to the Tell in order to obtain the corn necessary for their existence, and this renders them tributary to the power which holds the latter.

The "chef de bureau," M. Hugonnet, relates the following anecdote of the inhabitants of the Tell, which is at once characteristic of their habits and manners, and shows the peculiar duties which the administrative officer, so called, has occasionally to perform :

I was one day in a smala of horsemen, among whom the division of spoil obtained in a razzia was to take place under my direction. This razzia, made a short time previously by the natives alone, under my guidance, was very considerable, and the part belonging to the State having been deducted, it had been decided by the superior authorities that the remainder should go to the captors. Only, as these were all children of the district, as the blow had been struck especially to indemnify them for the robberies which had been committed upon them by the enemy, both on themselves and their families, I had decided that the victims of the robberies should be indemnified first, and that for the rest the captors should present me a project of division, which met with a general assent.

There was a great crowd; the mass of the population had assembled; the old men who had come to do honour to the young warriors were seated at the foot of trees, the young men stood upright by them, armed, and talking excitedly. The indemnity for those who had suffered from robberies was easily arranged, but it was quite a different thing when it came to be determined what proportion of the booty each family was to have. The worst was, that the distribution included five fractions of tribes, and among these fractions the Ratibas and the Sakhuars had had frequent quarrels and petty fights. More than this, my Telliens (as M. Hugonnet calls the people of the Tell) were far from having European ideas of equality. Had they simply divided the number of head of cattle captured by that of the captors, the matter might have been speedily settled, but each put in claims of peculiar prowess or family antecedence.

Milūd, a cavalier of the Sakhuar, young and brave, who had a beautiful Arab mare, which he managed with infinite dexterity at festivals, to the great applause of the fair sex, took up the discussion :

"Brethren," he said, "I have near me, here, my great-uncle Ali, whom you all know. I need not remind you of the combats in which he has shown himself one of the bravest of the country, or of the assemblies of tribes in which his wise advice has prevailed. I think we ought to make him a handsome present."

But the young warriors of the Ratibas did not like the proposition at all, and one of them, probably not thinking he was overheard, said something to the purpose of

"What! for that old fool? I dare say!"

But Milūd overheard him, and turned round, and not discerning who had spoken, he addressed himself to the Ratibas generally :

"You have insulted my family, sons of dogs! You have long sought for a day's work. By my wife's abdomen, but you shall have it. I defy you!"

Immediately a movement like that of electricity acted upon all these

men, and they arranged themselves in two long lines, the Ratibas on one side and the Sakhuars on the other, each man abusing the one opposite to him, their arms in their hands, their burnuses cast over their shoulders, and the hood thrown backwards. At this moment my servant came into my tent, and said to me, as he handed me my pistols,

"What a misfortune! We are all dead men!"

The noise from without reached me at the same time, and, rushing out, I precipitated myself, unarmed, between the two hostile lines, and shouted, with all the energy that I was capable of,

"Down with your arms! It is I whom you must kill first. Shame be to me if you fight in my presence! Cease at once, or kill me, or I will kill myself before you, and may my blood fall on your heads! Do you no longer know me, I, the chief of the Arab bureau?"

I was very much excited, and decided upon having recourse to any extremes, rather than permit a combat between tribes placed under my authority. I had the good fortune, however, of having my words listened to, and a moment's hesitation saved everything. Victory became from that moment certain. Once the anger of the factions allayed, it became possible to avert the catastrophe altogether, and in a few minutes the young warriors were themselves ashamed of their violence. As to the old men, they got up and embraced me with effusion, saying:

"Thou art the father of the country; without thee, what would have become of us, great Heaven! Once a ball fired, and it was all over. War was declared between us; and as the French would not have permitted this, we should have been obliged to emigrate to some distant territory in order to fight it out. It was death for most of us; our land abandoned, our provisions gone, nought but misery would have remained for the survivors. May Heaven bless you! We shall not forget this day."

We were on land occupied by the Ratibas. I made them return to their tents, I bade the Sakhuars go to their own homes, and this misunderstanding, which might have been the cause of infinite misfortunes, was soon settled. I arranged the division of booty in my bureau, aided by the oldest and most esteemed men of the tribe, and selected in equal numbers from the several fractions.

Such are the "Telliens," the population of the best portions of Algeria; quick, impulsive, passionate, and warlike, their worst qualities are nursed by conceding to them the privilege of punishing the crimes committed by other tribes upon them, the chef de bureau actually leading them in their razzias, and yet they are affectionate in disposition, and led by kindness almost like children. The wars of tribes and of fractions of tribes, handed down from remote times, will probably never be eradicated.

The administrative unity in military or Arab territory alike is "le cercle." Algeria is subdivided into forty of these circles, each of which has a superior commandant, who has the command of the troops, the surveillance of administrations, and the government of the native tribes, which he exercises through the medium of the Arab "bureaux." In most circles the "chef de bureau" is really sole commandant in his own district. The kinds of questions that are submitted to him for decision are of a description that are much better fitted for an Oriental kadi than for a French soldier. Robberies are the most common, and indemnification

insisted upon. But the following is strange. "You are cowards," said the chef de bureau to three young robbers, Ali, Musa, and Menaud, "to rob in secret, instead of making war against the enemy; an end must be put to this!" This is the morality of the "circles." Justice is administered after an equally curious fashion. Two men quarrelled as to the paternity of an unborn child. The chef de bureau proposed to himself to decide the question by drawing blood from the soi-disant parents and from the child, and comparing them, but the child was stillborn. Bel-Gassem, a mature cavalier of the Askars, claimed his young and pretty affianced bride Yamina, of the tribe of Sassi, but little Yamina had permitted herself to fall in love with a gentle shepherd of her own tribe. Bel-Gassem appealed to the bureau Arabe.

"Had it been," he said, some years back, I and my friends would have carried off the maiden from her dhawar (douar of the French), and our honour would have been saved. The Askars have never suffered insult, and thou wouldst not blacken our faces in the eyes of Mussul

mans ?"

66

Carry off a maiden from our dhawar?" interrupted a youth of the Sassi, with expressions of the most lively horror and indignation. "Are there no men among the Sassi? Whom do you take us for, oh Askar? Are we traders in vegetables for the town? It is not the Askars who would cut off our noses, better a thousand deaths!"

Well, this is the manner in which the difficulty was arranged. BelGassem was permitted to wed the little maiden, but he was to divorce her almost immediately afterwards, leaving Yamina to follow the dictates of her heart. The word "almost" left much that was undecided in the verdict. It reminds one of a Caffrarian decision in a case where a man's nuptials were objected to on the ground of his having already a wife. He was, however, allowed to marry, but on condition that he would prove that he had not another wife within a month. The line of defence taken up by the Arabs is sometimes marked by great simplicity of character. Young Ali was brought one day before the chef de bureau charged with stealing a cow.

"Coming back from the dhawar," he explained, "night coming on, I had to pass the dhawar of Tain, when I saw a rope on a bush. Now, I happened at that moment to be much in want of a rope, so seeing this, I took it up, continuing my journey hurriedly and without looking behind me, for it was getting dark. Arrived at my tent, I turned round, and what did I see but a cow!-a cow fastened to the rope that I was taking along with me, and at the same moment Kaddur, who was coming along with his friends, calling me thief! What infamy, What infamy, a man like me!"

Sometimes an Arab paterfamilias brought a complaint before the bureau, that So-and-so had been invited to a nuptial feast, and had only given one duro to the musicians, when he, upon the occasion of the defendant's nuptials, had contributed four! At other times actual robbers would appeal to the chef de bureau to settle quarrels as to division of booty among themselves! The verdict in such a case was as follows: "Oh, oh, you are very impudent! You wish me to regulate robberies just as if they were inheritances? Justice is not dispensed for the benefit of thieves; let them kill one another, and everybody will profit by the

result!"

A clever chef de bureau has, it will be seen, much in his power. He is indeed the representative of the Oriental pasha and kadi. At times, the most delicate questions are submitted to his decision. Mustafa-BenAli, who was blind of one eye, was explaining one of these intricate family points one day at great length, and with extreme prolixity, till the "chef," growing impatient, said,

"Oh, Mustafa, if God has given you only one eye, he has granted you two tongues."

The Arabs laughed, and the surname of "Bu lessanin," the twotongued, remained ever afterwards to poor Mustafa.

A young man married a widow who was enceinte. The widow died in labour. The young man insisted that the dowry should be returned, for, he argued, the wife died from the consequences of an event brought about by a previous marriage, and he could not afford to lose the dowry he had given.

The verdict, however, was as follows:

Can

Suppose you purchased a gun, you are free to examine it. Suppose it is loaded, some time afterwards you discharge it, and it bursts. you reclaim the price of the gun n?"

There are abuses in this system of government and administering justice, to which our chef de bureau is himself not insensible. Fines may be imposed upon litigants and criminals, the precise amount of which is not known to the higher authorities. He may receive taxes upon, say, five hundred ploughs, and only return taxes for four hundred and fifty. Too much reliance is thus placed upon the integrity of the chefs de bureau. If inclined to be Oriental in their ideas, there is also nothing to prevent their receiving presents or bribes. It is certain that in some districts the said chefs are positively laden with presents of butter, honey, olives, dates, wool, wood, and even cattle. Many of the chefs de bureau, having had no experience, are as rough and rude to the natives as the most brutal Turk. A chef de bureau has also, under certain circumstances, the power of summary execution of a delinquent-a power only to be used with infinite discrimination.

The piety of the Arab is well known, but what is his idea of a Frenchman's religion? "The French," they say, "are frivolous, inconsiderate, and especially ungrateful towards God. So long as they are in prosperity they never pronounce the name of Providence, they never allude to it in their conversation but in tones of insult; but let them be wounded, or suffer in any manner, and then you will hear them saying incessantly, Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!' although the moment they are well they forget their Creator."

Are these the men to exercise the power of life and death upon the mistaken, it may be, but still the eminently pious, Mussulman? Well may the Arab sheriff retort upon the Sultan Kebir's quotation from the Koran, that the Mussulman respects "sincere convictions."

Hospitality ranks after piety amongst the chief virtues of the Arabs. Nothing can be more touching than the manner in which it is exercised. A stranger appears at the tent-door, or dhawar.

"May What

"Master of the house," he says, "I am the guest of God." safety be with you; you are welcome," is the invariable reply. ever is ready is offered, if the visitor be a pauper; if a rich man, fowls or

a sheep are killed. A reserve is even laid by for the poor. "No one must touch this," they say; "it is for the guests whom God may send us." Charity is enforced in almost every passage of the Koran. If misfortune overtake a family, the whole tribe contribute to its relief. Expelled from one part of the country to another, it suffices to the exile to say to some chief, "Lord, I am ruined; I have no hope but in you and in God." "Praise be to God! may Heaven bless you," will be the reply, and the stranger pitches his tent, and becomes one more of the numerous parasites that live upon the great man's bounty. In the Algerian Tell there are also establishments for the aid of the needful. There are no papers required, whereas the French hospitals are encumbered, like everything else, with so many forms, and rules, and regulations, that the Arab is no sooner admitted than he wishes to get out, whether he has been relieved or not. Nothing is more irksome to the child of the Desert than the absurd formalities of civilised society, and yet no one maintains more social decorum, or is possessed with a higher sense of the dignity of manhood, than the Arab. The Tellien is also very far from wanting in natural intelligence. "The countrymen in our villages," says the chef de bureau, are more coarse and ignorant than the poorest labourer in

the Tell."

"I will not relate to you," says Madame Louise Vallory, in her little book, "A l'Aventure en Algérie," a name not a little presumptuous, when the fair author only got as far as Blidah and Boghar, "the grotto," "all the African festivals given upon the occasion of the reception of the emperor, triumphal arches, pasteboard decorations, garlands of flowers, a general disguise under pretext of embellishment, preoccupation of Algerians, who were much more interested in puerile questions of costumes and precedence than in the future of the colony, or the agitation of the ladies who emptied their husbands' purses under pretence of official enthusiasm.

"Nor shall I tell you of the great fantasia, of the ostrich and gazelle hunts, of the distribution of crosses, medals, and presents of all kinds to the chiefs and the krames, much more sensitive to the reception of a pair of slippers or a kerchief than to the medal attached to their burnuses by a bit of green ribbon.

"What use will this medal be to us?' inquired some thirty men in their diminutive tents to the officer who was distributing them. Will they give us a right to a small annuity ?' 'No.' Will they exempt us from taxation? No. Well, they will confer some privilege?' 'No.' Then they are useless? No, they will constitute glorious reminiscences of the journey of the Emperor Napoleon III.' They either no longer comprehended, or they comprehended too much, for they began to laugh. Accustomed as they are to the sands of the Desert, the Arabs allow dust to be thrown in their eyes much less easily than Europeans." This is too bad of Madame Vallory. No doubt the habit of guarding against the dust of the Desert would enable them to take precautions against the dust of Europe, but the latter is the gold, silver, or bronze dust of "civilisation." Intelligent as are the Arabs, there are, however, things which they really cannot comprehend. Just as the French esteem it the highest honour to be killed in battle, while the New Caledonians consider it a dishonour to receive even a wound, so the Arabs not only