I stared in wonder at the dancing of this child of Nature and the wonderful rhythm of her movements. Faster grew the dance, the swinging and circling and posing. Suddenly the girl seized one of the torches and swung it in broad circles around her head. The firelight fell with its ruddy glow on her shining hair of black-blue. The hissing torch seemed to be enveloped in the swaying veil; ever faster grew that mad whirling. After a final lightning circle of the torch the girl fell down exhausted.... A low murmur of applause arose from among the Arabs and many silver coins were thrown to her on the mat. The woman who had sung the English nursery rhyme sat there as one stunned; she had forgotten herself and forgotten her surroundings. "My God," she kept on murmuring, "my God...." I stole away and went slowly home to barracks, worn out. * * * * * A flowery belt of gardens surrounds the town. In broad alleys, which had been trenches in days gone by, stood groups of palm-trees and olive groves, planted by the soldiers of the Legion many years ago in the short intervals of peace. The botanical garden of Sidi-bel-Abbès had also been founded by the foreign mercenaries, and, to this day, the Legion has the right to gather flowers from the beds of the Jardin Public for its dead, and sends three soldiers daily to keep the paths in order and work for the gardener. In return for this the regiment considers the Jardin Public its own private property, and on Sundays that wonderful garden, with its wealth of foliage and flowers, is the scene of a red-trousered invasion. Not very far from the Jardin Public lies the regimental garden, where the Legion raises its vegetables and plants its potatoes. I found it very funny when I was for the first time commandeered to carry dung in the Legion's garden--it seemed to me a most peaceful occupation for a modern mercenary.... Far out stretches the long line of flower gardens, with their narrow foot-paths shaded by olive-trees. Right at the end of the town, where the gardens come to an end and the sand begins, there lies the cemetery of Sidi-bel-Abbès. Its showy monuments, its well-kept flower-beds, and its silent groups of trees do not give it any particular claim to individuality. If you pass through the churchyard, however, you will come to a large open space. Many hundreds of grave mounds lie there. The black wooden crosses are one like the other. This is the last resting-place of the Foreign Legion's dead. The Legion's churchyard. I was once commandeered to work there. An aged corporal, who lived in a cottage in a corner of the cemetery, and in the days of his old age filled the post of grave-digger to the Legion, gave me gardening tools and a watering-can. I walked along the long rows of graves, pulling out weeds and watering the grass. An indescribable feeling of loneliness overcame me.