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My readers are aware that having started to capture the smalah, my brother got up to it with nothing but his cavalry and far from his supports, after several night marches, which he contrived to steal on the enemy. "The enemy is very strong," said Colonel Yusuf, a gallant officer, who was with the advance guard, hurrying back. "No prince of my race has ever turned back," was the answer.
In fine, there is the largest canvass in existence, it is said, the "Taking of the Smalah," that renowned occasion when the army was so very near taking Abd-el-Kader; and the "Battle of Isly," which gained that splendid trophy, the parasol of command.
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.
Fortuny had associated with many artists at Rome and he had heard of that wonderful performance of Horace Vernet's, the "Taking of the Smalah of Abd-el-Kader." This picture of Vernet's, up to that time, was the largest picture ever held in a single frame. It is seventy-one feet long and sixteen feet high.
I was appointed to the command of a squadron ordered to the coasts of the Empire of Morocco, where we were on the brink of important events, affecting alike the consolidation of our Algerian conquests and our relations with other Great Powers Driven to extremity by the blow given to his prestige by the capture of his smalah, Abd-el-Kadir was playing a last and desperate card.
And then, as Madame de Léra nodded her head, he added, more seriously, "La d'Elphis is one of two sisters, the daughters of a very respectable notary at Orange. Both threw their caps over the windmill, the one to become an unsuccessful actress, the other a successful soothsayer. La d'Elphis has one virtue she is a devoted sister, and lives with the other's smalah.
The background of this eminently picturesque scene, under the blazing eastern sun, was the wide horizon of the mountains of Bou Cada and Taguin, amongst which my brother Aumale captured Abd-el-Kadir's smalah.
When we got back to Lisbon I bade a sorrowful farewell to Aumale, who departed on board a steamship for Algiers, there to commence the brilliant campaign which ended in the capture of Abd-el- Kader's smalah. Horace Vernet's fine picture in the Versailles Museum perpetuates the memory of this splendid exploit.
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