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272 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. CHAP. I. The Chas- seurs d'Afrique. The cele- brated 4th regiment of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. horse which stood ranged, as we know, on the left rear of the ground whence our Light Brigade had advanced. Though originating in arrangements somewhat similar to those by which our Irregular Cavalry in India is constructed, and though mounted on Algerine horses, the horsemen called ' the Chas- 'seurs d'Afrique' were French at the time now spoken of, and they constituted an admirably efficient body of horse ; but if all the four regi- ments which composed it were equal the one to the other in intrinsic worth, the one which had had the fortune to be in the greatest number of brilliant actions was the 'Fourth.' From the frequency with which the corps had chanced to be moved in Algeria, it went by the name of the ' Traveller ' regiment. From the period of its merely rudimentary state in 1840, home down to this war against Kussia, the career of the regiment had been marked by brilliant enterprises. When the Due d'Aumale performed that famous exploit of his at Taguin, overruling all the cautions addressed to him by general officers and resisting the en- treaties of his Arab allies (who implored him to wait for his infantry), it was with this ' Fourth ' regiment of the African Chasseurs, supported only by some Spahis or native horsemen, that the youthful Prince broke his way into the great esmala of Abdel Kader, swept through it like a hurricane, overtook and defeated the enemy's column, cut off its retreat, rode down the Emir's new battalions of regular infantry, and made him-