After drawing a low ballot number in March 1861, Monet was drafted into the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry ("Chasseurs d'Afrique") in Algeria for a seven-year period of military service. His prosperous father could have purchased Monet's exemption from conscription but declined to do so when his son refused to give up painting. While in Algeria, Monet did only a few sketches of casbah scenes, a single landscape, and several portraits of officers, all of which have been lost. In a "Le Temps" interview of 1900 however he commented that the light and vivid colours of North Africa "contained the germ of my future researches". After about a year of garrison duty in Algiers, Monet contracted typhoid fever and briefly went absent without leave. Following convalescence, Monet's aunt intervened to remove him from the army if he agreed to complete a course at an art school. It is possible that the Dutch painter Johan Barthold Jongkind, whom Monet knew, may have prompted his aunt on this matter.