Souvenirs of Military Life in Algeria (2 volumes)

Very good. Approximately 6" x 9". Complete: Vol. 1 with 244 pages. Vol. 2 with 260 pages; map and 20-page catalog in rear. Original brown diapered cloth with black decoration and gilt lettering. Very good. Sound binding; front hinges of both volumes beginning to crack. Vol. 1 is slightly cocked. Text pages generally clean but toned; some foxing to the preliminary pages and endpapers. Minor shelf-wear. Folding color map is in nice shape; one short (.5") split at the end of one fold.

First published in French as Souvenirs del a vie militaire en Afrique at Paris in 1852, this is a fascinating first-person account of life in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria that spans the years from 1840 to 1851.

Chapters include:

The Province of Algiers,

and Spahis,

The Darha,

Khamis of the Beni-Ouraghs,

A Winter Campaign,

The Sahara and the Great Desert,

The Province of Oran, and

Expedition to Kabylia. A note in the preliminaries of Vol 1 relates that Castellane "enlisted as a simple private in a Zouave regiment, and won each stripe at the point of a bayonet, earning his epaulettes as a subaltern whilst fighting under Colonel MacMahon. . . . This book contains some stirring descriptions of outpost life when the Arab considered it his special mission to sweep the infidel from the country, and when sentry after sentry was murdered and mutilated.".