The marching power of the French infantryman is extraordinary. Carrying two days’ rations and a portion of a ‘dog tent’ (which fits to a companion’s portion), he will ‘slog’ nearly fifty miles in a day and a night. I remember one tremendous march. The army left camp one morning at three o’clock, cavalry, artillery, a hospital staff, _Tirailleurs_ and _Légionnaires_, about 3,000 men, and marched out fifteen miles to a _m’halla_, or Moorish camp, beyond Mediuna. For more than two hours they fought the Arabs, finally destroying the camp; and then returned, reaching Casablanca shortly before five o’clock in the afternoon. I did not accompany the army on this occasion, but went out to meet it coming back, curious to see how the men would appear. The Algerians showed distress the least, hardly a dozen of them taking the assistance of their comrades, and many, though covered with dust, so little affected by fatigue that they could jest with me about my fresh appearance. When their officers, about a mile out, gave orders to halt, then to form in fours to march into camp in order, they were equal to the part. But the Foreign Legion obeyed only the first command, that to halt, and it was a significant look they returned for the command of the youthful officer who passed down the line on a strong horse. A still longer march was made by a larger force of this same army in January, after General d’Amade had taken command. Pushing into the interior from Casablanca to Settat, they covered forty-eight miles in twenty-five hours, marching almost entirely through rough country without roads, or at best by roads that were little more than camel tracks. Proceeding at three miles an hour, the infantry must have done sixteen hours’ actual walking. Moreover, on arriving at Settat the army immediately engaged the _m’halla_ of Mulai Rachid. Good marching is a prized tradition with the French, and in this one thing, if in nothing else, the army of France excels. It has been stated by men who have some knowledge of Moslems, that the French in Morocco are liable to start that long-threatened avalanche, the general rising of Pan-Islam. The first Mohammedans to join the Moors in the Holy War, it is said, will be the Algerians. But my own knowledge of Moslem countries leads me to argue otherwise. Since the French have been in Morocco, now more than six months, there have been less than a hundred desertions from the ranks of the Algerians; while a significant fact on the other side is the enlistment in the French ranks, in the manner of Goumiers, of Shawia tribesmen who have been defeated by them.