Great reinforcements were sent to Africa, and the Zouaves were not forgotten; for, in the royal ordinance of September 8th, 1841, the regiment was raised to three battalions of nine companies; only one of the nine, however, could receive natives, so that but three native companies now existed, and few Algerines were found even in these. The reasons seem to have been threefold: first, the danger from mutiny; second, the evils arising from the mixture of the two races, which had augmented their vices, without a corresponding improvement in their good qualities; third, and perhaps most important of all, the discontent very properly felt by the French Zouaves, who were compelled to work at the trenches, to dig, to plant, etc., while the Mussulmans utterly refused to take part in this, to their mind, degrading toil. The Gordian knot was cut, and all difficulty done away, by making the regiment, in effect, exclusively European. Thus reorganized and reinforced, the regiment, on receiving the standard sent it by the king, immediately separated,--one battalion marching for Oran, one for Constantine, while the other remained at Blidah, in Algeria. The year 1842 was full of great results; the new system worked well, great numbers of tribes laid down their arms and swore fealty to France, and the provinces were more than nominally in the hands of the French. Still many of the more distant and powerful tribes held to their allegiance to the Prophet Sultan. The war gradually took on itself the form of a civil contest, and mutual animosities gave rise to many occasions for sanguinary combats; one of these, in the valley of the Cheliff, September, 1842, lasted unintermittingly for thirty-six hours! In this battle, and that of Oued Foddah, and, in fact, in almost every battle of those years, the Zouaves took an honorable part. In mountain fights, long marches over burning sands, repulses of cavalry, at Jurjura, Ouarsanis, among the Beni Menasser, at the Smalah, in the struggles of Bedeau with the Moroccan cavalry, and in the memorable battle of Isly, they did good service; their history was but a narrative of brilliant exploits. In many of their hill fights, the deserters of 1839 gave much trouble. In a skirmish, 1844, on the south side of the Aurès, in which Captain Espinasse (died General of Division, Magenta, June 6th, 1859) was concerned, and wounded four times, an old native Zouave commanded the Kabyles, and defended their principal position with much skill.