THE FOREIGN LEGION

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 303, 14 March 1928, Page 6

THE FOREIGN LEGION

Perched high on a hill and dominating the bay and entrance to the harbour of Oran, stands Port St. Theresa, the distributing depot for the French Foreign Legion in Algeria. Here all recruits, or “Les Bleus,” as they are nicknamed by the Old Legionnaires, are sent to be sorted out before being dispatched either to the first regiment stationed at Sidi-bel-Abbes, or to the second regiment located at Saida. Round the name of the Foreign Legion clings the thought of romance. From the four quarters of the globe come the men—often the outcasts of the world —to fight in that lost legion in the deserts and the forgotten places °f Africa. The men are of every race, and every creed, and together they fight their battle, endure the iron discipline, and find, many of them, graves in the sand—- rest after the weary battle of life. Wonderful Legion! It is not the 75 centimes a day that France pays to her adopted sons; the iron discipline, nor the hard life—and a hard life it certainly is—that lures men from every country and every station in life, into the ranks of the Legion. Rather is it the crowded life of adventure that beckons to every man at some period of his life, when he feels the shackles of so-called civilisation grow so irksome as to become almost unbearable. One thing is certain. These modem musketeers who face death with a smile, bring a touch of romance into a grey old world that is fast losing its love of adventure for adventure’s sake.