The Argosy — page 242: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TRAPPING A PANTHER. -_ years ago, I was ordered by my doctor to spend a winter at Algiers to recruit. I was not allowed to do any work, and my wife used to overhaul all my correspondence, and look grumpy when I tried to kill time by writing a. letter. I amused myself by taking long walks in the neighbourhood, or strolling about the streets of Algiers. I soon got tired of pottering about the ‘‘Kasbah” and panted for ‘‘ fresh woods and pastures new” to explore. My curiosity had been excited by the glowing description of the scenery in Kabylia, the mountainous ‘country that divides the two departments of Algiers and Constantine, | and I determined to visit the country for a short time. | My arrangements were soon completed, and in a few days I was \comfortably installed in the pleasant little “ Hétel des Voyageurs” at }Medeah, a military station beautifully situated among the mountains. \Here I resumed my walks and excursions, sketching a little, botanising ja little, and smoking—-well, a good deal, to make up for my enforced labstinence from tobacco while at Algiers. One evening I returned to my hotel rather late after a prolonged jstroll among the mountains, and found my friend the landlord, Monsieur Camille, in rather a disturbed frame of mind. It appeared \that my long absence had made him anxious. He ventured a polite jremonstrance at my going so far all alone. » “But what is there to be afraid of?” I said. ‘‘ The natives are ifriendly enough.” | “But yes,” he replied, ‘‘the Kabyles are tranquil; but the ‘ bétes sauvages,’ they are ‘ méchants,’ ” | I said I had always heard that they would not attack a man unless provoked, and had been told, too, that they were only to be found \*" in the interior. ) “Ah, monsieur, you mistake,” he answered. ‘Figure to yourself that Monsieur le Juge de Paix shot two panthers last week within three niles of the town walls.” _ As I did not want to be saddled with a guide who would be always a the way, I pooh-poohed his notions of danger, but pacified him a ittle by showing him my revolver, which I always carried. } A few days afterwards I started early to visit a curious ruined fillage, which had for some time attracted me in the distance by its cturesque situation perched on the summit of a pine clad mountain, Which I judged to be about six or seven miles off. This pine forest extended to within thirty or forty yards of the wall—for these hill villages are invariably surrounded by a wall as a defence against neigh- ouring tribes. } VOL, xLvii. Pp COMIC OOO eS) - = a _ — — — in ee ne +r 6 oO a Geer re nen ee - -