Valée had divided his force into three columns, one of which was led by Lamoricière, a man to become famous in Algerian warfare. The Sultan was now to see the value of French infantry. To the astonishment of the Arabs, the enemy, leaving the road, came darting over the steeps. Ravines, woods, and rocks were all mastered in the rush. Slowly but surely they were reaching the intrenchments, when a thick veil came over the scene from the smoke of incessant fire. The mist rolled away before the breeze sweeping through the pass, and the combatants met and fought hand to hand. The Arabs and Kabyles clung desperately to their places of shelter, but the French clambered up, grasping at shrubs and branches, ever winning their way. Abd-el-Kader made a last stand in person at the great redoubt, while his regulars and masses of Kabyles gathered round him. The converging columns of the French came creeping on amid the roll of drums and the blare of trumpets. The Arabs, bewildered by foes attacking them both in front and rear, wavered, broke, and fled. Lamoricière and his Zouaves, Changarnier and the Second Light Infantry, burst over the intrenchments, and the tricolor waved on the summit of the Atlas. Abd-el-Kader retreated on Miliana, while the conqueror, entering Medea, found it abandoned and half burned. The Sultan had made his last attempt to fight the French on the principles of European warfare. His caliphs and chiefs were ordered never again to meet the enemy in masses, but to harass them in hanging on their flanks and rear, cutting their communications, attacking baggage and transports, and waging a contest of feigned retreats, ambuscades, and sudden sallies in order to bewilder and weary the foe. Miliana was evacuated by Abd-el-Kader on Valée's approach, but the chance of Arab warfare came when the French entered the mountain passes. Unceasing attacks, day and night, caused severe loss to the lately victorious French, with the capture of baggage and the abandonment of all wounded men. The French garrisons in Medea and Miliana were soon reduced to want by blockade of the surrounding country, and by October, 1840, the garrison of Miliana had almost disappeared, from the effects of fever and famine. Out of fifteen hundred men, the half had perished; five hundred were in hospital and the remainder were haggard wretches who could hardly hold their muskets. Such was the warfare in the mountains of the Province of Tittery, and Abd-el-Kader by his swift movements kept the enemy ever on the alert, and often in trouble, from the frontiers of Morocco to those of Tunis.