At the time, it was embellished with African huts and reconstructed termite mounds with the aim of, according tho Captain Abdel Kader Mademba "giving the black skirmishers the illusion, as faithful as possible, of the materialization of a setting similar to the one they had left; that he finds there, in the evening, during interminable palaver, the echoes of the tam-tam echoing against the walls of a familiar construction, evocative of visions likely to soften the feeling of isolation from which he is sometimes afflicted, placing him, as it were, in a native atmosphere."