Arab sentinels, and escaped to a neighboring chain of hills.  Thither they were pursued by their wild foemen, who, although infuriated at the daring and success of this sally, had a sufficient respect for the heavy carabines of the French, and merely hovered closely on their rear, awaiting some favorable opportunity to dash in upon them.  This moment soon came.  The French soldiers, no longer able to withstand the torments of thirst, descending from the hills, in spite of the entreaties of their officers, dashed into a neighboring stream to cool their burning lips.  The instant of doom had come, and, in less time than it takes to recite the narrative, all but twelve of the little band were massacred by the exulting Arabs.  The twelve escaped to Djemaa only after terrible privations and sufferings.

We might readily fill a volume with episodes equally glorious and equally gloomy in the career of the Chasseurs.  They were in nearly all the brilliant actions of the ensuing Algerian campaigns, and, at Zaatcha, Isly, and other famed engagements, they contended side by side with the renowned Zouaves for the palm of military excellence.  Their agility, their promptitude in action, their ardor in attack, and their solidity in retreat, their endurance on the march, their skill and intelligence in availing themselves of every inequality of ground and in turning everything to account, made them so conspicuously preferable, as an infantry corps, for certain operations, that Marshal Bugeaud caused the number of battalions employed in Africa to be increased to six.  From that time to the present, continual progress has been, made in the organization, discipline, and instruction of the Chasseurs, and all the objections which at different periods were, raised against the special composition and details of the force having been one by one met and obviated, France now counts no less than twenty-one battalions of them in her army.

It was for a long time thought by some, that, although the Chasseurs, like the Zouaves, had been successful in the skirmishing engagements of Algeria, they would not be found so useful in European warfare.  This opinion was proved to be erroneous at the siege of Rome, in 1849, where the Chasseurs, armed with their new and terrible weapon, the carabine a tige, in the management of which they had been thoroughly drilled, rendered the most important service; and from what was seen of them there it became evident that the existence of such a force, so perfected in every particular, would hereafter greatly modify the relations and conditions of the defence and attack of fortified works.  The importance of this fact will impress the reader, when he remembers how large a part fortresses have played in warfare since 1815, and especially when he glances at the tendency everywhere perceptible now toward transforming military strongholds into great intrenched camps, as revealed at Antwerp in Belgium, Fredericia in Denmark, Buda and Comorn in Hungary, Peschiera, Mantua, Venice, Verona, and Rome in Italy, Silistria and Sebastopol in the East, and Washington, Manassas, and Richmond in America.