Despite its hectic history, there is not much in Oran to detain the traveler long, for one can visit the _kasbah_, the Château Neuf, the Grand Mosque (built with money paid as ransom for Christian slaves), and such other sights as the city has to offer, quite easily in a single day. Toward nightfall I would suggest that you sit for an hour or so before one of the numerous cafés and over an _apéritif_ watch the unfolding of the human panorama. Though few interesting native types are to be seen, the place is filled with troops—spahis, Turcos, zouaves, _tirailleurs légionnaires_, colonial infantry, _chasseurs d’Afrique_—whose brilliant uniforms lend pleasing notes of color to the drab and dusty streets. Though Oran is doubtless well policed, it has certain districts in which I should not care to linger after dark, for it struck me that there was an unusually large rough element in evidence: soldiers who, judging by the unsteadiness of their gait, had imbibed too freely in the numerous grog-shops; half-naked negro stevedores; coal-heavers from the tramp steamers in the harbor; Spanish speculators in wines and esparto grass; greasy Jewish traders who supply the wants, legitimate and otherwise, of the seafaring population; furtive Levantines with no visible means of support, who looked as though they would commit any crime for a few dollars; impudent and precocious Arab newsboys selling the “Echo d’Oran”; sullen, mysterious Moors in flowing garments; grimy oil-drillers; boisterous colonials in from their farms in the back-country for a periodic spree; hard-eyed, highly painted women of many nationalities but of one profession, their virtue as easy as an old shoe; some figures straight from the Bible, others straight from the boulevards. The hotel, though not a Ritz, was comfortable enough, and the cuisine excellent, as is always the case when there is a Frenchman in the kitchen, but the noise which rose from the cobbled streets put sleep out of the question. I was glad when morning brought to our windows the sound of Tomine’s horn, and, after a breakfast of rock-hard rolls and the execrable mud-colored beverage which the French insist on calling coffee, we took to the road again. CHAPTER XVIII THE FOREIGN LEGION