He was undisciplined, but not dissolute. This big, strong, growing youth was of a proud, and somewhat uncouth, demeanour. In his village young men were safe from evil communications from the precocious depravity of sickly, town-bred creatures, so much so, that when he reached his twentieth year and had to begin his term of military service, Jean was as pure as a child, and almost as ignorant of the facts of life. II But then came a period full of all kinds of surprises for him. He had followed his new comrades to places of debauch, where he had made the acquaintance of “love” in the most sordid and revolting conditions that a great town affords. His youthful understanding was confused, what between surprise and disgust, and also the devouring fascination of this new thing just revealed to him. And then, after some days of riotous life, a ship had carried him far, far away over the calm, blue sea, and had landed him on the banks of the Senegal, a bewildered exile. III One day in November—the season when the great baobabs shed their last leaves on the sand—Jean Peyral had cast his first glance of curiosity on this corner of the earth, where the hazard of destiny had condemned him to pass five years of his life. The strangeness of this land had in the first instance appealed strongly to his imagination and inexperience. Besides that, he had appreciated very keenly the joy of having a horse, of curling his rapidly growing moustache, of wearing an Arab fez, a red jacket, and a big sabre. He considered the ensemble very fine, and this gave him great pleasure. IV It was November—the fine weather season corresponding to our French winter; the heat was less violent, and the dry wind of the desert had taken the place of the great storms of the summer. When the fine weather begins in Senegal, one may safely camp out in the open without a roof to one’s tent. For six months not a drop of water will fall on the land; every day without respite, without remorse, it will be scorched by the consuming sun. It is the season in which the lizards delight—but the water fails in the cisterns; the marshes dry up; the grass dies; even the cactuses, the thorny nopals, no longer open their melancholy yellow flowers. Yet the evenings are chill. At sunset a strong sea-breeze invariably springs up, rousing the breakers off the African coast to their everlasting moaning, pitilessly shaking the last autumn leaves. It is a dreary autumn, bringing with it neither the long evenings of France, nor the charm of the first frosts, nor harvest, nor golden fruit. Never a fruit in this land disinherited of God! Even the dates of the desert are denied to it, nothing ripens there, except the ground nut and the bitter pistachio. The sensation of winter, experienced in the midst of heat which is still extreme, has a curious effect upon the spirit.