of his entertainers.
We cannot make the same complaint of the very pretty book, rich in
vignettes and cream-colour, entitled, _A Campaign in the Kabylie_.
Mr Borrer, whom the Cockneys, contemptuous of terminations, will
assuredly confound with his great gipsy cotemporary, George Borrow
of the Bible, has, like Captain Kennedy, dipped his spoon in French
messes. He has ridden with their regiments, and sat at their board,
and been quartered with their officers, and received kindness and
good treatment on all hands; and therefore any thing that could
be construed into malicious comment would come with an ill grace
from his pen. But it were exaggerated delicacy to abstain from
stating facts, and these he gives in all their nakedness; generally,
however, allowing them to speak for themselves, and adding little
in the way of remark or opinion. In pursuance of this system, he
relates the most horrible instances of outrage and cruelty with a
matter-of-fact coolness, and an absence alike of blame and sympathy,
that may give an unfavourable notion of his heart, to those who do
not accept our lenient interpretation of his cold-blooded style. The
traits he sets down, and which are no more than will be found in
many French narratives, despatches, and bulletins, show how well the
Franco-African army carry out the merciful maxims of Bugeaud.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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