The battle on the mountain had passed off much better than we had dared to hope, and, although we had not found our enemies as sound asleep as we had desired, our early morning attack had never-the-less completely surprised them. We managed to seize their recent position on the plateau with scarcely any loss. This position, although a very exposed one, was worth a great deal more, from the strategist’s point of view, than the valley in which we were encamped the night before. Besides, in making war, it is always desirable to occupy those places voluntarily selected and defended by an opponent. Our work, however, was by no means over; another sort of effort lay before us. Our foes, driven from their position on the heights, had succeeded in forming another; and were strongly entrenched on the lower extremity of the same plateau, from the loftier end of which we had so lately dislodged them. With a considerable amount of adroitness, they had succeeded in placing a little river, called the Oued-el-Kebir, between our camp and their own. We were compelled therefore to cross this river, in order to force them to move farther on, and abandon to us the territory that we both coveted. We had resolved, once our morning’s work was over, to enjoy a much needed repose on our hardly earned mountain; but, towards noon, everybody was on foot, excepting several badly wounded soldiers, and the little group of officers, who had chatted together near the General’s tent the preceding evening, were invited to drink a cup of coffee with him in the most picturesque smoking room that I have ever seen, although the picturesque quality is by no means rare in Algeria. It was an enclosure walled in by rocks in the shape of heaps of large pennies, arranged side by side, so as to form an amphitheatre, the slope of which permitted us to see, by the aid of our glasses, the new field on which we were soon to operate. The country, which was beautiful so far as the scenery was concerned, presented no insolvable military problems; it was wooded, but not impenetrable.