Among the hill-folk of Algeria; journeys among the Shawía of the Aurès Mountains

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385 Wash'n St. Boston

AMONG THE HILL-
FOLK OF ALGERIA

ON THE M VKC1I IN TIIK AUUK.S.

Frontispiece.

AMONG THE HILL-
FOLK OF ALGERIA

JOURNEYS AMONG THE SHAWIA
OF THE AURES MOUNTAINS

By M. W. HILTON-SIMPSON

B.Sc, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., F.R.A.L, MEMBRE DE LA SOCIETE
DE GFloGRAPHIE D* ALGER. Author of "ALGIERS AND
BEYOND," "LAND AND PEOPLES OF THE KASAI"

WITH 40 ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

1921

(All rights reserved)

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 9

CHATTER

I. AT THE "MOUTH OP THE DESERT" . 13

II. AMONG THE HILL-FOLK . . . .35

III. FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE ... 55

IV. AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURES . . 74
V. FROM MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 96

VI. TO THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 116

VII. LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE . . .136

VIII. IN THE HEART OF THE AURES . . .159

IX. THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS . . 179

X. THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 199

APPENDIX I. HINTS TO TRAVELLERS IN THE

AURES . . . .233

II. SPORT . . . . .237

INDEX 243

ILLUSTRATIONS

ON THE MARCH IN THE AURES .

"THE MOUTH OF THE DESERT"

A FEAST AT THE TOMB OF A SAINT

A PIPER OF THE DESERT

ON THE ROOF .

A SHAWIA POTTER, BENI FERAH

FIRING POTTERY AT BENI FERAH

BRINGING HOME THE BRIDE .

A WATER-CLOCK

DANCING AT A WEDDING, BENI FERAH

IN THE OASIS OF DJEMORA

MENAA, "THE CAPITAL OF THE AURES "

THE ABDI VALLEY FROM MENAA .

AN OULED ABDI DANCER AND HER FINERY.

ROSEBUD ATTIRED FOR THE FEAST

CAVE DWELLINGS, MAAFA

SPRING-TIME, MAAFA

NOUADER AND THE ABDI VALLEY .

WEAVING TENT CLOTH IN THE STREET .

Frontispiece

PACING PAGE

26

. 26

34
. 34

42
. 42

44
. 44

50
. 56

6G
. 6G

80
. 80

94

. 94

100

. 100

8 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

FACING PA.dE

THE HAMLET OF TIJDAD .... 110

BOUBISH RECEIVING HIS FOLLOWERS . . . 110

THE "GOUM" AT BRANIS .... 122

COOKING A "MECHWI" ..... 122

THE DEFENSIBLE GRANARY OF BANIANE . . 130

OULED MANSOUR AND THE RASSIRA CANON . . 136

FORETELLING THE FUTURE .... 150

INTERIOR OF A " GUELAA " ...... 150

THE UPPER RASSIRA BASIN .... 160

THE DEFILE OF TIGHANIMINE .... 172

TAGHOUT ...... 172

SHAWf A SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS . . . .188

A DEMONSTRATION OF SPLINTING . . . 188

DRUG SELLER IN A MARKET .... 196

DRESSING A FINGER IN THE STREET . . . 196

KHANGA SIDI NADJI ..... 208

THE KAID OF KHANGA IN THE CLOISTERS OF HIS

MOSQUE ...... 214

GATEWAY OF THE OLD FORT .... 214

OUR HOUSE AT CHEBLA .... 222

KHEIRANE ....... 222

THE CLIFF-TOP VILLAGE OF DJELLAL . . 228

SKETCH-MAP OF THE AURES . . . page 242

INTRODUCTION

TO the reader of guide books, of railway time-tables,
and of the advertisements of tourist agencies it
may appear almost absurd that a traveller should pretend
to have anything new to say about a range of wild and
barren hills whose western spurs are visible to the naked
eye of the visitor to one of the most popular tourist
resorts of the whole world ; Biskra, the oasis on the
fringe of the Algerian Sahara, whose hotels are thronged
each winter by hosts of seekers after sunshine and a
dry climate.

It may indeed seem incredible to these visitors, as they
wander around Biskra's crowded market, or lounge in
the beautiful garden of the Chateau Landon, that less
than one hundred miles away, amid and beyond the
ranges of barren rocks, whose glorious coloration at
sunset fills them with wonder and almost with awe as
they gaze to the north-east from the oasis, there are to
be found to this day many villages in which a European
woman has never been seen, and a white race of natives
very many of whose arts and crafts, customs and beliefs
have never been described in print.

Nevertheless it is a fact that during our three winters
spent in the fastnesses of the Aures mountains, for such
is the name of the hills to which I have referred, my
wife has been the first European woman to be seen by
the stay-at-home inhabitants of many a remote village,

10 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

natives who do not wander to the great centres of civiliza-
tion, and that we have been enabled to elicit a considerable
amount of information as to the manners and customs
of the fair-haired Berbers of the hills which has hitherto
remained unknown to European students of native life.

The object of our journeys in the winters 1912-13,
1913-14, and 1919-20 was to collect specimens of Berber
handicraft for the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford, as well
as to glean all possible information upon the life of the
people and upon the ancient medicine and surgery which,
it was suspected, had been secretly practised in the
Aures for many generations past, and which it has been
our privilege to examine in some detail for the first time.
Some of the information we have collected has been
laid before various learned societies in England ; it is
hoped, in due course, to publish the technical results
of our work in full.

The present volume, far from attempting to discuss at
length the various ethnographical problems presented by
the Berbers, constitutes an endeavour to answer some
of the innumerable questions as to their life and as to
the conditions under which journeys in the hills can be
carried out that have been put to us by passing travellers
at Biskra, El Kantara, and elsewhere, each time we have
come down from the Aures to rest ; questions which
show clearly that many a visitor to Algeria would gladly
learn more of the life of its natives than a stay in a
tourist centre can reveal to him, and that there are many
who would undertake expeditions among the hill-folk
were they aware of the conditions prevailing in the
mountains.

Having wandered up and down all the main valleys of
the Aures massif, visiting many of its remotest hamlets
as well as all its larger villages, I have endeavoured in

INTRODUCTION 11

the following pages so to describe the country that
any of my readers who care to undergo the discomforts
incidental to travel in such districts may follow in our
footsteps, and in addition, for it is hoped soon to con-
struct motor roads through the heart of the massif, to
point the way to many interesting and beautiful localities
which will, in the future, be accessible to the tourist who
indulges in the luxury of a car.

In taking the reader from village to village in the
Aures I have attempted to bring to his notice many of
the more remarkable of the customs of the Berbers so
that, having accompanied us through these pages in our
wanderings in the hills, he may obtain a greater knowledge
of the life of this ancient people than he could acquire
without spending many months in daily contact with
it or by the study of existing literature on the subject,
for, although during the seventeen years and more which
have elapsed since I commenced my travels in Algeria
I have read most of the serious works relating to that
country, I have found no detailed description of Berber
life in the Aures in either the French or English languages.
I have omitted in these pages all account of matters
of strictly archaeological interest.

My work is that of the ethnographer, and I do not
pretend to the knowledge which would have enabled me
to carry out useful archaeological studies in the field,
even had I found the time necessary to devote to them
amid my investigations of existing native life. I have
confined my attentions to my chosen line of research.
It has always been my experience that the natives'
natural love of hunting provides an avenue by which
his friendship can be most easily approached ; I have,
therefore, at various times done a fair amount of shooting
in the area dealt with in these pages, as a result of which

12 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

I have ventured to offer to my brother sportsmen some
notes upon the sport obtainable in the form of an
Appendix ; some hints upon outfit, etc., suitable for the
hills forming the subject of another Appendix, which,
I hope, may prove useful to travellers who follow in our
footsteps in the Aures.

With the exception of the picture of the drug seller,
illustrating Chapter IX, for which I am indebted to a
friend, all the photographs in this volume are from our
own negatives ; the sketch map which accompanies it
is merely intended to enable the reader to follow at a
glance our routes upon one of the excellent large-scale
maps of Algeria prepared by the French military
authorities.

If these pages, penned during a pressure of other work,
can succeed in increasing the enjoyment of my fellow
travellers by inducing them to visit the mountain homes
of the Berbers of the Aures ; if the picture, incomplete
as it must necessarily be in any but a strictly technical
work, which I have endeavoured to draw of native life
in the hills, can give my readers a clearer insight into some
of the phases of that life than a brief visit to Algeria can
afford them ; or, especially, if an acquaintanceship with
the natives, formed by a perusal of the pages, may lead
some future wanderer to study and describe the many
points in their maimers and customs which are still
shrouded in mystery before the slow but steady advance
of western civilization has hidden them from us for ever,
then the labour expended upon the writing of these lines
cannot, surely, have been in vain.

M. W. HILTON-SIMPSON.

AMONG THE HILL-FOLK
OF ALGERIA

CHAPTER I
AT THE "MOUTH OF THE DESERT''

A GLANCE AT THE GEOGBAPHY OF THE AUBES — " THE MOUTH OF THE
DESEBT " — EL KANTABA AS A BASE FOB JOUBNEYS INTO THE HILLS
— THE VILLAGES OF Eli KANTABA — THE CAFES — LIFE OF AN ABAB
IN THE OASIS — THE GABDENS — DATE HABVEST — THE SHEPHEBDS —
FESTIVALS AT THE TOMBS OF SAINTS — AMONG THE ABAB WOMEN OF
EL KANTABA.

IF we draw upon the map of eastern Algeria a straight
line running from north to south from the Mediter-
ranean coast, through the town of Constantine, to a point
some fifty miles to the east of Biskra in the great desert,
we shall find that the line so drawn, upon leaving the
coast, will pass through a region of green wooded hills
well watered by its annual rainfall, upon descending from
which it will cross the high central plateau of Algeria,
some three thousand feet above the level of the sea, the
great grain-producing country of the Romans, near the
famous ruins of whose once flourishing town of Timgad,
it will enter another range of hills before finally descending
to nearly the level of the sea in the Sahara.

This range of hills, which more or less continuously
forms the northern boundary of the desert from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Gabes on the Tunisian

13

14 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

coast, is divided into various massifs, through the highest
of which to be found in Algeria our imaginary line will
pass.

The geography of the Aures itself, the Mons Aurasius
of Roman times, is in a sense a replica in miniature of
the geography of the country in the same longitude ; thus
were we to traverse it from north to south we should
find that its northern slopes are well wooded, its high
central valleys less extensively so, while in the south its
few poor streams flow through a tumble of barren hills
till they lose themselves in the great desert ; in less than
sixty miles as the crow flies we should have left behind
us forests of pine and cedar, and, after passing through a
high country of grey rocks studded with juniper and ilex,
suggestive of parts of southern Europe, we should find
ourselves at last in Africa, a desert land in whose deep
canons oases of date palms extend along the banks of
its streams. This mountainous massif of the Aures is
peculiarly well fitted from its geographical position to be
the home of ancient survivals, for it offers to its inhabi-
tants magnificent natural facilities for defence against any
invader who might be tempted to subjugate them.

Its steep densely wooded northern slopes, above which
the peaks of Chelia (some seven thousand feet above the
sea), Mahmel, and Ichemoul gleam white with snow until
the spring of the year has wellnigh given place to the
fierce heat of summer, offer but scant hope of success to
an invader approaching from the level country between
Batna and Khenchcla, two French settlements on the
plateau ; the barren rocks which form its southern boun-
dary, those rocks whose ever-changing shades of pink
to purple at eventide present to the traveller at Biskra
one of the most lovely distant panoramas he will find in
Algeria, constitute a barrier which might well daunt any

AT THE "MOUTH OF THE DESERT" 15

foe who threatened the country from the desert ; to the
east the great ridge of the Djebel Cherchar, between
Khanga Sidi Nadji in the south and Khenchela in the
north, provides a bastion of defence for the central portion
of the range ; while its western border, roughly speaking
the valley now followed by the railway from Batna to
Biskra, though scarcely so well defined as its northern
and southern limits, is rugged and forbidding enough to
provide its inhabitants with a magnificent line of defence.
The history of the country is precisely what a glance at
its geography would lead us to suppose it to be. Rome,
doubtless not caring to undertake extensive military
operations for the complete subjugation of such an
inhospitable region as the Aures, appears to have been
content to protect her granaries on the plateau by means
of a permanent camp — the size of the ruins of this camp
at Lambese will show us that she did not despise the
wild tribes of the hills ; the great Arab invader of Africa,
Sidi Okba ben Nan, who carried the sword of Islam from
the Red Sea to the Atlantic in the seventh century, was
defeated and slain by these same tribesmen who, led by
their chief tainess Kahena, came down to give him battle
in the desert at the spot to the south-east of Biskra near
to which now stands his memorial, the oldest mosque
in Africa ; the Beys of Constantine, in the days of Turkish
rule, held but little sway over the sturdy mountaineers
of the Aures.

Indeed, it would not be too much to say that from
time immemorial until the French invasion of the massif
in about 1845 the Aures has never been definitely con-
quered by the sword, and even quite lately it afforded
shelter to a couple of bands of outlaws despite repeated
efforts of considerable bodies of troops to effect their
capture. What the sword could not accomplish, however,

16 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

religion succeeded in attaining ; the inhabitants of the
Aures bowed to the faith of Islam, and with the faith they
gradually acquired many, very many, of the customs of
the East.

But to this day these people have retained most of
their physical characteristics. Members of the ancient
Berber race, their fair hair, blue eyes, and complexions
which are pale beneath the tan produced by the great
heat of the African summer distinguish them at a glance
from the darker Semitic and negroid types of the desert ;
while the old Berber language, though no longer written,
is still spoken by the Shawia tribes, as the Berbers of
the Aures are called, who have never adopted the Arabic
of their new faith.

It was on account of the probability of finding the
Berber of the Aures as little changed as any of his
kindred, less so than his Kabyle cousins of the mountains
near the coast, who have been more progressive in the
adoption of Western ideas, that my wife and I turned our
attention to the study of Shawia life in the winter of
1912-13. Owing to the fact that the Shawia tribes,
unable, of course, to live upon the barren rocky peaks of
their native hills, inhabit the six main valleys of the
massif, the valleys of the Wed (river) Bouzina, Wed Abdi,
Wed el Abiod with its continuation the Wed Rassira,
Wed Guechtan, Wed el Arab, and Wed beni Babar, which
run from the high country in the north of the range
towards the Sahara, and that these valleys are divided
by precipitous ridges passable by but few rough tracks,
I considered that the best means of exploring the Aures
would be to select a suitable base in the neighbourhood
of the hills and to take from it a series of short journeys
of one or two months' duration in each of which we
could investigate one particular valley, returning after

AT THE "MOUTH OF THE DESERT" 17

each journey to our base to replenish our stores, thus
avoiding the necessity of encumbering ourselves with
impedimenta for a stay of a whole winter in the hills,
which impedimenta implies the use of additional mule
transport, as well as giving us opportunities to rest after
the unavoidable discomforts of a stay in remote Shawia
villages. I found a very suitable base for such expedi-
tions in El Kantara, the " Foum es Sahara," or " mouth
of the desert " of the Arabs, Fromentin's " Golden gate
of the Orient," where, after rounding the eastern spurs of
the great frowning mountain Metlili, upon which the
sportsman may try his skill in the quest of Barbary sheep,
the train, following the course of an oleander bordered
stream, suddenly plunges into a narrow cleft in a red
wall of rock, whose precipitous sides tower a thousand
feet above the brook, and emerges two or three hundred
yards further on into a wide stony valley, revealing to
the traveller from the coast at once his first glimpse of
real desert and of an oasis of date palms, spread like a
deep green carpet at the foot of the rocky ridge he has
just left behind him. Far abler pens than mine have
described the glories of El Kantara and the ever-changing
hues of its barren rocks, at once the ambition and the
despair of many an artist, soft in the light of dawn,
shimmering beneath the noonday sun, or glowing in all
the fiery splendour of the evening ; I will, therefore,
content myself with describing the place as a centre
from which to explore the neighbouring hills and in which
to commence a study of native life. El Kantara is
peculiarly suitable as a base owing to the fact that Shawia
villages can be reached, and thus the traveller's investi-
gations can be begun, at a shorter distance from the
railway than is possible from either Batna or Biskra ;
thus a ride of a short half-day's duration, upon slow-

2

18 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

moving mules, will enable him to reach Beni Ferah to
the south-east or Maafa to the north-east, while a shorter
ride still will take him to a purely Berber hamlet in the
gorge of Tilatou, from which he can return to El Kantara
for the night, there being but scant accommodation for
a European, however modest his requirements, in its tiny
cottages perched like eagle's nests among the crags.

In addition to this, the mules necessary for a journey
into the hills are readily obtainable at El Kantara, and,
although El Kantara is devoid of any European shops,
the stores required for such a journey can be ordered
by telephone from Biskra or Batna and received next
day by train, while the existence of a post and telegraph
office opposite to its little hotel ensures constant
communication with the outside world.

The European settlement at the Gate of the Orient,
which lies upon the north side of the ridge, through
which runs its famous gorge, has little to offer to a seeker
after the amenities of social life, for it consists merely
in a wayside railway station, a gendarmerie, an inn,
a small school for the children from these establishments,
and a couple of other European households.

The inn, a survival from the old coaching days before
the railway to the desert had been commenced, is quite
the best in which I have stayed in the course of some
years of wandering in Barbary ; scrupulously clean,
comfortably if simply furnished, providing a plain but
excellent table, and personally worked by members of
the family of Bertrand, to whom it belongs, the Hotel
Bert rand should certainly satisfy every want of the
traveller who enjoys its hospitality, and who will remember
that he is staying at an inn and not at a great modern
hotel, for the individual who expects to find a Piccadilly
or a Ritz in a hamlet such as I have described will be

AT THE "MOUTH OF THE DESERT" 19

better advised to confine his wanderings to the great
highways of European civilization than to seek the nooks
and corners of Algeria. Once installed at El Kantara the
traveller who is interested in native life will find much to
occupy his attention in the three villages that, under the
control of one native Kai'd or chief, nestle beside the palm
groves on the southern side of the gorge, for the majority of
travellers spend but a day or two at the inn, in their haste
to proceed to Biskra, so that the three villages have not
become mere " side shows " overrun with European
visitors, in which much that is native in the life of its
inhabitants has given place to occupations called into
being by the requirements of the visitors themselves,
and the undesirable nondescript who dogs the footsteps
of the visitor in most fashionable resorts of the near
east is scarcely to be found in the villages of El Kantara ;
therefore the sedentary Arab population of an oasis can
still be profitably studied without even leaving behind
the accommodation of an inn and the facilities of a railway
and a postal service.

After passing through the gorge along the highroad
which closely follows the track of the railway, and leaving
on his right the school built in native style by the French
for the Arab boys of the oasis, the traveller quickly finds
himself in the main street of the first hamlet of El Kantara,
known as the " White Village," whose tiny native shops
which border the road to Biskra on either hand, miniature
emporiums some twelve feet square, provide the Arabs
with almost anything they require of European manufac-
ture, from a length of calico for a woman's dress to a mule's
bit, or a packet of unwholesome looking sweets. By still
following this road, after crossing an iron bridge over an
often waterless river bed, he will in a few hundred yards
arrive at the " Black Village," a hamlet possessing little

20 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

of interest, beside which a camp of a Senegalese battalion,
still occupied two and a-half years after the Armistice,
has been built during the war.

Beyond the Black Village the road winds on, skirting
the fringe of the oasis, across a stony level plain between
the ridge, in which the gorge is the only cleft, and a line
of low rocky hills to the south-east, round the spurs of
which it wends its way towards the great Sahara at
Biskra.

Upon returning to the White Village the traveller will
find that, in addition to the main road by which he has
passed, it possesses a veritable maze of narrow tortuous
lanes between houses built of the same mud and straw
bricks which occupied the attention of the Children of
Israel in Egypt some thousands of years ago, whose
corner-stones not infrequently consist of fragments of
Roman masonry, of which large quantities are found when
foundations are dug at El Kantara, and that beyond
this labyrinth of streets of windowless houses lie the date
gardens which extend from the village to the high left
bank of the stream.

Wandering along lanes, scarcely wide enough in which
to pass a laden mule, leading through the gardens to
the river, the traveller whose gaze has so lately contem-
plated the barren stony desert and rocky hills will
probably begin to realize why the Prophet of Islam has
chosen a garden as the idea of heaven to place before
the desert-weary eyes of his Arabian followers in the
sacred Suras of his Koran.

No greater contrast can be imagined than that which
exists between the panorama of a desert dancing in the
heat of a still powerful sun and the quiet shade of a
forest of stately palms, beneath which flourish in fair
profusion apricots, almonds, and other fruit trees, clothed

AT THE "MOUTH OF THE DESERT" 21

in delicate blossom of white and pink in the springtime,
or adding a glorious note of gold to the scene as their
leaves assume an autumn tint, whose presence serves to
break the otherwise somewhat monotonous beauty of
the oasis.

Gardens and a plentiful supply of clear limpid streams ;
such is the dream of the sun-scorched thirsty soul in the
desert, and these are precisely the reward which the wise
old Arabian prophet has promised for ever to the Faithful
in the life beyond the grave, adding to his picture of the
land of the hereafter the presence of maidens, to whose
allure it must be confessed the Arab, and for that matter
the Shawia also, are far more susceptible than to the
charms of scene and verse, despite the literary tendencies
with which some travellers have attempted to endow the
usually illiterate dwellers in the Sahara !

Arrived at the side of the Wed el Kantara the traveller
will obtain a glimpse of the third hamlet of the oasis,
called from colour of the surrounding soil the " Red
Village," standing high upon the bank of the opposite
shore, amidst its groves of date and fruit trees, commanding
a fine view of a bend in the watercourse and of the gorge
beyond.

Crossing the river by means of stepping-stones, with
the use of which he can dispense after one of the all too
frequent periods of drought which afflict this otherwise
pleasant land, for the water which comes down from the
mountains has usually nearly all been transferred to
little irrigation canals to supply the gardens at a point
well above the Red Village in dry seasons, he can climb
up a steep path to the village itself, and rinding his way
along its narrow streets, passing a quaint native cafe"
as he goes, he will gradually turn northward on a French-
made road towards the gorge, re-crossing the stream by

22 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

means of an unsightly iron bridge situated a couple of
hundred yards below the renovated Roman structure
from which the place takes its Arabic name of El Kantara,
" the bridge " ; then in a few minutes he will have passed
northwards through the gorge, in which the wind usually
blows chill at early morning and at dusk, and will find
himself back again at his inn.

In these surroundings my wife and I commenced our
inquiries into the customs of the Arabs of an oasis with
a view to comparing them with those of the Berbers of
the hills. I have always found that the best means of
becoming well acquainted with the inhabitants of an
Algerian village is to approach them in the guise of a
hunter, for the natives entertain a strong fellow-feeling
for the sportsman, and to frequent their coffee houses ;
when not undertaking expeditions in search of the Bar-
bary sheep and two species of gazelle obtainable in the
district, therefore, we spent much time in the consumption
of black coffee in the club-like caf£s of the Red and White
Villages.

There, in the cafe\ a rectangular building of mud-brick,
its rafters of palm trunk supported by one or more pillars
of the same wood or of brickwork, are to be met with
natives of all classes, nomads from the tents of the sur-
rounding desert, Shawia Berbers from the hills, as well
as the male inhabitants of El Kantara, who drop in to
partake of coffee, their only stimulant, and to pass the
time of day with their friends in what is, to all intents
and purposes, their club.

Squatting upon mats spread upon the ground amid
clouds of smoke from cigarettes, or from juniper leaves
smoked in the bone of a goat's leg hollowed to form a
tube, the coffee-drinkers indulge in such amusements as
dominoes, a form of draughts, or, sometimes, in defiance

AT THE "MOUTH OF THE DESERT" 23

of the Prophet, for considerable stakes in games played
with highly-coloured Spanish cards.

Often music in the form of the reed and tambourine is
provided in the cafe\ while, rarely, an itinerant bag-piper
from Tripoli or Morocco delights his audience with sounds
remotely resembling those of the Highland pipes, whose
strains, recalling a far-off desert home, have brought
tears to the eyes of many an Algerian soldier amidst the
mud and misery of Flanders.

Very soon we began to make a considerable number
of acquaintances in El Kantara ; at first among the
male population only, for women, other than an occasional
danseuse of shady reputation, are never to be seen in
an Arab cafe*. The men of the place were eager enough
to talk of sport, or of the great desert to the far south,
a country in which I had wandered fairly extensively
in years gone by, and as the Arab, a dweller in a land of
great distances, is very inclined to respect those whose
travels have led them further afield in his barren land
than have his own, we quickly found that we had inter-
ested the natives in us sufficiently to receive many
invitations to visit their gardens, or to watch them plying
their various crafts. The natives of El Kantara, as a
rule, are well-to-do, and many of them own plantations
of date palms in the oasis, but to the casual observer it
may well appear that very little use is made of the ground
beneath the trees, though in some instances beans, red
pepper, pumpkins, etc., are to be found under cultivation
in the gardens.

The Arab is, in truth, a poor agriculturist compared
with the more industrious Berbers of the hills, but a
certain excuse for his indolence in this respect is to be
found in the fact that although El Kantara, situated
some 1,500 feet above sea-level, can be cold enough in

24 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

mid-winter, when the wind blows chill from the snow-clad
peaks in the north, its rainfall is extremely small, so that
the waters of its " Living River," even when swollen by
the melting of the mountain snows, barely suffice for the
date palms themselves, which, as the Arabs say, require
to have " their feet in the water, their heads in the fire "
to produce a satisfactory crop.

The gardens of El Kantara are at their busiest in the
autumn, the season of the date harvest.

At this time some members of each family, accompanied
by their savage jackal-like watchdogs, always pass the
night in their plantations to protect the crop from passing
nomads, whose attentions to the ripening fruit not
infrequently lead to the use of gun or knife.

The picking itself is by no means devoid of danger.

A man, or boy, carrying with him a long cord, climbs
the tree, using as a ladder the projections in the trunk
made by constant cutting of the branch-like leaves as the
tree grows upwards.

Upon arrival at the leafy summit of the tree, from the
centre of which hang down great clusters of dates upon
branches resembling the mid-rib of the leaf, he attaches
one end of his cord to the tree, allowing the other end to
fall to the ground.

He then saws off whole branches of dates with the aid
of a small serrated sickle, and, calling to an assistant
below to hold the cord taut at an angle with the tree
trunk, he places each branch as he cuts it across the cord
so that it can slide gently to the ground, thus avoiding
the shock, and the consequent loss of fruit, which would
result should he drop the branch directly from the tree.

The date palm, that great wealth of the desert, is by
no means the only source from which the natives of El
Kantara derive their prosperity ; they are the owners of

AT THE "MOUTH OF THE DESERT" 25

numerous herds of goats and sheep, which latter, lean
though they are compared with our English sheep, are
considered nowadays to approach, if not to exceed, in
value even the date palm as a possession. Although the
surrounding country is not so absolutely devoid of the
poor pasture which serves to keep life in these hardy
animals as to force the stock-owner of El Kantara to lead
the nomadic life of the Sahara in order to maintain
them, it is necessary to take the animals to some distance
from the oasis to search for food. This the owner is
far too indolent to undertake himself, he therefore entrusts
his animals to the care of professional shepherds, often
mere boys, who, forming herds of as many as two or three
hundred head from the animals of a number of owners,
drive them out daily at dawn to feed upon the poor herbage
of the desert and the lower hills in the winter, leaving
the more plentiful supply to be found upon the higher
slopes of Metlili for the summer months, when the great
heat will render the animals less diligent in their search
for food, and when the scorching plains would be almost
unbearable to the shepherd. All day long the shepherds
move slowly over the country, their animals feeding as
they go, keeping a watchful eye upon any straggler
among their charges, for they are responsible for their
loss, calling them on with strange cough-like cries, and
rounding up a wanderer by means of a well-directed stone
often hurled from a sling made of cords of plaited halfa
grass. Great vigilance is required to protect the flocks,
especially in the lambing season, from the attacks of
jackals, which are very numerous in the country round,
and whose shrill cry often breaks the silence of the night
around the inn at El Kantara, for these creatures are
bold enough to carry off a lamb or kid even in broad
daylight.

26 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Visits to the cafes and a desire to ingratiate ourselves
as far as possible with the natives in order to obtain an
insight into their daily life soon brought to our notice
an oft-recurring festival both at El Kantara and in the
hills, namely, a subscription feast on the anniversary of
the birth or death of some local Moslem saint. All
mosques in the country are built to the memory of some
native who, owing to his blameless life or to a reputation
for performing miracles — frequently to a combination of
the two — has been deemed worthy of inclusion in the
endless lists of the Mohammedan " marabouts," and who
sleeps his last sleep in a tiny chapel in the building, while
those lesser saints, whose memory has not been perpetu-
ated by the erection of a mosque, repose each within a
form of mausoleum, which varies considerably in design
according to its locality, those at El Kantara and in centres
such as Batna and Biskra usually consisting of a small
rectangular building surmounted by a dome or cupola,
known in Arabic as a " kouba," while in the poorer
villages of the Aures a mere rectangle of stones, without
any roof, or a whitewashed conical heap of baked earth
may serve to mark the last resting-place of a minor
saint.

Some of the more important of these " marabouts,"
whose character we will examine more closely when we
visit a living example in the hills, are revered throughout
a wide extent of country, while even a lesser holy man
possesses long after his death a considerable local following
of natives who consider him their patron saint, who
worship in the mosque erected to his memory, or who
bring candles and incense at certain times to burn in
his " kouba," or in the recess which is usually provided
for the purpose in the tomb of even the meanest saint.
As the anniversary of a marabout draws near a subscrip-

"THE MOUTH OF THE DESERT.

A FEAST AT THE TOMB OF A SAINT.

To face p. '26.

AT THE "MOUTH OF THE DESERT" 27

tion is opened in the village to provide a meal upon the
day for all his followers in the neighbourhood.

Each household contributes according to its means ;
thus a wealthy stock-owner may present one or more
sheep, a well-to-do shopkeeper a sum of money, a poorer
person a quantity of barley, while the very poorest will
contribute something, even if his gift should consist only
of a little red pepper to flavour the dishes, though
inability to bring an offering does not debar the destitute
from the forthcoming feast.

Upon the day appointed all the male followers of the
saint repair to his " kouba," or his mosque, accompanied
by a number of women, whose duty it is to cook food in
the shape of stews of meat and " kuskus," or steamed
semolina, in the courtyard of the building, or some adja-
cent spot, the flat loaves of unleavened bread meantime
having been placed in the little chapel, heavy with the
scent of burning incense, beside the raised tomb of the
holy man, which is decked with gaudy muslins and hung
round with brightly coloured silken flags, in order that
some of the " baraka " or holiness of the illustrious dead
may enter into them, and thus be absorbed by his devotees
when the food is eaten. The crowd, especially its younger
element, many of which have been commissioned to carry
home dishes to their mothers and sisters, who in many
cases in an Arab community would not attend in person
at the mosque, not infrequently becomes unruly, so that
a doorkeeper, armed with a thick stick (which he does
not hesitate to use) and a fine flow of language, such as
we should consider singularly inappropriate to a place
of worship, has no small difficulty in regulating the
traffic in such a manner that the incoming throng of
devotees, as hungry for the food as they are for any
blessing it may contain, does not trample under foot

28 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

those who are attempting to take some of the sacred
meal home to their relatives.

The European traveller will experience no difficulty
in visiting any of the mosques at El Kantara or in the
hills ; as a rule, however, they possess little or no archi-
tectural charm, and usually consist of a bare whitewashed
apartment, its roof supported upon palm-stems or pillars
of mud brick, a niche in the wall indicating the direction
of Mecca, to which the Moslem must turn in prayer.

The minaret, the tower from which the long-drawn
wailing cry of a mosque official summons the faithful to
their devotions in all the large Algerian towns, is by no
means always to be found upon the mosque in the hills,
and at El Kantara in the majority of mosques, of which
the oasis possesses several, the muezzin, as the official
is called, stands upon the flat roof to utter his call in
the absence of a tower from which to deliver it.

Mingling daily with the natives in their cafe's, at their
festivals, or in search of sport, we had not long to wait
before opportunities presented themselves, in the shape of
invitations from various friends, of seeing something of
the life of the Arab women in a desert oasis, opportunities
which were valuable enough to us as enabling us to com-
pare their existence with that of their Berber neighbours
in the hills.

My wife was the first of us to be allowed to enter the
house of one of our friends. It is easy enough for
travellers in a large town to find a " guide " who will
take them into his house or that of a friend whose ideas
of the sanctity of home have undergone considerable
modification as a result of the veneer of western civiliza-
tion to be found upon many of these gentry, and whose
female relations have been schooled in a suitable manner
of receiving European guests, but such opportunities

AT THE "MOUTH OF THE DESERT" 29

were not those that we were seeking ; we wanted to
become really friendly with a few households so that we
could gradually proceed to inquiry into matters relating
to superstitions, etc., which, of all subjects, are best
known to the women-folk.

The women of El Kantara, despite the number of
travellers who annually visit the " Foum es Sahara,"
were by no means so familiar with the appearance and
costume of European ladies as might be expected, for
while they are scarcely kept in such prison-like seclusion
as the women-folk of wealthy town-dwelling Arabs and
are not veiled as are the rich women of Algiers, they
rarely leave their homes, especially when in possession of
their youth and beauty, except for some definite purpose,
such as bringing in heavy goatskins of water, or washing
clothes in the stream, when they stamp with rhythmic
tread upon the soap-sodden cotton dress material placed
upon a boulder beside the brook, gossiping the while
with friends similarly employed and usually watched
over by some relation of their husbands, a toothless hag
who would not hesitate to make mischief should a young
wife throw too many inquiring glances at a passing
European.

Thus the women, especially the younger ones, were by
no means averse to making the most of an opportunity
of critically examining a European lady's appearance
when my wife was taken to call upon them. As a rule
their curiosity on these occasions did not manifest itself
until the head of the family, who had brought in the
visitor, saw fit to withdraw, for nothing will more surely
damp the enthusiasm and generally cramp the style of
an Arab woman than the presence of her lord and master,
but when once the husband's back was turned the atmo-
sphere became clearer, and my wife, between gulps of milk,

80 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

often sour and always tasting strongly of the goatskin
in which it had been kept, or mouthfuls of honey and
dates pressed upon her by her eager hostesses, had to
reply to a regular bombardment of questions. Why did
she wear so little jewellery ? Had she more at home ?
How many children had we ? Why had they not accom-
panied us to Africa ? Why did she wear such dull garments
as her skirt of tweed ? Had she made the cloth herself ?
How much had she paid for everything she had about
her ? These are but a very few of the inquiries made
at every native house she visited in Algeria, her replies,
intended to be intelligent answers to the questions, often
evoking roars of laughter from the assembled women,
the fact that she never wore earrings and was unable to
weave cloth for her skirt being considered remarkably
droll.

Scornful though they doubtless were at my wife's
ignorance of many of their most ordinary occupations,
the women of El Kantara never tired of receiving her
visits, and gradually, often as the bearer of some simple
remedy from my medicine-chest for a sick child, I too
gained access to many of the households in which, when
once I had been introduced by the head of the family,
I was always welcomed with my wife (though I would
never visit a house without the chaperonage either of my
wife or of one of its male occupants) : indeed, I believe
that in certain families, whose men-folk are often away,
I am the only male person of any race who has the entree"
to their homes in their absence. We may, perhaps,
examine in some detail the dwellings in which the women
of El Kantara pass the greater number of their days,
secluded as far as possible from the gaze of their neigh-
bours, for these dwellings, while similar to those of the
oases in the great Sahara, will be found to differ very

AT THE "MOUTH OF THE DESERT" 81

considerably from the houses of the Shawfa in the hills.
Windows in the outer walls of an Arab house are con-
spicuous by their absence, the temptation they would
offer to some fair member of the family to see — and be
seen — by means of them would probably be so strong as
to cause a gross breach of Mohammedan etiquette ; the
streets, therefore, present nothing to the eye but a long
vista of sun-baked mud walls, broken here and there by
portals, the doors of which are almost invariably closed
and barred in a manner which might seem to belie the
reputation for hospitality enjoyed by the followers of
the Prophet.

Having reached the entrance to a house which we have
visited before, we beat upon the door and shout : " Oh,
Fathma, open the door." At first no notice may be taken
of our summons, but in a moment or two a voice from
within will inquire our business, and in response to our
" It is no one but Simsim and his wife " (for a European
prefix to a name has no place among the women) the
door will be opened a little to allow us to slip through,
yet not exposing the opener to the gaze of passers-by.
Once inside, and the door closed quickly behind us, we
find ourselves as a rule in a sort of inner porch or a vesti-
bule, often provided with a bank at one side to sit upon,
which communicates directly with a courtyard, occupied
at night by the animals, or in a large unfurnished room,
which is used for the same purpose ; the other apart-
ments, built upon no special plan, a room being added
here and there as required, open on to the courtyard.
These apartments are dark and dingy in the extreme,
for they are lighted only by the open door, their mere
slits of windows high up in the wall admitting but the
faintest glimmer from the courtyard, and they boast
nothing which can be dignified with the name of furniture.

32 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

On one side a hand-loom for the weaving of burnouses
and the silk and wool hai'ks or shawls, which the women
of El Kantara make in fair quantities for sale, will usually
be found rigged up close to the wall ; in a corner, below
a hole in the roof serving as a chimney, a heap of ashes,
in the midst of which are three smoke-blackened stones,
upon which to rest the stew-pot, marks the fireplace,
and from the roof at hand may often be found suspended
a hoop of bent sticks to which a piece of network is
attached, the easily rocked cradle of the Arab child ;
the bedding of the whole family, consisting of a halfa
mat and a tellis or two (home-made sacks of goat's hair
for carrying merchandise on muleback) to lie upon, with
one or more brightly coloured blankets as covering, lies
in a tumbled mass upon the mud floor, or upon a platform
made of date-leaf stems, supported by wooden posts,
raised between two or three feet from the ground to
protect the sleepers from scorpions, which, in the summer
only, are unpleasantly common in the houses as well as
beneath the stones of the desert, and whose bite not
infrequently proves fatal to a victim who is not in the
best of health.

Near the fireplace a tripod of stakes supports a dripping
goatskin of water, while a similar skin containing milk
and suspended in the same way, so as to be easily swayed
to and fro, forms the churn for making butter, which, to
the Arab taste, is more palatable in a rancid state after
weeks, or even months, of storage in a goatskin than
upon the day in which it is churned. The nooks and
corners of the family apartment are choked with an
indescribable medley of objects ; saddles, bridles, sacks
or huge amphora-shaped wicker baskets of grain, a quern
or hand-mill for grinding corn (of a twin stone type to
be found in the Highlands of Scotland), old clothes, heaps

AT THE "MOUTH OF THE DESERT" 33

of juniper logs for fuel, and bundles of dry date leaves
with which to kindle the fire are but a few of the articles
to be found strewn upon the floor, while from wooden pegs
driven anywhere into the crumbling walls are hung the
cooking utensils, earthern bowls and dishes made by
the Shawia, or by the housewife herself, tin pots of
European manufacture, plaited halfa funnels for filling
the water-skin at the brook, and even in the poorest houses
one or two china coffee-cups with which to honour a
guest. In addition to the human members of the house-
hold, cats of a leanness which must be seen to be believed,
goats, kids, chickens (and their usual unpleasant asso-
ciates) wander all over the room.

Such are the conditions in which live the poorer
families of El Kantara, or families, which as is not infre-
quently the case, share a house with their relations.

More wealthy people will cook and spend the day in
one large room, retiring to another apartment for the
night, while their grain, etc., will be kept in a separate
storeroom.

Many houses have additional rooms on the roof, which
is reached by means of a palm-stem notched to form a
ladder, and in these rooms the branches of dates are
usually suspended to ripen after the harvest and for
storage.

The flat roof itself, surrounded by a parapet, is much
frequented by the women, the parapet serving the
purpose of the garden wall of cheap suburbia, a medium
for scandal and gossip rather than a safeguard to privacy.
It is not good manners for the male visitor to go
upon the roof unless specially invited to do so, which he
will not frequently be, for in so doing he may show
himself to the curious gaze of the women of neighbouring
households to which he has not been invited, and thus,

3

34 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

though his gaucheness will be attributed to his ignorance
and passed over in silence by his host, he may unwittingly,
be the cause of some young wife " next door but two "
receiving a pretty severe talking-to, if not a thrashing,
from her husband should he hear of her curiosity, a man
I know having actually broken his sister's arm as a
result of seeing her peep at strangers over the parapet !

We have already seen that the male population of
El Kantara and, for that matter, all Saharan villages
pass their days and much of their nights in the cafe,
returning home merely to eat and sleep ; family life there-
fore, as we understand it, can hardly be said to exist
in the villages of an oasis, there being little to attract
the husband in the dingy surroundings we have attempted
to describe above, surroundings which, however, are
considered quite sufficiently comfortable in which to
imprison that inferior animal — woman. While the Arab
can be an affectionate husband for a short time to a young
and pretty bride, and is usually a far too lenient parent
to his sons, how does he regard the female sex in general ?

Though it is admittedly impossible for the European
to comprehend fully the inner workings of the oriental
mind, we can fathom to some extent the Arab's idea of
the gentler sex when we remember that in his own tongue
the native finds it necessary to apologize should he use
in conversation the name of that, to the Moslem, loath-
some animal the pig, and that a similar apology should
always follow the mention of the word " woman," an
association of ideas which gives us some clue to the state
of degradation from which the Arab woman, of the
poorer classes at least, has never been able to rise.

CHAPTER II
AMONG THE HILL-FOLK

A START INTO THE HILLS — BENI FERAH, A BERBER VILLAGE OF THE AT7RES

— PRIMITIVE POTTERY AN ANCIENT SYSTEM OF IRRIGATION — A

" WATER-CLOCK " — A RAIN-INDUCING CEREMONY — THE " SORCERESS
OF THE MOON " A WEDDING AT BENI FERAH.

HAVING become acquainted with the Arab inhabitants
of a desert oasis, we turned our attention to their
Berber neighbours of the hills. The first Shawia village
in which we stayed long enough to undertake any investi-
gation of the habits of the people was Beni Ferah, some
twelve miles as the crow flies to the south-east of El
Kantara. A day or two before our departure from the
little hotel a native mounted orderly from the adminis-
trative headquarters of the district joined us in order to
assist us in procuring the baggage animals necessary for
the journey and to accompany us in our wanderings
only in the area over which his administrator held sway,
for, upon leaving this administrative district, we were to
be accompanied by another orderly from the headquarters
of the area we should then enter.

The French authorities have always been good enough
to lend me the services of such an orderly during my
various expeditions in the Aures in response to a request
from a learned society in England to further the interests
of my work, and these services have proved invaluable.
The presence of the orderly, who invariably knows every
inch of his area, and is personally acquainted with most

36 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

of its inhabitants, does away with the necessity of employ-
ing a " guide," who is not infrequently nothing but a
plausible hanger-on from a tourist centre and quite ignorant
of the country beyond the beat of the ordinary tourist,
indeed it has always been our rule to employ no servants
whatever, other than the drivers who accompany our
pack mules for the days upon which we are actually
moving from village to village, for the blue burnous with
its red trimmings of the native orderly, his official uniform,
is a certain passport to the hospitality of the Kaids, as
the chiefs are called, or the headmen in the case of small
villages, who will always place a room at our disposal
and provide us with food cooked by their wives, so that
all the " housework " necessary consists in merely
unrolling our sleeping valises and cooking upon a spirit
lamp any small additions we may require to the fare
offered us by our hosts, services which we prefer performing
ourselves to delegating them to a number of hired and
often undesirable loafers from a town. Indeed it has
been my experience that the more the traveller can do
for himself the more he is respected by the natives, and
that the people of both the desert and the hills regard
with a certain contempt one who requires a host of
servants to look after him, although obviously a number
of followers are required should it be necessary to camp
out away from a village. The assistance of a uniformed
representative of the Government has an excellent effect
upon the prices asked for mule transport, and for any-
thing the traveller may require to buy, and, in addition
to his other uses, he provides a most valuable interpreter,
for all these " dei'ras " who have accompanied me speak
the Berber language of the Shawia as well as Arabic,
indeed those I have employed in the remoter parts of
the Aures have been Shawfa themselves.

AMONG THE HILL-FOLK 87

It may be objected that the presence of a Government
servant might arouse the suspicions of the people, and
cause them to be especially reticent with regard to many
of their customs.

I have not found this to be the case. The orderlies
are natives first and officials afterwards ; they are well
acquainted with what goes on in the villages, but are by
no means anxious to interfere with the liberties of their
own people by objecting to various practices which,
while outside the letter of the law, they would, and
probably do, indulge in themselves.

The first deira we employed has accompanied us upon
several subsequent expeditions. Belkadi ben Hamou
has grown old in the service of the French. Of a
kindly, if somewhat fussy, disposition, he took over
both moral and physical charge of us from the
moment he first joined us at El Kantara, and to this
day I am convinced that he regards us as a couple of
headstrong children, who would be certain to get into
mischief or hurt ourselves should he allow us for a moment
to stray beyond the reach of his ever-watchful glance.

A visit to the Kaid of El Kantara resulted in his promise
to secure for us the two riding mules we should require,
as well as the two animals necessary to carry our kit,
so that early in the morning upon the day appointed for
our departure the animals duly arrived at the hotel, and
our rolls of bedding, a couple of suit cases and two wine-
boxes of provisions were placed in nets of halfa-rope,
laid across the pads on the mules' backs to receive them,
or stuffed into home-made goats' hair sacks, called in
Arabic " tellis," in which grain, etc., is carried in Algeria.

Our baggage having been loaded up we mounted,
Belkadi riding his own young horse, and followed our
pack-mules southward through the gorge.

38 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Upon passing through the gorge of El Kantara we
left the Biskra road and turned eastwards across the
wide stony valley towards the range of low rocky hills,
which, as we have seen, lies to the south of the oasis,
up whose steep slopes we slowly wended our way till,
on arrival at its crest, we enjoyed a magnificent panorama
of wild snow-capped mountains to the north and, a short
distance farther on, of the foothills which fringe the
great desert to the south-west, distant barren ranges of
whose wonderfully delicate shades of blue, purple, pink,
and grey nothing save the brush of a great artist can
convey the slightest impression.

Crossing a high-lying level country, studded with dwarf
juniper trees, the glorious panorama of the Sahara and
its foothills always visible on our right, we reached Beni
Ferah after a march of about four hours, moving always
at the walking pace of our baggage mules.

This journey can be very cold, especially upon the
slopes of the rocky hills. Indeed, on one occasion in
February we encountered there a north-easterly gale,
bringing with it sharp scuds of sleet, which was far more
suggestive of northern Europe in winter than of the
fringe of the so-called burning Sahara, but on the occasion
of our first visit the weather was normal, that is to say,
sunny and warm, without any approach to unpleasant
heat.

Soon after coming into sight of the village, standing
upon a rocky knoll, with its gardens spread along the
course of a stream below it, we passed a few dwellings,
forming an outlying hamlet, and the ruins of a tower
which had served as an outwork of defence in the
troublous times before the French occupation of the
country, and descending sharply to the bed of the stream,
which barely damped the fetlocks of our mules, we ascended

AMONG THE HILL-FOLK 39

a lane, suggestive of a flight of broad steps, round the
steep side of the knoll, and so entered the lower portion
of the village, through the narrow streets of which we
wended our way until, having passed round the knoll
upon which it stands, we emerged into the level lower
ground beyond, and halted at a cafe, beside which a vener-
able olive tree has afforded shelter from the sun in spring
and summer to the members of the " djemaa," or village
council, for many generations gone. At the cafe we
were received by the Ka'id, a somewhat unprepossessing
looking individual, whose looks, indeed, did not belie
him for, a year or two later, finding himself in some doubt
as to the final issue of the great war, he had safeguarded
such public funds as were committed to his charge by
departing with them for some unknown destination,
whence he has not yet returned, and another now reigns
in his stead.

Whatever his real character may have been, however,
he received us cordially enough, and, after partaking of
the usual refreshment at the cafe\ he conducted us to a
room in his own house a couple of hundred yards from
the village, which he reserved for such visitors as came
his way — an occasional official touring in the district,
or the not very welcome gatherer of taxes.

This room boasted a few articles of European furniture,
mostly in a state of disrepair, such as a bedstead, a table,
and a chair or two, so that in a very few minutes we had
settled down in our new surroundings and were partaking
of a fairly well cooked meal prepared by the family of
our host.

It was apparent the moment that we commenced to
explore Beni Ferah, or Ain Zatout as the natives call
the place, that it was no Arab settlement we were
examining. Its cluster of small houses huddled together

40 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

upon the steep eastern slope of the rocky knoll, from the
summit of which a little mosque looks down some couple
of hundred feet sheer to the brook below it to the west,
were very different from the dwellings at El Kantara,
for, although some of the newer buildings scattered about
the lower ground boasted upper stories of mud brick,
thus displaying a certain Arab influence in their con-
struction, the older huts on the hill-top were entirely built
of rough stone in the style which we soon learned to
associate with a Shawia village, while the merest glance
at the people around us showed us clearly that we were
now in the land of Berbers. A very large proportion of
fair (sometimes golden) hair, blue eyes, and complexions,
especially in the case of young children, who lack the
tan produced by years of exposure to the fierce heat of
the summer sun, often paler than our own, were the
physical characteristics which at once arrested our atten-
tion, while their strange Berber tongue, akin to that
spoken by the Kabyles in the north, bore no resemblance
to the Arabic of the nomads and of the oases of the
Sahara.

Another outstanding difference between Beni Ferah
and an Arab settlement immediately forced itself upon
our notice. Everywhere, in the streets, on the roofs,
sitting about outside their houses, coming and going
without attempt at concealment, were numbers of
women and girls.

Although the Berbers have embraced the faith of
Islam, their women enjoy a freedom quite unknown to
their Arab neighbours, and we soon found that we should
not lack opportunities of talking to them and watching
them at their various occupations, many of which, for
example, pottery making, arc carried on outside their
homes in the full view of the passer-by. This pottery

AMONG THE HILL-FOLK 41

making is quaint if simple, and constitutes a survival
of a very early art.

Nearly every Shawia woman is capable of manufac-
turing such earthenware utensils as she requires for her
own home, but at Beni Ferah, where earth can be found
which is peculiarly suitable to the potter, a large number
of milk-bowls, stew-pots, large flat dishes, etc., are made
by the women for sale to the nomads of the desert in
Biskra market and in the neighbouring oases.

No tools whatever are used in their manufacture, the
Berber woman simply fashioning the moistened clay
with her hands, attaining really remarkable symmetry
of form in the simple models she adopts, leaving the
pots when made to dry in the sun. When nearly dry
she polishes them with a snail-shell, or a smooth round
pebble, to produce an even surface inside and out, and
proceeds, in many cases, to decorate them with criss-
cross or lozenge patterns, each with its own name and
significance, by means of a reddish earth moistened and
applied upon a blade of halfa grass doubled back to
serve as a brush ; and, finally, when the sun has hardened
the pots, she combines with one or two friends, who have
each made a number of articles, to bake her pots outside
the village, where no danger exists of setting fire to
neighbouring buildings.

A pile of stones is made upon the ground, the pots
being carefully laid upon the heap and covered with
brushwood, old halfa grass sandals, the sweepings of the
houses, etc., which is then ignited and the fire maintained
for a couple of hours, after which the heated vessels are
carefully removed with the aid of sticks, and a coat of
shellac is applied to the inside of them, and sometimes
to the outside as well to form a very rough ornamentation,
while the pots are still too hot to be touched by hand.

42 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

The women displayed no embarrassment whatever
when we approached to watch them plying the potter's
trade, and we soon began to make friends among them
and to learn something of their methods. The Shawfa
woman has a very shrewd head for business (indeed, I
would rather bargain with a number of Arab men than
with one obstinate old Berber woman), as we discovered
when collecting specimens of pottery at Beni Ferah.

In 1913 we obtained as many pots and bowls as we
wanted at prices varying from ten to twenty-five centimes
each ; in 1919, however, " owing to the war," one franc
was scornfully refused for exactly similar pots made by
the same woman from the same earth, for the manufacture
of which an infinitesimal quantity of shellac was the only
material that she had purchased, and this despite the
fact that, should I not buy the pot, there would be no
one to follow me with a longer purse, or a more gullible
disposition, with whom a better bargain could be driven.

War profiteering is an occupation to which the Berber
women have taken very kindly indeed !

The gardens of Beni Ferah, which stretch away to a
considerable distance along the course of the stream to
the south-west of the knoll upon which the main part
of the village stands, differ considerably from those of
a desert oasis, for while apricots, walnuts, olives, figs,
quinces, etc., grow in profusion, the comparatively few
date palms are of an inferior quality owing to the greater
altitude of the village above the sea and the corresponding
decrease in the temperature.

The vegetable plots of Beni Ferah are much more
neatly kept than those of El Kantara, for the Shawia
are better gardeners than the Arabs, and are far more
numerous owing to the greater annual rainfall they
enjoy, but nevertheless in the spring and summer the

A SHAWIA POTTER, BF.NI FKRAH.

FIRING POTTERY AT BEKI FERAH.

To face p. 42.

AMONG THE HILL-FOLK 48

gardens of Beni Ferah are entirely dependent for their
water supply upon their stream, often reduced to very
small proportions in the driest part of the year, the
resources of which are husbanded with the greatest care.

The system of irrigation in use at Beni Ferah is that
which obtains all over the Aures, and, as its study brought
to our notice a very quaint method of measuring time,
we may examine it in some detail. At a point situated
some distance above the gardens the river is tapped by
means of a barrage, often consisting merely of a line of
boulders so placed as to deflect a certain amount of the
stream into a narrow canal, known in Algeria as a
'* seggia," by means of which it is conducted through,
or rather beside and slightly above, the land to be culti-
vated, each garden possessing its own branch channel
from the main " seggia " by means of which it can be
flooded in its turn. This simple system of canals must
be of great antiquity, indeed at El Kantara and in certain
parts of the Aures " seggias " cut in the solid rock dating
from the time of the Roman occupation of Algeria are
in constant use to-day, while disused channels at an
altitude far higher than any now employed show that
in ancient times the country enjoyed a greater rainfall
and, in consequence, more abundant streams, so that a
considerably larger area in its valleys was kept under
cultivation than is possible now.

When a garden is purchased the buyer must acquire,
also by purchase, the right to a supply of water according
to its size ; thus an extensive property may require the
uninterrupted flow of all the water in the canal which
irrigates it for one whole day in the week, while another
may only be allowed one or more hours of irrigation
in the same period.

The stream is tapped by more than one main " seggia,"

44 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

and the flow of water is turned into these in turn. Upon
the day on which any given " seggia " is to be used the
owners of the various gardens situated beside it assemble
and, repairing to a point overlooking the gardens, proceed
to divide the flow of water between them.

So precious is the liquid that even a few moments
more or less in the period of its flow into a garden is of
considerable importance, the Shawia therefore mistrust
the employment of modern watches, whose rate can be
dishonestly adjusted, as a means for measuring the
time for which each owner is entitled to the flow of the
canal.

Instead, they make use of a system of measuring time
which must be of very great antiquity, and has probably
persisted in this land of survivals for countless genera-
tions in company with other strange customs of the
Shawia.

A member of the village council accompanies the
landowners, bringing with him a large earthen bowl, or
metal pail, of water, and a small copper bowl, the bottom
of which is perforated with a very minute hole ; at the
moment when the mud wall of the " seggia " is cut through
and the water allowed to flow into the first garden the
councillor carefully places the perforated bowl, the
property of the village council, and therefore the legal
measure, upon the water in the pail, watching carefully
for it to sink, which it will do in about fifteen minutes,
and refloating it again immediately it does so. Thus
each landowner is entitled to three, four, six, or eight,
as the case may be, sinkings of the copper bowl rather
than to any given number of actual hours or portions of
an hour, and, as the time approaches when the flow of
water into a garden is to cease, a neighbour in the little
group of landowners will shout to an assistant in his

AMONG THE HILL-FOLK 45

garden below to be ready upon the instant to cut open
an inlet into his land in the side of the " seggia " as soon
as the bowl has sunk for the last time in the series
allotted to his friend, who at that moment will cry out
to a man in his garden to stem *he flow of water he has
been receiving by filling up with mud the hole through
which it has been running.

Each landowner being present in person, and the fact
that the measuring is done by an elder with the official
bowl, appears to ensure that this quaint old-fashioned
method of measuring time gives satisfaction to all
concerned.

The lack of a sufficiency of water, which has called
into use the water-clock just described, also tends to
maintain in existence an old custom connected with
prayer for rain which may well have existed in Algeria
for countless ages before the arrival of the Mohammedan
faith, and which, when once we had observed it, helped
us considerably towards commencing our investigations
into the superstitions of the Shav.ia.

One afternoon, during a prolonged period of drought,
we heard the shrill piping voices of young children singing
in the streets, and, eager to ascertain what this might
mean, we hastened into the village to find a number of
very young girls parading the streets carrying with them
a very large wooden ladle, such as is used in every
Shawia home, carefully dressed up with silk kerchiefs
and silver brooches, earrings, and pendants to resemble
a woman's head. At every door the little party paused,
singing some such words as : " The ladle is playing in
the street ; Oh, clouds that are on high, allow the rain
to fall," and asking alms of the inmates, who, in response,
presented them with dried fruits, semolina, and other
foodstuffs according to their means. After the whole

46 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

village has been paraded the children take the food to
a mosque or, in some villages, to a sacred tree and there
cook and consume it, hoping that the ceremony they
have gone through will cause the much desired blessing
of a shower of rain to refresh their parent's sun-baked
crops.

A knowledge of this ancient superstitious rite, com-
bined with the acquaintanceship of numerous women,
made while watching them at their potting and other
crafts, enabled us to push forward to some extent in our
inquiries into the practice of magic in the mountains,
for the women are better equipped with magical lore
than are the men of the Shawia — do we not speak of
" old wives' fables " in this country even now ? — and
when once the traveller possesses a knowledge of even
a very few magical observances he will find it far easier
to increase that knowledge than it had been to commence
to acquire it ; for the confidence of the natives in such
matters is notoriously hard to obtain in the beginning
of investigations, owing to their dread of exposing them-
selves to the ridicule of a thoughtless listener.

The Shawia, as well as his Arab neighbour of the low
country, is extraordinarily credulous in his faith in the
old magical observances of his people, observances, such
as that which we will now describe, which the merest
child should realize are part and parcel of a system of
obtaining money under false pretences which flourishes
like a green bay tree in every community in which
superstition is still rife.

In Algeria divorce is obtainable, with or without just
cause, in the simplest manner possible ; a word before
the Kadi or representative of Mohammedan law, a small
payment to the wife if she be innocent of any grounds
lor a divorce, and the wretehed woman returns to her

AMONG THE HILL-FOLK 47

parents, or joins the numerous ranks of professional
women whose existence is a blot upon the Shawia
character. The women, therefore, are very ready to
avail themselves of any means, magical or otherwise,
which may enable them to retain the affections of their
husbands when once they show signs of waning ; a class
of person, therefore, has been called into being to
provide these means — for a fee.

An old woman of this class who possesses the requisite
knowledge of magic, or whose eloquence can persuade
her dupes that she possesses it, known as a " Sorceress
of the Moon," proceeds at dead of night to a cemetery
and there digs up the bones of an old corpse, which she
burns upon a fire with some incense and magical herbs,
at the same time invoking the aid of the Almighty in her
impious task, for the desecration of a grave is regarded with
the utmost horror by all right-minded Mohammedans.

She then stains one of her eyelids only with antimony,
one lip with walnut bark, and one hand and one foot
with henna. This done the seeker after the philtre,
upon whose nerves the eerie environment of a cemetery
by night has by this time begun to tell considerably,
will be horrified to notice that the moon has left the
heavens and commenced to descend towards a dish of
water placed ready to receive it, the sorceress meantime
rolling in frenzy upon the ground and calling upon the
moon to hasten in its descent, the ground around trembling
the while in the convulsions of an earthquake. The
moon eventually enters the water in the dish, " growling
like a camel whose load is being placed upon its back,"
to use the words of one of my informants, and producing
in the water a sort of foam which remains after, in response
to vigorous invocations on the part of the sorceress
the moon has returned to its proper place in the firma-

48 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

merit and the earthquake has ceased to disturb the
calm of the night.

This foam is carefully skimmed from the water by the
sorceress, and subsequently dried, when she retails small
quantities of it at very high prices to a wife who desires
to mix it secretly with her husband's food in order to
retain his affections.

This love philtre is merely one example of quite a
series of similar observances, many of them of a highly
disgusting nature, which are practised to this day in the
Aures and the desert, although so reprehensible are
they considered by the more reputable of the natives
that a sorceress who indulges in them would almost
certainly be killed should she be caught in the nefarious
act. The poor women who allow themselves to be duped
in this way, and who firmly believe that the moon does
descend into the bowl, probably only do so because the
environment of the cemetery and the mystic antics of
the sorceress have combined to frighten them literally
out of their wits, so that they are quite prepared to see
the moon perform any weird evolution which the old
hag may tell them it is performing without any regard
to the possibility or otherwise of evolution itself.

During our first stay at Beni Ferah we were lodged
in the house of the Kaid, but upon a later visit to this
Berber village we stayed in the school which has been
established for some years at Beni Ferah, and which is
the residence of the only European in the place, the
schoolmaster. This gentleman, whose solitary existence
in the midst of Shawia culture must be trying in the
extreme, welcomed us most kindly, and, indeed, I fancy
he is genuinely delighted to receive a European traveller,
whose presence gives him an opportunity of exchanging
ideas with a member of civilized society which does not

AMONG THE HILL-FOLK 49

often come his way, save during his short periods of
leave at Constantine or some other large town.

While staying as the guest of the schoolmaster we sought
to excuse ourselves from the many invitations to meals
which the Shawia, by no means less liberal in their hospi-
tality than the Arabs of the plains, were continually
pressing upon us, for these meals are somewhat trying
functions, but our native friends would take no refusal.
If we could scarcely leave our European host to dine
with them in their houses, then the meal should be sent
down to us — but we would kindly remember to return
the dishes in which it was sent ! Thus we were enter-
tained, royally enough according to Berber ideas, whether
we wished it or not, and upon some occasions we were
obliged to accept offers of hospitality in the village
itself.

Invitations such as these are apt to test the endurance
of the European to a considerable extent, for not only
must the guest attack each and every dish placed before
him, but he must do so with a heartiness quite foreign to
the dinner tables of civilized society. As every traveller
in the Aures, if he stays long enough to make acquain-
tances among the natives, may expect to partake of many
meals with the Shawia, we may perhaps describe the
dishes usually placed before a guest by a middle-class
family in the hills.

The first course consists of a broth of mutton, goat,
or chicken, so strongly flavoured with red pepper as to
be practically uneatable by any one who is not accus-
tomed to dishes of the very hottest kind ; flat loaves
of unleavened bread accompany the soup. This will
often be followed by a stew of meat and dried apricots
or plums (a dish which, when well prepared, is quite
palatable), or, in the case of more modest repasts con-

4

50 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

sisting of two courses only, by the national dish of
Algeria, meat and " kuskus."

The " kuskus," which is simply semolina steamed in
a home-made pottery " double cooker " in vapours arising
from the meat stewing in a bowl beneath it, is served
up in a large bowl, fragments of meat garnishing its surface,
which is placed on the ground before the guests, each of
whom is provided with a wooden spoon, and sometimes,
in deference to western ideas, with a plate as well.

While " kuskus " can be perfectly wholesome, and
even palatable if cooked simply, it is very frequently
rendered almost uneatable by the addition of quantities
of butter that has been stored until rancid in a goatskin,
in which condition it is beloved of the natives. The
traveller, therefore, soon learns many an artifice by means
of which he can convey to his host the impression that
he is consuming more of the dish than is actually the
case, for the fullest justice must be done to the meal,
and every possible sign of repletion should be exhibited
after it. Dessert, consisting of figs, or of honey and
walnuts (to be eaten together), with cups of black coffee
terminate the repast.

The meal which I have described above is of the kind
which we were offered daily during our wanderings in
the hills, but, as we shall find later on, far more elaborate
banquets are provided by the richer chieftains of the
Aures and the desert.

But meals were not the only functions to which we
were invited at Beni Ferah, for we enjoyed there, during
a later visit, several opportunities of attending wedding
ceremonies in the capacity of invited guests, opportunities
which revealed fewer differences than we had anticipated
between the weddings of the Arabs of El Kantara and
those of their Shawfa neighbours in the hills. Let us

AMONG THE HILL-FOLK 51

choose for description a wedding scene at Beni Ferah
as typical of similar ceremonies all over the massif.

One gloriously sunny afternoon we proceeded, in
response to a pressing invitation, to an open space amid
the houses on the hillside, where we found assembled a
very numerous company of men, women, and children,
several hundreds at least squatting upon the ground,
or perched upon any such point of vantage as a ruined
wall or the flat roofs of the surrounding houses, listening
to the weird strains of a couple of tom-toms and an oboe
played with extraordinary vigour by three musicians
hired for the purpose, stringed instruments being
unknown in the hills, before whom a professional danseuse
from the valley of the Wed Abdi moved slowly backwards
and forwards, moving her feet, hands, and abdominal
muscles in the singularly ungraceful movements of a
native dance.

Many of the people present had merely turned up to
look on, but those who were guests at the ceremony had
donned clean garments for the occasion, the women folk
being especially resplendent in clean cotton dress material
and glittering with every ounce of locally made silver
jewellery which they could obtain, their bright silken
head scarves adding a fine note of colour to the scene,
which, from its very setting upon the sunlit hillside
with a panorama of steep juniper-studded slopes and
towering rocky peaks behind it, was brilliant enough in
its simple splendour.

Accommodated with halfa-grass mats upon which to
sit, we took our places among the crowd, and listening
to the strains of the " music," the weird tremulous cries
of the women, and the occasional firing of blank charges
from muzzle-loading guns, infrequent owing to a difficulty
in obtaining the powder which the native so dearly loves

52 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

to hear " speak " upon festal occasions of all kinds, we
awaited the time when the bride should be brought from
her home, a few hundred yards distant, to the house of
the bridegroom, before which we were sitting. Some
considerable time elapsed before any movement was
made to bring her, the crowd meantime being engrossed
in the antics of the professional dancer, whose swaying
form now seemed to endeavour to symbolize the bashful-
ness of the bride-to-be, and now the voluptuous passion
of the young wife.

At every pause in her dance, and often even as she
moved, male members of the assembled crowd came
forward and thrust their offerings, in the form of French
notes, under her turban upon her brow — she must have
been carrying as much as a hundred francs in this
manner upon several occasions, although she frequently
removed the money and concealed it in her garments
as she danced — while the musicians, too, came in for
very generous treatment from their audience. The
crowd during this part of the ceremony was quiet enough,
the only incident which occurred being a fight between
two small girls, one of whom was carrying upon her back
a child, probably her brother, who gravely maintained
his jockey-like seat until the conflict had been brought
to a close, amid the tears and, it must be confessed,
oaths of the combatants by the interference of their
relatives.

The bridegroom had meantime attracted much the
same amount of attention as does the bridegroom at
an English wedding, but, conscious of his own lack of
importance, perhaps, he was not even present for more
than a very few minutes at the dance ! A wedding
among the Shawia is a ceremony for the bride, and the
bridegroom is expected to figure in it scarcely at all ;

AMONG THE HILL-FOLK 53

indeed, if, while wedding music resounds in a village of
the Aures, the traveller should encounter a group of
young men all dressed in their best, wandering from
cafe to cafe, and appearing to be ignorant of the fact
that anything unusual is going forward, he may safely
assume that this is the bridegroom and his particular
friends, whom custom compels to hold aloof from the
ceremony. At length, after two or three female members
of the bridegroom's family had joined in the dancing
and had been greeted with cries of encouragement from
the women, but with no pecuniary offerings from the
men, they being respectable members of the community,
a move was made to fetch the bride. The musicians
led the procession, followed by a mule, across whose
saddle was spread a bright red rug, and behind the mule
came a number of gaily-dressed women, singing as they
went.

We moved with the crowd in the wake of this little
procession. Upon arrival at the cottage of the bride,
for she came of humble parentage, the musicians, the
mule, and the crowd came to a halt, only the female
attendants who had been singing and the professional
dancer entering the house, my wife accompanying them
at the request of the bride's relations.

In the semi-darkness of the little house she found a
crowd of women and children, who filled the place to
overflowing ; some of the women singing, some dancing,
others emitting the strange quivering cry which is their
note of rejoicing at festivals. In the midst of this turmoil
the bride, a child of about twelve years old, was being
bedecked with new garments, the gift of the bridegroom,
for her journey to her new home.

The poor child was far too overcome by the atten-
tions she was receiving to take much notice of the gift

54 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

of a necklet of coral, so dear to the hearts of Shawia
beauties, which my wife had brought for her, but it was
duly placed around her neck, to the envy of her friends,
and at last she was carried out, a blaze of gaily coloured
silks and muslins, her face hidden by a veil, and placed
upon the mule, a boy of about three or four years old
being made to ride upon the saddle in front of her, a
symbol of the hoped-for sons to come.

The short procession to the bridegroom's house was
accompanied by the firing of guns, much singing, and
loud cries. Upon arrival at her future husband's door
the bride was lifted from the mule and carried in, breaking
upon the lintel as she went an egg, that emblem of a
fertility which alone can ensure her a protracted residence
in her new home.

Once inside, the bride is received by female members
of her husband's family with much noise and dancing,
but the bridegroom himself only returns home late in
the evening, entering his house as unobtrusively as if
merely coming in from some everyday excursion or task.
What, may we ask ourselves, are the thoughts of the
bride as she enters thus upon her married life ?

Surely, if the poor child is not too overwhelmed by
the noise around her to think of the future at all, they
must be some such thoughts as these : " How long before,
unwanted though unoffending, I shall pass out in ignominy
from the house in which I am acclaimed to-day ? "

CHAPTER III
FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE

FROM BENT FERAH TO THE LAND OF THE NOMADS — THE LEGEND OF THE

OULED ZIANE A TALE OF BORDER WAR — AN ARAB CHIEF OF THE

TRADITIONAL TYPE — DIRT OF THE NOMADS CARPET MAKING

THE RE6T-HOUSE AT DJEMORA — FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE IN ONE

DAY'S MARCH — " THE CAPITAL OF THE AURES " LEGEND OF THE

FOUNDATION OF MENAA — A MODEL VILLAGE — AN ANCIENT FORM
OF MILL — THE SHOEMAKERS OF MENAA — VALUE OF ACQUAINTANCE
WITH THE WOMEN — A SAINTLY LUNATIC.

AT the conclusion of our first visit to Beni Ferah
we moved on over the hills to the oasis of Djemora,
which lies at the foot of the Aures massif, some six miles
in a direct line to the south, our object being to compare
some of the customs we had noted among the Shawia
with similar ones obtaining among the nomad Arab
inhabitants of the plains around Djemora.

The journey over the hills, along a track difficult enough
for loaded mules in 1913 but now considerably improved,
afforded us many fine views of mountain and desert,
of which perhaps the most remarkable was the panorama
of the large oasis of Djemora, with its thousands of palms
on either side of a broad river-bed, down which flows
such of the waters of the Wed Abdi as are not absorbed
by " seggia " irrigation higher up its valley ; the valley
itself, bounded on either hand by rugged barren hills,
being exceptionally beautiful, for as the fiery desert
sun sinks in the west its parting rays illumine the hills
till they glow in brilliant shades of pink and red, fading

65

56 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

in a few minutes to purple as the mists of evening fall
upon the land.

The oasis of Djemora is the headquarters of the Ouled
Ziane nomad Arabs, who wander with their flocks of
sheep and goats over the desert to the south-west of
the Aures in the winter, and on the plateau to the north
of the massif in the great heat of the summer, when the
plains cannot provide even the scanty pasture required
by these hardy animals ; that is to say, these nomads
own the gardens at Djemora, from which they obtain
their yearly supply of dates, but, camping out with their
flocks, they are seldom to be seen in any numbers in the
hamlets of the oasis, save in the autumn, when they come
in to pick the date harvest.

Concerning the early history of the tribe we heard a
quaint legend. Somewhere in the fifteenth or sixteenth
century, when the Ouled Ziane inhabited a part of
Morocco, a small party of men were sent out to bring in
a bride from a neighbouring tribe. On their way home
with her they encountered a demon, or, as it is called in
Arabic, a " jinn," whose particular form of malevolence
consisted in eloping with brides, and who promptly
flew away with the lady. Her escort, ashamed to return
home without their charge, turned their steps eastward,
and, after much wandering about in an effort to earn a
living as professional herdsmen, they finally married and
settled in eastern Algeria and founded that portion of
the Ouled Ziane tribe which, in course of time, became
masters of the country round Djemora, after much
fighting with the Shawfa Berbers of the Wed Abdi, who,
not without reason, resented the arrival of strange nomad
neighbours whose presence would probably be a constant
menace to the security of their own homes and crops.
This legend we learned from the old Kaid of Djemora,

P y. •-

i *< •. .

*

IV

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£*

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--si*-'

FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE 57

Basha Bashir, our host in the oasis, who, as he became
better acquainted with us during successive visits,
delighted to spend his evenings in regaling us with stories
of the past.

Many of these referred to members of his own family,
for he came of ancient stock, and to their doings in the
brave days of old, when raid and counter-raid between
Arab and Shawia were unchecked by any foreign
authority.

Upon one occasion, in years gone by, both the nomads
and the Berbers became tired of their never-ending feuds
and decided to settle a boundary dispute by means of
a shooting-match instead of by force of arms in actual
conflict.

Eight champions were selected by either side, a mark
was set up upon a stone, and the marksmen loaded their
long-barrelled flint-lock muskets, which are to be found
to-day with their woodwork elaborately inlaid with
silver in every out-of-the-way village of the desert and
the hills. The Shawia team fired first ; not a man hit
the mark. The Arabs followed, resting their muskets
upon boulders and using every aid to steady shooting
that they could think of. Their first seven marksmen
failed as miserably as their opponents. Then came the
turn of their last champion, the grandfather of old Basha
Bashir. Scorning anything in the nature of a rifle-rest,
he called for his favourite mare, and climbing into the
saddle with the usual muttered " Bismillah," without
which invocation of the Deity no pious Arab mounts
his horse, he retired to a considerable distance behind
the firing-point and spurred his mare towards the target
as hard as her flying hoofs could carry her. Before
reaching the firing-point he rose in his stirrups and,
without checking his mount in her mad career, fired over

58 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

her head. Fair and square he hit the mark, and the
decision in the boundary dispute went to the Ouled
Ziane !

It is perfectly true that certain Arabs of the plains do
display remarkable skill in shooting from the saddle when
going at speed — I have seen it among the Haouamed
near Bou Saada, and described it in a previous work —
and it is also true that as marksmen in the ordinary sense
of the word they perform extremely badly. It is possible,
therefore, that a substratum of truth underlies the tale
of the exploit of Basha's grandfather, an exploit which
has doubtless lost none of its glamour in the lapse of
time.

Whenever we visited Djemora before the war we stayed
as the guests of the old Kaid, in the four-roomed house
of mud-brick which he had erected opposite to his own
residence for the use of passing officials, our meals being
sent in to us by his wives. Basha Bashir himself is a
typical Arab gentleman of the old school, a school which
does not speak French, nor visit the Casino at Biskra,
nor indulge in any of the pleasures of civilization which
are daily finding more and more favour among the
younger generation of wealthy chiefs.

Seventy years of age, he sits his horse like a boy of
twenty, a fact that is doubtless attributable to the
simple, almost Spartan, life he leads, seldom leaving his
oasis, and never indulging in the late hours and gaiety
of Biskra. As hospitable as the traditional Arab is sup-
posed to be, he is deservedly popular with those few
Europeans who have made his acquaintance, while the
fact that he comes of ancient lineage, and that he possesses
sound judgment combined with force of character, have
long since gained him, to a very remarkable extent, the
respect and affection of his tribe.

FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE 59

Living comfortably enough in the Kaid's house, the
interior of which is grotesquely ornamented with life-
size wall paintings of French and native officers covered
with decorations, and with some very realistic, if crude,
hunting scenes, the work of an Arab from a town, we
spent our time exploring the oasis of Djemora.

Like so many oases of the desert, its little mud-brick
huts are built in scattered clusters rather than in one
large village, a fact that rather adds to the beauty of
the place, which, as I have pointed out, is as remarkable
as that of any oasis to be found on the edge of the desert,
and is enhanced by the glimpse of snow-capped hills
visible far up the Abdi valley. But the curse of Djemora
is its dirt.

Despite the existence of a plentiful warm spring in
the oasis (which is used to a considerable extent for
washing garments), the natives of Djemora appear never
to bathe their persons. We had ample opportunity of
observing this fact, for, in our endeavour to ingratiate
ourselves with the people, and also to lead up to an
inquiry into native medicine and surgery which will be
described in due course, we always placed the contents
of our travelling medicine-chest at the disposal of the
sick and injured, patients often coming from miles round
to make use of it. In an enormous number of cases the
malady seemed to have been caused, or at least much
aggravated, by dirt. Upon one occasion, when my
wife suggested that a child suffering from a skin disease
should be washed before we attempted to treat it, its
mother exclaimed : " What ! With water ? " roared
with laughter and departed, taking the filthy infant with
her, never to expose it to the risk of a washing by
bringing it to us again !
There seems to be a certain reason for the personal

60 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

dirtiness of the Ouled Ziane. As we have seen, although
a few members of the tribe inhabit the comparatively
well- watered oasis of Djemora, the people are really
nomads, who for generations have wandered in wastes
where water in sufficient quantities for drinking and
cooking is so hard to obtain that none can be spared for
washing, so that the Ouled Ziane have never acquired
the habits of personal cleanliness which to most peoples,
even the savagest, are as a second nature.

We found a considerable similarity between the customs
and beliefs of the Ouled Ziane and those of the Shawia
of Beni Ferah and other villages of the Aures, doubtless
owing to the fact that the nomads frequently choose
their wives among the pretty daughters of their fair-
haired neighbours ; but a comparison of them would
be out of place in any but strictly technical work, and
the few arts and crafts observed at Djemora were identical
with those noted in the Shawia settlements of the hills.

One art, however, we found to be specially well
developed by one individual at Djemora, and that was
the manufacture of carpets. The individual in question,
with the assistance of his wife, has earned quite an
extensive reputation throughout a large portion of the
Aures massif as a maker of those woollen rugs upon which
wealthy natives delight to offer an honoured guest a seat,
and which arc so much sought after, and often dearly
bought, by tourists in the towns.

The wealthy native does not visit the carpet-maker's
house and choose his rug from a pile placed ready for his
inspection, for the maker holds no stock of his wares.
Instead, the rich man invites the maker and his wife
to his house or tent, provides them with accommodation,
states how much wool he himself has available for weaving
the rug, and inquires what dyes he must provide. These

FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE 61

dyes were formerly all of native preparation (madder,
which grows locally, was used for red), but now, unfortu-
nately, cheap imported dyes are very rapidly taking the
place of the home-prepared article, with consequent
deterioration in the quality of the rugs produced.

The necessary wool and dyes having been provided
by the prospective owner of the rug, a price is arranged
for the labour (and a high one it sometimes is), and the
carpet-maker insists upon his patron killing a lamb or
a kid in order to celebrate with a feast the commence-
ment of the work. The carpet is actually woven by the
wife upon the very simple vertical handloom to be found
in every tent or Berber home for the manufacture of
burnouses. The woman sits upon the side of the rug
which, when finished, will be upon the ground, while her
husband, squatting upon the other side, the " right side
up," of the loom, directs with a stick the insertion of the
little strands of coloured wool which form the pile, care-
fully controlling the number of strands of each colour
used in order to preserve the accuracy of the design he
is thus causing to be worked in. Enjoying the hospitality
of their patron, the carpet-makers not unnaturally spend
some time upon their task, and, when it is completed,
they usually demand a further celebration in the form
of a roasted lamb.

Thus it will be seen that well-made rugs are not
obtained too cheaply even by the natives themselves,
but it is none the less true that no native pays anything
like such prices as I have heard asked for old and dirty
mats by persons who live, and live very handsomely,
upon those people who will not try to ascertain the
current prices of things in a country which they are
visiting for the first time.

During our last visit to Djemora, though we frequently

62 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

enjoyed the hospitality of old Basha Bashir, we stayed
at a " rest-house," or bordj, which the French authorities
have recently erected there, as well as at various points
upon projected roads through the Aures, and which offer
a greater degree of comfort to the traveller than he can
expect in the home of any but the very wealthiest chiefs.
These bordj s, where they exist, are I believe all built
upon the same plan, though my travels in the central
valleys of the Aures in 1914 were accomplished before
their completion there. That at Djemora, and also at
Menaa, consists of a courtyard, containing a shelter for
the wanderer's beasts, from which courtyard lead off
some half-dozen bedrooms, all furnished with European
beds, sheets, and blankets, washstands, mirrors, and
chairs, and a dining-room and sitting-room, both supplied
with the necessary tables and comfortable chairs, as
well as a kitchen containing French cooking utensils,
tableware and glass, and a room for the Arab caretaker
of the bordj.

The caretakers are men chosen for their reliability
and for a knowledge of simple European cooking, so
that the traveller upon arriving at one of these rest-houses
can rely upon obtaining accommodation more comfortable
than he could find in a most elaborate camp, and also
meals as eatable as those to be had in many an
up-country inn.

Indeed, I have the greatest reason for gratitude to
the French for having constructed the bordj at Djemora,
for, on the occasion of our last visit to the village, my
wife contracted a severe attack of Spanish influenza,
which might easily have ended fatally in any of the bare
stone huts we are compelled to occupy for want of better
accommodation in the remote Shawfa hamlets of the
Aures.

FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE 68

Influenza has wrought terrible havoc at Djemora, for
its poor ill-nourished inhabitants seem to be able to
offer little resistance to the scourge, so that the cemetery,
which lies between the Raid's house and the largest
hamlet in the oasis, very greatly increased in size when
the complaint made its great attack upon the Ouled
Ziane.

When we left Djemora in 1913 to resume our investi-
gations among the Shawia, we moved on up the valley
of its stream to Menaa, some miles to the north-east, thus
following the line which the projected road from the
Biskra-El Kantara highway to the upper part of the
valley of the Wad Abdi will presumably take when com-
pleted, and which, I venture to predict, will become a
first favourite among excursions for those whose travels
are confined to the metalled road and the luxury of a car.

The valley between the barren hills, which is wide
enough where it shelters the oasis of Djemora, narrows
to something resembling a gorge at the picturesque
little village of Beni Suig, some half an hour's ride higher
up, where the sheer red cliffs and the deep green of the
date gardens form a wonderful picture in the brilliant
sunlight. High up on the face of these cliffs, long since
rendered inaccessible to man by the crumbling of the
rocks, are to be seen the walled-up entrances to caves,
which were used as dwellings long ago in the days of
border warfare, indeed, cave dwellings, as we shall find
in other parts of the massif, are by no means rare even
to-day in the fastnesses of the Aures, and constitute
one of those survivals from ancient times which have
seemed to me so interesting in my wanderings in the
hills, and of which the life of the Shawia affords so many
striking examples.

Above Beni Suig, indeed before Beni Suig is reached,

64 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

the traveller is often compelled to ride in the bed of the
stream, among the loose boulders of which his mule will
pick his way with remarkable cleverness, carefully feeling
for a hold before putting its weight upon a foot, the water
rushing around its knees the while.

The only danger the traveller by mule is at all likely
to run, always provided he can keep his head and sit
quietly upon his animal while it conveys him along some
very dizzy overhanging paths, is to be found while riding
in the beds of streams, which are sometimes liable to
increase, in an incredibly short space of time, from the
shallowest of brooks, scarcely damping the mule's fetlocks,
to the proportion of foaming torrents, sweeping before
them man and beast who are unlucky enough to be
caught by them in their wild rush after much rain has
fallen in the higher country ; but the local natives who
accompany the traveller can be trusted to see to it that
serious risks of this kind are avoided. As the traveller
approaches Menaa, having passed a beautiful little oasis
of date palms at Amentane on the way, he will enter
a basin formed by the junction of the Wad Abdi, flowing
from the north-east, and the Bouzina River, quite a
considerable stream, which, rising near the village from
which it takes its name at the foot of the great grey
rocky walls of the Mahmel mountain, enters the Abdi
valley through a narrow gorge from the north.

After passing a cemetery in which the tombs of holy
men are surmounted by columns of whitewashed mud,
bearing a striking resemblance to burnoused human forms
of exceptional stature when dimly seen in the twilight,
and which might reasonably fill with awe a lonely super-
stitious stranger arriving late in the evening, the traveller
will find that, in the few short miles of marching which
have brought him from Djemora, he appears to have

FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE 65

left North Africa behind him and reached some mountain
country of Southern Europe.

At Djemora he had been staying in a Saharan oasis
of date palms, beneath red hills as barren as the desert
below them ; at Menaa he finds himself in a fertile valley
studded with peach, apricot, walnut, pear, fig, and
numerous other fruit trees, into which scattered palms,
to be numbered in tens rather than in tens of thousands,
appear to have wandered by mistake. The neat fields
of corn and beans and vegetables which he will see around
him, too, will at once show him that he has left behind
him the land of Arab neglect of the soil, and has returned
to the home of the fair-haired Shawia husbandmen he
had first met at Beni Ferah, while the hills which dominate
the valley, far from being barren like those he has left
at Djemora, are so thickly studded with small juniper
and ilex trees as to present on some of their slopes the
appearance of a mountain forest. Menaa can easily be
reached by a bridle path, ending in a long and very steep
descent, from Beni Ferah, but as we have seen, the latter
village, despite its few hundreds of date palms, much
more closely resembles a settlement of the higher Aures
than a desert oasis, so that the traveller who approaches
Menaa from it, though he will ride through some extremely
picturesque valleys, will miss the apparent sudden change
from Africa to Europe which will strike him at the end
of his journey from Djemora.

The village of Menaa itself, now the terminus of a road
from Lambese and Batna in the north which gives access
to wheeled traffic to the heart of the western Aur&s,
stands upon a rocky mound at the south-western end of
the basin formed by the confluence of the Abdi and
Bouzina streams.

Upon the occasion of our first visit to " the Capital of

66 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

the Aures," as the place is proudly named by its inhabit-
ants, we stayed as guests with the Kai'd, a young and
most capable chief who speaks perfect French and to
whose energy Menaa largely owes the prosperity and
the progress which we were able to note when we
revisited the village seven years later.

The Kai'd, who lodged us in a couple of furnished rooms
and treated us royally during our stay, took a keen
interest in our work, and furnished us with many details
of the history and customs of his people.

Some centuries ago the people now inhabiting Menaa
had been driven from their former village higher up in
the hills, and were searching for a suitable site upon which
to erect a new settlement. While undecided which site
to choose they met, near the confluence of the two streams
alluded to above, a holy man riding up from Djemora
upon an ass, and they decided to seek his advice. Dis-
mounting the stranger said : " Follow my she-ass, and
where she rolls there build your village."

The ass roamed around the valley and, ascending the
rocky mound upon which the village now stands, she lay
down and rolled. " Here build your village," said the
saint, " and call it your Menaa (saviour), for its situation
will save you from attacks to come." Thus Menaa was
founded, and to this day, in token of their gratitude to
the holy man who chose for them so good a site, the
people of Menaa pay a nominal tribute of garden produce
every year to his descendants, who dwell in the plains
near Barika to the west. The chief was careful to show
us all the advantages of Menaa. Owing to its plentiful
supply of running water the crops produced in the limited
area of the basin are abundant and of excellent quality,
but the busy Shawfa farmers do not neglect to make
use of arty patch of soil which can be tilled upon the

FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE 67

mountains themselves, so that neat rows of small fields
can be seen high up among the hills, far beyond the
reach of any possible " seggia " irrigation, which rely
for their water supply upon the showers attracted by
the bush-studded ridges, many of which showers do not
reach the valley below.

The houses of the village, huddled together upon the
rocky mound surmounted by the minaret of a mosque,
though mostly built of stone after the manner of all
true Berber dwellings in the Aures, are in many cases
too well built, or, in the case of the north face of
the village, too neatly aligned to be worthy of close
examination by any one desirous of seeing a really
typical Shawia settlement ; indeed, Menaa may more
reasonably be studied as an example of what such a settle-
ment can become, if its people would only develop it
upon its own lines, than as a specimen of a Berber village
of the Aures.

Thus the northern face of the village, overlooking
the depression which now contains the terminus of the
road, is so neatly constructed as to suggest some
European influence in its erection, and to give a tinge
of reason (very slight it must be confessed) to the boastful
title of " The little Constantine " which some Shawia
admirers of Menaa have bestowed upon the place, com-
paring it to the capital city of the eastern department
of Algeria.

The northern face of the village contains the somewhat
elaborate two-storeyed house of the Kaid, a mosque,
a bath-house (the property of the chief), a couple of caf£s,
and some shops of the " universal provider " description,
such as are not to be found in remoter hamlets.

His lands, his shops, and his bath-house are not the
only sources from which our host, the Kaid of Menaa,

68 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

derives his income, for he is the owner of one of those
corn-mills which constitute a striking example of the
survival of primitive machinery in most parts of the
Aures, as well as at El Kantara, and other oases which
can boast of the possession of a stream.

The upper of two horizontal grindstones, chipped by
hand by the natives of Beni Ferah, is caused to rotate
upon the fixed lower stone by means of a horizontal
water-wheel below it, with which it is connected by a
vertical shaft, the water being directed from a " seggia "
to the wheel, or turbine, by means of a movable trough
when the mill is required to act.

A piece of wood resting upon the revolving stone is
connected with a movable spout from the cone-shaped
box in which the corn is placed so that the rotary move-
ment of the stone causes the spout to oscillate and the
grain to fall little by little between the stones. This
simple turbine mill, the design of which must be of very
great antiquity, is capable of producing some really
excellent flour, and seems likely to persist for many
generations to come among so conservative a people as
the Shawfa.

Menaa, besides being one of the most important
agricultural centres of the poor valleys of the Aures
massif, is also important as a centre of commerce for,
in addition to possessing a fair number of native shops,
it manufactures most, if not all, of the leather goods of
the Abdi and Bouzina valleys ; natives from these regions
being compelled to purchase their shoes from the only
cobblers available, those of the industrious " Capital of
the Aures." These slippers, made of goatskin, dyed
yellow for male customers and red with yellow toe-caps
for the ladies, are well and strongly sewn, and will be
found useful to Europeans as camp and bedroom shoes

FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE 69

when once their rather rounded soles have been trodden
flat by actual wear (I am wearing a similar pair bought
at Bou Saada fifteen years ago as I write), but they afford
an example as glaring as that of the Beni Ferah pottery
of the artificial prices now ruling even in out-of-the-way
districts of the hills ; in 1914 they cost three francs in
silver per pair ; in 1920 the Shawia were paying a twenty-
franc note for them !

This increase in price, however, affects the more wealthy
natives only, for the vast majority of Shawia are content
to clamber up and down their precipitous hillsides shod
with nothing more elaborate than sandals of plaited
halfa grass, which cost them nothing, for the material
grows upon the hills and even young children are capable
of making their footgear for themselves.

Upon the occasion of our last visit to Menaa we found
that not only had the road which we had seen in course
of construction higher up the Abdi valley been continued
to the village, but also that a bordj, exactly similar to
that of Djemora, had been erected two or three hundred
yards to the north of the rocky mound on which the
village stands. We therefore stayed at the bordj, and
found its guardian, Belkassem, to be an excellent cook
as well as a very intelligent person, able and very willing
to help us forward in our work.

This bordj should prove extremely useful to the
motorist who would see the Shawia in their own land
by following the road from Lambese down the Abdi
valley and spending a few days at Menaa, choosing as
the time for his visit the spring of the year, when all the
fruit trees are abloom and the snow has left the higher
passes over which the road must run, and bringing with
him a few simple stores from a civilized town, to give
Belkassem a chance to show what he can really do with

70 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

a few European dainties to add to the local produce
which he contrived to make palatable enough for us.

When we reached the bordj which very rarely receives
even an official visitor, we found that its courtyard was
largely used as a place of gossip by women and girls
from the scattered houses round, cronies of Yamina,
Belkassem's wife, who would bring their distaffs and
spindles, or bundles of wool for skeining, and, squatting
on the sunny side of the yard, indulge to their heart's
delight in picking to pieces other people's husbands,
whispering over the latest village scandal, or discussing
clothes with as much interest and animation as their
more civilized sisters are sometimes suspected of doing
at tea-parties in an English village. Upon our arrival
these daily reunions came to an end, but after a day
or two the Shawia women, who, as we have seen, are
far freer than their Arab neighbours, finding that my
wife was anxious to make friends with them and that
I was harmless, began to resume their habit of visiting
the bordj, so that in a very short time we came to
be upon excellent terms with them, and my wife was
enabled to prosecute her inquiries into many of their
simple arts and crafts, while as their confidence in me
increased I managed to secure quite a collection of
drawings of tattoo marks and notes upon superstitions,
etc., to add to the information I was gleaning upon Shawia
life in the Aures.

It is very certain that, comparatively free as the
Shawia women are, the European bachelor can hope to
learn little or nothing of them and of their lives, but in
the presence of an Englishwoman their curiosity to examine
her and her garments will lead them to converse freely
with the male traveller, when once he has to some extent
gained their confidence.

FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE 71

Very many primitive customs, such as must be studied
by any one engaged in examining the daily life of a
native race, are known only to the women, indeed I
think that the general success or failure of our work in
any Algerian village may be said to correspond to the
degree in which we were able to associate with its female
population, and that I have been able to see anything of
their lives, study their weaving and spinning, glean
details of their superstitions and sorcery, and be welcomed
as a guest in their homes is due solely to the presence
of my wife.

We spent a good deal of our time, therefore, during
our last visit to Menaa in our home at the bordj,
receiving relays of visitors of both sexes and gradually
adding to our notes, but we wandered a good deal about
the village and, this time, made the acquaintance of a
powerful marabout who occupies a fairly extensive
" zawia " a few hundred yards to the north-east of the
village itself. A " zawia " may be described as the home
of a saintly or maraboutic family and its retainers, in
which facilities are offered, in the way of books and
accommodation, for the study of Mohammedan doc-
trines, and in which followers of the marabout, who is
at the head of the establishment, or indeed any passing
Moslems, are housed and entertained should they pause
for a night or two upon a journey. Although certain
maraboutic families are wealthy enough to maintain
such establishments without appealing to their followers
for gifts, the majority of the saints do receive substantial
sums or gifts in kind from those who reverence them,
and thus they are able to offer the hospitality to all and
sundry which I have mentioned. I do not know of a
word in the English language which is exactly the
equivalent of the Arabic " zawia " ; it is neither a feudal

72 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

castle, a small university, nor a monastery, and yet it
embodies some of the characteristics of all three. In
these pages, therefore, when describing other zawias
which we visited in the Aures, I shall employ the Arabic
word without attempting a translation. We became
rather friendly with the saint of Menaa ; I think the
soreness of a holy toe and a tube of carbolated vaseline
combined to cement the friendship, and in so doing we
made the acquaintance of one of his relations, a middle-
aged man, who, though at times perfectly rational and,
I believe, of a very genial disposition, also experienced
periods of imbecility, one of which he was undergoing
at the time we met him.

His imbecility fortunately never led him to any acts
of violence, indeed it seemed rather to increase his natural
geniality, and it made the poor fellow an unmitigated
nuisance to us, for he was so anxious to ensure that we
had everything we could want that he insisted upon
pursuing us whenever he found an opportunity, and he
was rather encouraged in his attentions by our super-
stitious old orderly, who firmly believed that the
companionship of this poor mad scion of a saintly house
would lead to his receiving a little of the blessing which
the lunatic was supposed to give off in his touch and
conversation, if the unfortunate fellow's gibberish can
be so termed. All feeble-minded persons are regarded
as uncanny, if not exactly holy, in Algeria ; a mad
hereditary saint, therefore, is looked upon as very much
to be respected indeed.

Although I made as many inquiries as I could
into the arts and crafts of the inhabitants of Menaa,
I found that I obtained my most valuable notes on
these subjects in more remote hamlets in which im-
ported implements were less likely to be found, the arts,

FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE 73

therefore, being more strictly native in character ; but
at Menaa I found the manufacture of silver ornaments
to be carried on more extensively perhaps than in any
other Shawia village, and, as these ornaments are some-
what striking in character, are made by means of most
primitive appliances, and in some cases possess a magical
value, I will give some description of them in the
next chapter.

CHAPTER IV
AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURES

DRESS OF THE SHAWIA WOMEN — THE SILVER ORNAMENTS OP THE AURES —

MAGIC IN JEWELLERY — THE " EVIL EYE " THE SILVERSMITHS OF

THE HILLS — FASHIONS IN JEWELLERY — THE FEAST OF THE SPRING
— HOCKEY IN THE HILLS — FROM MENAA TO TAGOUST — DESCENDANTS
OF THE ROMANS — A HOLY MOUNTAIN — CAVE-DWELLERS OF THE
MAAFA GORGE — A SHORT AND EASY JOURNEY IN THE AURES.

BEFORE proceeding to describe in any detail the
barbaric silver ornaments of the Aures which are
to be found, perhaps, in greater profusion and variety
at Menaa and in the Wed Abdi than in other parts of
the massif, it may be well to give my readers some
idea of the costumes of the women, alike in all Shawia
villages, upon which they are displayed, and for this
purpose I must call in the assistance of my wife, not only
because she has made the garments worn herself under
the direction of Shawia friends, and has often been
dressed in them to ascertain exactly the native method
of putting them on, but also because my masculine pen
is quite unequal to the task of describing accurately the
costume of any lady other, perhaps, than some I have
met with years ago in the equatorial forests of Central
Africa.

The universal costume of the Shawia woman consists
of two garments. The first, worn next to the body, is
a straight " gandoura," or shirt, of stout cotton material
cut round in the neck, opening a short way at the throat

7*

AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURfiS 75

to allow it to be passed over the head, and fastened with
a button.

The " gandoura " falls from the shoulders to the
knees, and is usually of white material with short sleeves
of " flowered " cotton, but often, in the case of a rich
woman who may wish to appear more elaborately attired
at fetes, weddings, etc., short sleeves of net or some
bright coloured material are attached to the " gandoura."
Over the shirt the second garment or dress, if a straight
piece of material can be dignified with the name, is worn.
This dress consists of two lengths, of from six to ten yards
each, of French cotton, black or dark blue edged with
coloured braid being the most usually worn at Menaa,
and these two lengths are stitched together along one
side to increase the width.

One end of the material is draped over the back, a
short piece being left to form the right sleeve, and is then
brought full under the left arm, forming the left sleeve,
and folded double over the breast so that the braided
upper edge falls to the waist. This fold over the breast
is caught by silver brooches on each side to the material
on the back, which is drawn forward over the shoulders
to meet it.

The length is then gathered full around the waist to
form the skirt in even pleats, more numerous in front
than at the back, and is thus brought round to the left
side and held in place by a girdle of plaited wool of
various colours passed several times around the waist.

The loose sleeves, formed by folds of the garment, are
often tied behind the back, or tucked into the girdle
while working. Although dark colours are preferred for
everyday wear, bright coloured or " flowered " muslin
dresses are worn by the younger women at festivals
and by brides.

76 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Shawls, usually woven at home of wool or silk and
wool, but sometimes made of French net, are very
commonly seen upon great occasions draped over the
shoulders and fastened in front by means of a silver
brooch. These we have seen dyed black for motives of
economy.

Upon the head the Shawia woman often wears as many
as seven coloured kerchiefs, which are draped around the
head and knotted in front ; black silk ones with a fringe
being considered especially smart by rich women, and
usually worn under the brightly coloured ones with
one end hanging down the back.

To all intents and purposes the dress of the little
girls is a replica in miniature of that of their
mothers, but the smallest are attired only in a cotton
" gandoura."

The hair, which is profusely oiled, is usually made into
three plaits, which are twisted round the head and
concealed by the kerchiefs, only one lock on each side of
the face and a straight fringe being exposed to view, a
fashion which distinguishes the Shawia women from many
of the nomads, who wear thick plaits of hair, often
increased by an admixture of wool, looped up in front
of each ear so as to give to the face the impression that
it is enclosed in a massive frame.

The shoes worn by the women of Menaa, as we have
already seen, are of red goatskin, often ornamented with
bright yellow toe-caps. The trinkets displayed upon the
costume described above arc worthy of examination,
for some have uses other than mere ornament, and some
are of very ancient design. We have already alluded
to a couple of brooches worn upon the breast to join the
drapery upon the shoulders with that across the chest ;
these brooches are interesting.

AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURfiS 77

The brooch consists of a sharp silver pin through a
hole in the blunt end of which is passed a ring of silver,
divided at one point to allow the pin (longer than the
diameter of the ring) to pass from one side of it to the
other ; the two pieces of the dress material to be joined
are transfixed by the pin, the point of which is then passed
through the gap in the ring alluded to above, and the
ring pushed slightly round so that the point is no longer
opposite to the gap, and the pin cannot slip back, the
material thus being locked in position upon the pin
until the wearer chooses to turn the ring back and allow
the pin to come out again through the gap.

It is interesting to note that this form of brooch is of
very great antiquity. It is found to-day all over Algeria,
and excavations have revealed it in such distant countries
as Scotland, Ireland, and many parts of Europe, so that
some students have arrived at the conclusion that it
reached the Barbary States at the time of some very
early invasion from the north, and I have myself found
such a brooch upon a poor Shawfa child at Menaa which
would appear to have been buried for a prolonged period,
and may even date from very early ages, having possibly
been found while the child's relatives were digging the
foundations of a house.

The great majority of the brooches worn are now of
silver, and the blunt end of the pin is usually produced to
form an ornamental " head," sometimes crescent-shaped in
form, but more usually triangular, with perforated scroll
patterns, the sides of the triangles being often well over
two inches in length.

The brooches on the breast are worn head downwards,
and their heads are usually connected with a chain to
which are attached a few flat rectangular boxes of silver,
ornamented with embossed designs, to hold the written

78 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

talismans without which no Algerian woman considers
herself safe from magical attacks.

It is not unusual to find in the Aures, though I have
not noted the custom elsewhere, a neatly made circular
silver box, containing a mirror, about two inches in
diameter, suspended from one of the brooches ; its lid,
often very well decorated with open scroll patterns,
taking the place of the cheap leather-covered mirrors
in which the majority of Algerian women love to admire
their beauty.

Around their necks the women of the Wad Abdi wear
silver collars, from which a great number of chains hang
down over their breasts, each chain ending in a small
coral bead and either a scroll of silver wire or a very
small pointed pendant. In addition to this many women
wear a long necklet reaching to the waist, made of great
numbers of home-made beads scented with musk, the
beads being threaded upon several sets of strings, and
arranged so that silver globes or cones connect the different
sets at various points in the length of the necklet, at the
lower end of which a conventionalized representation in
silver of a human hand, with its fingers extended, hangs
as a pendant.

In some districts these necklets are worn by brides
upon their wedding day, and are subsequently used upon
the occasion of festivals. The arms of the Shawia ladies
are laden with bracelets, as many as half a dozen or eight
pairs being sometimes worn, the bracelets consisting of
solid flat bars of silver, the outer sides of which are
decorated with round or lozenge-shaped bosses and with
pieces of glass, usually red, let into the silver, the glass
being procured from such places as Biskra and Constan-
tine, having been manufactured in Europe for the
purpose. Rings, similarly ornamented with glass, are

AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURfiS 79

also worn, not only by the women, but by the majority
of the men.

All but the poorer classes of women in the Wed Abdi
wear two pairs of anklets, one consisting of engraved
bands of silver, between two and three inches deep, and
the other of plain solid silver bars, the clinking of the
two as the wearer walks causing her great gratification,
akin, perhaps, to that anticipated by a certain young
officer who, rumour has it, was once seen entering a
London shop to have his spurs tuned !

One of the great features of Aurasian jewellery is to
be found in the earrings worn by all the women.

These consist of bars of silver bent almost to form a
circle, the space between the two ends of which are joined
by wires, upon which coral is threaded after the ring
has been thrust through the lobe or the upper portion of
the ear. Some of these earrings are decorated with bosses
of filigree work, with coral in the centre ; some have
silver globes and cones threaded upon them ; others
are beaten out flat and serrated for ornamentation ;
but all are large, three inches being about their usual
diameter, though I have a pair from the Djebel Cherchar
which is slightly oval in form and measures five inches
at its greatest depth.

Needless to say, the weight of these ornaments (three
pairs of which I have once seen worn at a time) cause
considerable deformity to the ear, but this is reduced as
much as possible by attaching the earrings, by means
of silver chains and hooks, to the kerchiefs worn upon
the head,

" Head pendants," often consisting of silver stars,
about two inches in diameter, from the lower points of
which hang many chains like those worn upon necklets,
are frequently to be seen suspended by chains and hooks

80 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

from either side of the headdress, while brow bands of
rectangular silver boxes, connected by strings of coral,
are commonly worn in many parts of the massif.

Upon the breast of many a Shawia woman may be
seen suspended a porcupine's foot set in silver, and the
eye-tooth of a dog similarly mounted.

Although silver is the metal most usually employed
in the manufacture of personal ornaments in the hills,
some of the wives of wealthy chiefs are to be found almost
covered with similar trinkets of solid gold, the ornaments
worn representing many thousands of francs in value ;
while the Ouled Nail dancing girls to be seen at Biskra
are also in the habit of investing their gains in gold
ornaments with which to beautify their somewhat
unattractive persons.

Before proceeding to describe the crude method in
which this by no means unpleasing Berber jewellery is
produced we may, perhaps, digress for a moment in an
attempt to examine the reasons for which some of the
articles enumerated are worn.

Let us begin with the " hands," which we have seen
are worn upon their necklets by the Shawia beauties.
These, as every visitor to Algeria is aware, are worn as
a charm against the " evil-eye," which is so dreaded
throughout the Barbary States, but, whatever any
" guide " may choose to inform his employers, they are
not representations of the " Hand of Fathma," the
daughter of the Prophet of Islam ; indeed, they are not
even called " hands " by the natives themselves, but are
referred to as " fives," and are carried for the following
reason.

When a native meets a person who is in the habit of
bestowing the envious glance known as the " evil-eye,"
which is frequently followed by the direst results to its

AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURftS 81

victim, in order to protect himself by forestalling the
coming magical attack, he will extend the fingers of one
hand towards the evilly disposed person and remark
" Khamsa fi ainek " (" Five in thine eye "), the gesture
being considered to be efficacious in preventing the envious
glance from wreaking mischief. Perhaps in order to
save the trouble of making the gesture, but more probably
to carry the gesture ready made, and so available for
instant use even if the threatening danger is not
observed, the silver hands with the fingers extended are
commonly worn in a conspicuous position by the women
of Algeria, and have probably been so worn for many
centuries before Fathma, daughter of Mohammed the
Prophet, graced the deserts of Arabia. The small pointed
pendants, which, as we have seen, are often suspended
from silver collars, appear to be similarly intended to
threaten the eye of the would-be giver of the envious
glance, and the coral so largely used in Shawia jewellery
is also worn to protect the woman from the " evil-eye,"
but for a different reason. The damage done by the
" evil-eye " is not caused by the glance itself, but by
an invisible demon which accompanies it, a " jinn "
similar to that which, as we have seen, flew away with
a bride and so caused a migration of the Ouled Ziane,
and these demons are commonly believed to have the
greatest repugnance for anything that is red in colour,
a fact which seems to account for the popularity and
magical value of coral, for which the Shawia will pay
exorbitant prices, and also for the use of red glass set
in various silver ornaments.

The effect of the envious glance is believed to be very
remarkable. Belkadi, our old orderly, once purchased a
new pair of French scissors and displayed them to a
friend, who remarked upon their excellent quality without

6

82 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

attributing that quality to the favour of God ; the
scissors instantly broke in half as he held them ! It is
therefore considered extremely unlucky, and it renders
the speaker liable to be suspected of giving the " evil-
eye," for any one to admire a person, or a thing, without
implying in some way that its beauty or value is due to
the Almighty, so that the traveller in remoter districts
has to be careful to avoid anything like fulsome flattery
or unstinted praise, especially of children and animals.

Inanimate objects are often protected against the
envious glance by a very simple form of charm, to which
my wife and I always refer in conversation as a " lightning
conductor " ; for example, when a new house is built
an old black pot is placed upon a corner of its roof in
order that it may " catch the eye " of a malevolent
passer-by, and so, by attracting his envious glance to
itself, save the building from the evil which is threaten-
ing it.

The silver-mounted dog's tooth, which is quite commonly
worn suspended from the dress, is carried as a threat
to lurking demons by suggesting to them the presence
of a savage creature, even demons being very subject
to fear, but the reason underlying the wearing of the
foot of a porcupine as a preventative against soreness
of the breast in a young mother has so far defeated all
my efforts to obtain a coherent native explanation of its
character and its origin.

But I have already digressed too long upon the magical
uses of jewellery, especially as magic will be referred to
again when I take my readers to the central valleys of
the Aures massif; I will therefore turn to the manufac-
ture of the silver ornaments, one of the chief arts of the
Shawia of Mcnaa.

The silversmith squats upon the mud floor of his dingy

AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURfiS 88

stone-built room, blowing into flame the glowing embers
in a hole in the floor by means of a bellows, consisting of
an old gun-barrel, fixed in a lump of baked earth, and a
skin of a kid open at one end and attached to the gun-
barrel at the other, so that, by opening his hand as he
draws the bag backwards by its open end, he fills it full
of air, which, by closing the hand as he pushes it forward
again, he forces through the barrel on to the embers,
amid which the silver is melting in a little metal cup.

When the silver is molten, lifting the cup by means of
a pair of tongs, he pours the liquid metal into a mould
in the shape of a horse-shoe filled with oil and sand, in
which he has previously made an impression of the article
to be cast, the mould being divided into two parts down
the centre, so that it may be opened for the moulding and
the parts clamped together again when the metal is to
be poured in.

Thus the brooches, etc., are very easily moulded,
and only require to be finished off with the aid of a
European file.

Deep anklets are beaten out upon a small anvil, and
their scroll patterns are traced upon them by means of
a hammer and chisel, while the solid ones are similarly
beaten out from a bar of silver, but as a rule are not
decorated with any elaborate design.

Although the filigree work to be found upon a few
earrings at Menaa is perhaps the most difficult task the
jeweller sets himself to perform, undoubtedly the most
laborious is that of making the chains which are worn
in such profusion in the Aures, for the bar of silver has
to be beaten with a hammer until it assumes the propor-
tions of coarse wire, then drawn through a series of holes,
decreasing in size, in a steel plate until this wire becomes
sufficiently fine, and, at last, it is beaten flat, cut into

84 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

minute lengths, and hammered round the pointed end
of the anvil to form the tiny links required.

Sometimes imported silver chain is to be found upon
otherwise genuine native jewellery, so that, in collecting
specimens of Shawia ornaments, I always carefully examine
the chain-work first of all in order to observe any little
irregularities in the links, none too easily noted in a
really well-made chain, which would stamp it as a real
example of the handicraft of a native silversmith.

Some of the metal used is silver purchased in the form
of bars at Constantine, but a very large amount of the
jewellery is made from broken or discarded trinkets,
and silver money very frequently finds its way into the
melting-pot.

In a land of survivals, such as the Aures, it may well
be imagined that fashions would remain the same, and
to a great extent this is true, but nevertheless there is
a distinct change taking place with regard to the large
earrings, of which we have seen that several patterns
are worn at Menaa. Unfortunately this change is in
favour of the flattened and serrated type of ring, which
is far less picturesque than those adorned with bosses
of filigree work or with hollow globes and cones, so that
many fine old specimens of Shawia silver-work daily
find their way to the jeweller to reappear again in the
crude form which seems now to please the ladies of the
Aures.

Before the war the silver-work of the mountains was
obtainable very cheaply in districts in which the fabulous
prices sometimes paid in the towns arc unknown.

The native himself, when he brings his own silver to
the jeweller, pays him a very small sum for his work, so
that should the traveller purchase an ornament with
silver money he ought to obtain it for very little more

AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURfiS 85

than its own weight in coin ; but the Shawfa have a great
dislike for paper money, which in the winter of 1919-20
was almost exclusively used in Algeria, and can only
with the greatest difficulty be persuaded to sell their
jewellery for it, even at prices which are utterly absurd,
so that an offer of twenty francs in paper will probably
not tempt a native to part with an object whose weight
is equivalent to ten francs, or even less, although, of
course, bargains can still be made with persons to whom
ready money is a necessity.

During our stay at Menaa we experienced an oppor-
tunity, even better than the weddings at Beni Ferah,
of seeing the women attired in their very best, for we
were in the village during the three days of the annual
Feast of the Spring, which is held at the end of February.
Late at night on the 28th of February all, or nearly all,
the able-bodied women and girls of the village repaired
to the juniper-studded slopes of a mountain some miles
away, and there commenced to celebrate the beginning
of the feast by following their ordinary and very laborious
task of cutting huge loads of firewood, beneath which
they staggered next morning to the village, being accom-
panied upon their homeward march by some tom-toms
and an oboe, as well as by men armed with guns and
pistols which were discharged as often as the existing
shortage of powder would permit.

A halt was called a mile from the village, and, while
the women rested beside their burdens, one or two young
girls danced in turn to the strains of the band amid the
quivering cries of the female spectators.

The crowd by this time had assumed considerable
proportions, for many men and boys had come out to
meet their mothers, wives, and sisters, and to accompany
them with every sign of rejoicing to Menaa. It was

86 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

noticeable that every one carried with them some sprig
or shoot of a plant, emblematic, no doubt, of the life which
recommences after the dreary months of winter have
gone by. On arrival at Menaa the women scattered with
their burdens to their own homes, while the musicians
and a goodly concourse of men and boys visited the
" zawia," before which the " band " gave a brief
performance, and then returning to the village they
stopped in a little open space on the edge of the very
steep western slope of its rocky mound, where they were
rejoined by many of the women, to listen to the music,
squatting upon the ground, or perched upon the roofs
of the surrounding houses.

It would almost appear that the Shawia choose their
rendezvous for gatherings of this kind with the skill
of a trained producer of spectacular plays, for I have
always noticed that open-air functions, in which dancing
takes place, are held so that a wonderful natural back-
ground of mountains or of distant views enhances the
picturesque character of the scene.

The Spring Feast at Menaa was an example of this
natural instinct for the picturesque. In the brilliant
light of the midday sun the Shawia gathered round the
band on the slope, with a wonderful view of a wild rocky
valley, in which the blossom gleamed white beside the
stream beneath the towering juniper-studded slopes of
the mountains, in the background. From every coign
of vantage men and boys in clean white garments eagerly
watched the slow movements of a gaily dressed dancer,
while the crowds of women, seated apart from the men,
with their gay kerchiefs of shades which never seem to
clash, their bright dresses, and their mass of silver chains,
anklets, bracelets, and brooches reflecting in many a
gleaming point of light the powerful rays of the sun,

AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURfiS 87

added just that gorgeous medley of colour which seemed
necessary to complete the barbaric splendour of the
scene.

The dancers at Menaa were all girls of the village itself,
for the Kai'd had refused admittance to quite a number
of professionals from the Wed Abdi, who had arrived
before the fete hoping to realize large sums of money
by dancing at it, for he looks with disfavour upon these
very unrestrained ladies and the brawls which their
presence so frequently entails. The dancing, therefore,
was not as skilful as it would have been had the profes-
sionals performed.

The second day of the feast resembled the first, save
that few women went overnight to the hill and that the
music and dancing was attended mainly by children,
all, including the tiniest, of the girls being most resplen-
dently attired in their mothers' or sisters' clothing and
silver ornaments. Never shall I forget the ridiculous
appearance of some of the smallest !

Their heads adorned with numerous kerchiefs, their
little bodies swathed in bright dresses which were ordin-
arily worn by full-grown women, and their limbs, heads
and breasts covered with all the silver jewellery the
family could produce, some of the poor little creatures
presented a picture quite as pathetic as gay. Indeed,
one little mite we found after the dancing had ceased
sitting almost in tears beside the track, utterly unable to
stagger the few remaining yards to her home beneath the
weight of the finery she was almost concealed by until
she had rested by the way.

Another young lady, upon whom finery sat heavily,
was a child of about five, who lived near the bordj, and
rejoiced in the name of Rosebud. As we had come to
know her, Rosebud was one of those children who are

88 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

never happy unless their persons are in an indescribable
state of dirt ; and Rosebud was always very happy
indeed. Wearing nothing but a gandoura many sizes
too small for her and black with grime, her unkempt
hair flying in the wind, she was always running in and
out of the courtyard of the bordj, playing with her
dog, throwing stones at every one else's dog, and getting
into any mischief she could find.

Upon the morning of the second day of the Spring
Feast, when I looked out of the bordj gate, I beheld
a remarkable apparition. Standing still (because she
could scarcely move), her head swathed in silken scarves,
her body rigid in a large clean dress, her person almost
obscured by silver trinkets, two pair of anklets almost
slipping from her feet, was Rosebud — clean ! Whether
it was the finery she was wearing, or the ablutions she
had recently endured, I cannot say, but something induced
the poor little thing to burst into tears, as she took my
hand to be brought for inspection to my wife.

Even in the Aures it seems to be as necessary to suffer
to be beautiful as in the gayest cities of the west.

In the evenings during the Spring Feast is played at
Mcnaa and elsewhere in Algeria the game called " Koora,"
which very closely resembles hockey, and is of very great
antiquity. At Menaa the game is taken very seriously
indeed. The opposing sides, consisting of any number
of men and lads, face each other in a depression near
the village, through which the road now runs and thus
provides them with an arena for their warlike game.

The ball, usually a stone, has to be propelled to one
or other of the very ill-defined boundaries, which take
the place of goals, by means of bent sticks, often large
and fearsome-looking weapons cut from rough juniper
branches on the hills.

AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURfcS 89

The game is the most dangerous one I have yet seen.

Apparently unhampered by any rules, the combatants,
as they might reasonably be termed, fling themselves at
the ball, slashing right and left with their club-like sticks,
those unable to get at the ball itself seeming just as
contented to belabour those who impede their way.

After a time upon the first occasion on which I watched
the melie, both sides frankly left the ball to itself and
commenced a very good representation of a mediaeval
'prentices' dispute, until the Kai'd, remembering that a
vendetta may follow an accident and that he was per-
sonally responsible for the order maintained in his village,
ordered the game to be stopped, and I produced from
my pockets the bandages I had been advised to bring
with me and proceeded to deal as well as I could with
the casualties, eight in number, who came to me for
assistance.

There appeared to be no ill-will resulting from the
game, but had it continued the consequences might have
been serious.

The young women and girls also indulge in " Koora "
at this period of the year, playing near the bordj,
with no spectators other than a few women and some
passers-by. Doubtless in a desire to display their
prowess at the expense of a Roumiya, as all white women
are called in Algeria, some of my wife's friends invited
her to join them in their game, and were all agog with
excitement and sly amusement when she agreed.

But the Shawia ladies were unacquainted with the
pastimes of an English girls' school, which pastimes are
not easily forgotten, so that their astonishment was
unbounded when my wife scored the first goal and imme-
diately followed it up with a second, for the Shawia had
no idea of defence, nor, indeed, of any of the tricks of

90 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

hockey as " scientifically " played in England. This
game, I think, greatly increased their respect for my wife,
and did something to cement the numerous friendships
she had made at Menaa.

Menaa, as we have seen in the last chapter, can be
approached by two distinct routes from the south, one
from Djemora and the other from Beni Ferah ; it can
similarly be left by two other tracks, one leading up the
valley of the Wed Abdi to Batna to the north, the other
to Tagoust at the southern end of the Bouzina valley,
and thence to the Batna-Biskra railway through the
defile of Maafa to the west. The first of these two routes,
when the high passes are clear of snow, is already accessi-
ble to motor traffic, but the second can only be traversed
by mule, and it is with a description of the latter that
I will conclude this chapter, reserving an account of
our wanderings around Bouzina and in the Abdi valley
for the pages which follow.

One gloriously fine morning in March, when a spell
of really warm weather set us thinking of procuring
topees when next we came out of the hills and which
heralded the approach of summer, never too unbearable
at such an altitude as Menaa, we left the " capital of
the Aures," and, riding along the road over the new stone
bridge which spans the Bouzina River, we marched
northwards up the Abdi valley for a mile or so before
turning to the north-west to commence the ascent of
the steep ridge which lies between that valley and the
Wed Bouzina, whose stream is too liable to flood to
render its gorge a safe passage for mules to Tagoust.

The panorama of the Abdi valley was magnificent.
Deep-green fields of corn, trees snow-white or pink with
blossom, great grey rocky hills with forests of juniper
and ilex upon the higher slopes, glimpses of snow-clad

AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AUR&S 91

peaks to the north ; a scene as different from the barren
land of Djemora as any one country could well provide,
and, in its way, of a beauty that cannot be exceeded in
the Aures, for it betokened some degree of prosperity,
while many of the great valleys of the southern part of
the hills are at once magnificent and forbidding, desolate
as well as grand. A good track and willing beasts soon
brought us over the ridge, along the edge of a defile on
its farther side, and so to a distant view of the gardens
and gleaming minaret of Tagoust, lying in a broad valley
at the foot of a frowning wall of red cliffs towering over
the village to the east. Fording the stream as we neared
the village we rode on through Tagoust itself to the White
Hamlet, a small village in which is situated the house
of the chief. Although we had not previously approached
Tagoust from Menaa, we had visited the place before,
and were, accordingly, welcomed as old friends by the
Kai'd, who provided us with accommodation in his home
and entertained us to meals of quite a sumptuous
character.

This chief of Tagoust, who holds sway all over the
Bouzina valley, is a magnificent specimen of a man ;
very tall and broad in proportion, he is one of the most
commanding figures I have seen, while a flowing white
beard adds considerably to the stateliness of his appear-
ance. I spent most of the few days we passed at
Tagoust in obtaining from the chief some notes upon the
history of some of the Shawia tribes to add to those I
had obtained elsewhere, which, while scarcely of sufficient
interest to warrant their inclusion in these pages, are
noteworthy in that they corroborated some statements
made by other natives that a number of Shawia tribes
claim direct descent from the Romans.

Beyond the fact that scattered Roman settlers very

92 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

possibly have left an infusion of their blood in the veins
of the inhabitants of the Aures, there seems to be little
evidenee yet available to show that any one tribe can
substantiate a claim to such descent, but the natives
themselves regard with no little pride their boasted
Roman ancestry.

Tagoust itself, a true Shawfa village, is built of stones
fairly well trimmed, and it is one of the neatest villages
I have seen in the Aures, but it contains little to interest
the casual visitor if he has previously seen Shawia settle-
ments elsewhere ; instead of spending much time in it,
therefore, he will probably continue his journey to the
railway at Maafa.

The track upon leaving Tagoust rises steeply, zigzagging
up the rocky side of a mountain, till it reaches a high-
lying valley, the northern portion of the main valley of
Bouzina, from which the defile of the Maafa canon leads
the traveller to the west. As he rides up this steep
hillside the wanderer will be travelling upon holy
ground, for he will be ascending the north-eastern spurs
of the Djebel Bouss, a mountain which is greatly revered
over a wide extent of country in eastern Algeria.

At a certain date in every year a pilgrimage takes place
to the tomb of Sidi Yahia, the great saint of Maafa,
following which the pilgrims betake themselves to the
hallowed slopes of the Djebel Bouss in order to obtain
some of the holiness which the mountain is believed to
be capable of bestowing upon the faithful. Just before
entering the defile that leads to Maafa the track by which
the Ouled Ziane nomads move northwards in the spring
and southwards in the autumn in their migrations with
their flocks and herds to and from the northern slopes
of the Aures will be found very clearly defined by walls
of stones, so that the herdsmen shall have no excuse for

AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURfiS 93

allowing their animals to stray and inflict damage in the
fields of the Shawia. The gorge of Maafa itself, studded
with juniper and other trees, winding for some miles
between precipitous cliffs, is certainly extremely pictu-
resque, but the most interesting point to be noted in it
by the student of native manners and customs is the
existence of some cave-dwellings, which are inhabited
to-day.

These dwellings are situated upon a ledge half-way
up the cliff-side which is provided with a natural roof in
the form of overhanging rocks, so that all that the Shawia
have had to do in order to provide themselves with houses
has been to wall up the front of the ledge level with the
face of the cliff. A spring or two in the defile furnishes
the cliff-dwellers with water, so that they merely lead the
same existence as their compatriots whose nest-like
villages overhang the streams in the valleys which we are
to examine in a later chapter in the centre of the Aures
massif. Nowadays, under the rule of the French, such
dwellings are by no means necessary, but of old there
was much desultory fighting between the peoples of
Tagoust and of Maafa, so that an inaccessible or easily-
defended village was a necessity to the dwellers in this
once troubled land.

I have read that the natives find it necessary in some
places in this valley to be hoisted by cords in order to
reach their homes in the face of the cliff, but I have seen
nothing myself to substantiate the statement.

The cave-dwellings are difficult enough to reach it is
true, but I do not think any Shawia would permanently
inhabit a place in which even his goats could not move
in and out, while should this tale refer to the disused
rock-dwellings at Maafa itself, I can only say that my
wife and I have managed to get to most of them

94 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

wearing boots which had not even soles of rope or of
rubber ; and that some others, inaccessible to-day, have
only become so through the crumbling of the rocks
which has occurred since their inhabitants had forsaken
them.

Maafa itself, situated just at the western end of its
defile, where the gorge expands into a wider valley with
less precipitous sides, consists of three hamlets built, as
are Beni Ferah and Menaa, upon eminences in the valley,
one of them lying a mile or so farther down the ravine
and containing the mosque and " zawia " of Sidi Yahia,
the famous holy man whose tomb, as we have seen, is
a noted place of pilgrimage. The mosque has been
rebuilt by the French authorities, and presents little of
interest to the traveller, while the zawia merely consists
of a group of ordinary Shawia huts.

The valley of Maafa and its long defile are beautiful
enough, especially when spring clothes its numerous
fruit trees with blossom, and, although the only accommo-
dation available is a small room in the house of the chief
who, like all Kaids of the Aures, is very hospitable to
his guests, the place is well worthy of the attention of a
traveller who can spare the time to examine one Shawia
settlement only.

As the village lies but an hour and a half's walk from
the railway " halt " which bears its name, it can be visited
in a day from El Kantara, the traveller leaving the
" Mouth of the Desert " by the early morning northward
train and returning by the train which goes down towards
Biskra after dark.

When we stayed for a short time at Maafa, at the
conclusion of a spell of work in the hills, we rode down
to the little railway " halt," and, sending Belkadi north-
wards to his headquarters at A'fn Touta, went down by

\^td

CAVE-DWELLINGS, MAAFA.

SPRING-TIME, .MAAFA.

To (ace p. 94.

AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AUR&S 95

train to El Kantara to rest after our wanderings and to
prepare for a further journey in the Aures.

The reader who has followed me up to this point in
my narrative will have found sketched for him a short
mule journey, which can be undertaken by any one who
is not wholly dependent upon the comforts of hotels,
and which will reveal to him more of the native life and
varied scenery of this part of Algeria than any journey
of its length that can be undertaken. None of its stages
are long or difficult, and all are through a country whose
beauties cannot even be suspected by the traveller on
the railway, for the Aures massif jealously hides the
glories of its views from all who do not care deliberately
to seek them out. The journey can be made easily in
six days without undue fatigue, or it could be completed
in three days by sleeping at Djemora and Menaa, merely
passing through Beni Ferah and Tagoust on the way.

Any one desirous of obtaining, in a short time, a glimpse
of Shawia life should find this little journey well worth
the undertaking, but the autumn or the spring should
be the season selected, for the higher villages are cold
in the depth of winter.

CHAPTER V
FROM MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT

VILLAGES OF THE WED ABDI — THE FORESTS OF THE UPPER AURES — OULED
ABDI MORALS — WEAVING IN THE AURES — TIJDAD — MARABOUTS
AND THEIR ORIGIN — THE HOLY MAN OF TIJDAD — THE MARABOUT'S
LUCKY RING.

THE traveller who seeks the higher ridges of the
Aures, in preference to returning to civilization
and the railway through the gorge of Maafa, will notice
as he rides up the road which, as we have seen, has
reached Menaa from the north-east, a remarkable simi-
larity in the appearance and siting of the numerous
Shawia hamlets which, built high upon the side of the
rocky hills forming the eastern wall of the Abdi valley,
overlook the stream as it winds through a narrow strip
of cultivated land besprinkled with apricot and other
fruit trees.

Built each upon a spur formed by the junction of some
small ravine with the main valley of the Wed Abdi,
the hamlets were well enough situated from the point
of view of defence in the old days of inter-tribal war,
and, being Berber settlements unaltered by any Arab
influence such as we noticed in the mud-brick sometimes
used at Beni Ferah, they all consist of clusters of tiny
cottages built of stone, often quite untrimmed, such as
the traveller will find to be the ordinary Shawia dwelling
all over the heart of the Aures massif. The villages of

MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 97

the Wed Abdi are interesting enough, and visits to them
have enabled us to observe a number of the arts and crafts
of their inhabitants, the valley itself, however, as we
marched up it from Menaa, became less beautiful as we
ascended it, the blossom on the fruit trees and the narrow-
ing belt of green beside the stream providing the only
touches of colour in a grey wilderness of rock, but a very
few miles distant to the eastward are to be found high-
lying valleys in the range of hills separating the valley
of the Abdi from that of the Wed el Abiod, which afford
another contrast in scenery almost parallel to the abrupt
change from Africa to southern Europe noticed in our
short ride from Djemora to Menaa.

We found an opportunity of visiting these valleys
during a brief expedition in search of the wild boars
which roam in considerable numbers about them, but
which cannot exist in the all but waterless country
around El Kantara, the home of the Barbary sheep and
the gazelle.

Riding up the road one afternoon at the beginning of
March we halted at the village of Chir by the wayside,
half a dozen miles from Menaa, the Kai'd of which hamlet
had agreed to conduct us to Taghit Sidi Belkheir, another
village of his domain, in the area in which pigs were to
be sought.

We found the Kai'd ready to start, and accompanied
by eight or ten members of his " goum," or body of
irregular troops, we hastened on our way in order to
arrive at Taghit in time for a good night's rest before
hunting in the morning.

Turning to the eastward a mile or two above Chir we
left the road and, fording the Abdi River, rode up a
precipitous track to the village of Nouader, one of the
line of hamlets which, often no more than a mile or less

7

98 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

apart, overlook, as we have seen, the valley from its
steep eastern side.

At Nouader we found a very passable imitation of a
road winding along a ledge on the hillside up a tribu-
tary ravine, at the junction of which with the Wed Abdi
Nouader lies. This road, in a state of disrepair when
we saw it, had been cut by the French to enable the
produce of a mercury mine at Taghit to be conveyed
by wheeled traffic to the main road from the Wed Abdi
to Batna and the railway, but the mine had been closed
down for some considerable time when we visited Taghit,
and the track that leads to it had been neglected in
consequence during the war, most of the buildings which
had been occupied by the little colony of mining engineers
between the two hamlets of Taghit, however, had been
looked after by Shawia guards, so that we found at least
a better lodging than can be obtained in a Berber cottage
when we rode into Taghit in the moonlight and halted
at the former residence of a Frenchman.

Here we were soon comfortably installed in a room
which boasted a fireplace that did not smoke, a conveni-
ence which we should certainly not have enjoyed in a
native hut, and before turning into our blankets consumed
the provisions we had brought with us in front of a heap
of blazing juniper logs, for, despite the most luxuriant
peach and almond blossom I have ever seen, which we
found next day in the garden of our lodging, the night
was distinctly cold at the considerable altitude at which
the mines of Taghit lie.

Next day, as the light of early morning increased
sufficiently to enable us to observe the country round,
we left the mines and, passing through the main hamlet
of Taghit clustered round the minaret of a mosque
reared to the memory of Sidi Bclkhcir, the Moslem saint,

MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 99

after whom the villages and ravine — in the Shawia lan-
guage " taghit " — are named, we found the natives and
the dogs, with whom we were to search for boar, awaiting
our arrival upon a track which led eastward to the higher
slopes of the hills. We then continued our way until
the ravine in which the mines are situated expanded into
a little basin, fertile by comparison with the Abdi valley,
for its greater altitude ensured it an ampler rainfall,
surrounded by steep hills which revealed to us the third
variety of scenery which the massif of the Aures will
display to those who pry into its secrets, namely the
forests of the northern and higher portions of the range.

We have attempted to give the reader some idea of
the African oasis of Djemora, from the shade of whose
date-palms the traveller passes in so short a journey to
the southern European scenery of Menaa, and as we
take our readers to the great canon of the southern-central
part of the massif we shall again show him a glimpse of
Africa, this time inhabited by fair-complexioned Berbers,
but here, on the heights above Taghit, we lead him to
a land clothed in a vast forest of pine and cedar, amid
which the lighter green of other forest trees breaks the
somewhat monotonous grandeur of the scene, while the
snows of Ichemoul, the great mountain at the head of
the Wed el Abiod, lend an almost Asiatic character to
the panorama of woodland which is spread before his
gaze.

I think that after months spent in the glare of a desert,
or amid the stunted ilex and juniper trees with which the
country around Beni Ferah and the Wed Abdi is studded,
I experienced more pleasure in travelling through a real
woodland at Taghit and on the northern slopes of the
massif than I should have believed possible for any one
who has sweltered for two years in the heart of the great

100 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

equatorial forest of Central Africa, the damp depressing
climate of which, I thought, had years ago removed any
partiality I may have had for woodlands in general.

Amid pleasant surroundings, therefore, we commenced
our search for boar, using the dogs to follow up their
tracks and to bring the animals to bay in order to enable
us to git a shot at them when, breathless and perspiring,
we had struggled up the steep wooded slopes in the direc-
tion of the short sharp yelps which denoted that the
dogs had obtained a view of their quarry.

A long morning's hunt having resulted in a boar falling
to the Kai'd and another to me, we retraced our steps to
the mines of Taghit, and so to the Abdi valley, to continue
our work, after a brief but thoroughly enjoyable respite
from research on the forest-clad slopes of higher Aures.

A few miles above Nouader, on the same side of the
Abdi valley and similarly situated upon the angle formed
by a tributary ravine, lies the important village of
Teniet el Abed. It is one of the largest hamlets, for the
settlements of this district can scarcely be dignified with
a worthier name, occupied by the Ouled Abdi tribe,
and, in common with most places in the valley to which
that tribe has given its name, it bears an unsavoury
reputation.

In the course of my narrative I have frequently had
occasion to refer to the performances at weddings and
other feasts of dancers of the Ouled Abdi tribe, ladies
whose unrestrained habits had caused them to be
excluded from the great Spring Feast at Menaa, a
village whose inhabitants pretend to Roman origin, and
who deny that they arc at all closely related to the
Shawia farther up the Abdi valley. Now these dancers,
who are always picturesquely attired in the gay
colours and silver jewellery which wc have noted else-

it

J

,L

V

MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 101

where, and who are often really pretty, even when judged
by the European standard to which, as representatives
of an ancient white race, I presume they are entitled,
have been made the subject of many strange rumours
in which the wildest imaginable orgies of vice figure
with astonishing prominence, rumours which I am not
yet in a position to confirm or to deny from any evidence
I have been able to collect. These women are very
numerous indeed in the Wed Abdi, and also seek their
fortunes much farther afield, and, as far as I can see at
present, their existence is due to a naturally voluptuous
disposition combined with the very great ease with which
divorce is obtainable in the Aures ; against this simple
suggestion, however, we have to set the fact that other
neighbouring and kindred tribes may almost be regarded
as models of virtue compared to the Ouled Abdi.

The existence of the unrestrained woman is fully
recognized in the Wed Abdi, and, as we have seen, their
presence is even welcomed at weddings in other parts
of the Aures ; no attempt, therefore, is made by the
dancers to conceal their profession, and we became
acquainted with quite a number of the belles of the
western Aures during our wanderings up and down its
valleys. We did not, however, learn much of interest
from them, though among their more staid sisters of
Teniet el Abed we were able to carry on our studies of
Shawia arts and crafts. While pottery making, which
we noted at Beni Ferah and many other villages, is very
commonly carried on by Shawia women, it is not abso-
lutely universal ; the weaving of woollen material,
however, can be creditably performed by every Shawia
woman we have met with.

The white-hooded cloaks worn by all the grown-up
male population of Algeria, as well as the shawls or

102 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

haiks of silk, or of stripes of silk and wool, affected by
both sexes in the richer households, while the texture
of them varies, of course, in accordance with the thick-
ness of woollen threads employed, are all manufactured
upon a very primitive hand-loom by the women-folk of
the wearers' homes.

The wool, clipped from the owner's sheep, whose backs
are sometimes covered by pieces of old sacking, etc.,
should it have been necessary to shear them in cold
weather, is first washed in the stream, and, when dry,
it is combed by drawing it by hand through a line of
coarse iron spikes set up in a flat piece of wood for the
purpose, after which it is " carded," that is to say, rolled
to and fro between two flat boards, each about eight
inches square, studded with innumerable fine wire points,
the boards being provided with handles to allow of
easy manipulation. After this it is ready to be spun.
The little snowy tufts of wool, fresh from the carding
process, are wound around a plain piece of cane about
eight or ten inches in length, to the top of which in some
villages, such as El Kantara, a few cock's feathers are
attached as ornament, and, holding this simple distaff
aloft in her left hand, the Shawia woman plies the
spindle by giving deft turns of the fingers of her right
hand to a pendant stick attached to the wool on the
distaff by the thread which it spins as it turns.

One of the commonest sights in an Aures village is
that of a group of women engaged in these three pro-
cesses of preparing wool for the loom, perhaps one of
the party, anxious to commence work upon a garment,
having called in the assistance of her friends to help her
hurriedly to make ready for the actual weaving, and it
w;is while making as detailed inquiries as possible, to
be published, we hope, some day, of the technicalities of

MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 108

spinning and weaving that my wife and I made many
friends among the women of the hills.

When spun the threads which are to act as the " warp,"
or vertical threads upon the simple upright loom, are
stretched between the two heavy wooden beams, of
which this loom consists, the upper beam being suspended
from two uprights of wood placed near a wall in some
corner of the dingy Shawia cottage, while the lower beam
is held down by pegs thrust through these uprights.

By means of an ingenious contrivance a simple move-
ment of a stick allows the " odd " and " even " vertical
threads to be drawn forward alternately as the " weft,"
or lateral threads, are passed by hand between them, no
" shuttle " being employed by the Shawia or the Arabs
of the desert. One, two, or even three women may be
found working at one hand-loom in any cottage of the
hills, seated in the narrow space between the loom and
the wall, often nursing a baby as they deftly pass the
weft between the warp threads and beat it down upon
its predecessors with the aid of a heavy iron-spiked imple-
ment, which, from its weight and from the apparently
careless way in which it is used, might well be expected
to tear to shreds the newly-woven fabric on the loom.

It may seem strange to any one unacquainted with
the vicissitudes of a traveller's life in out-of-the-way
corners of the world that upon leaving Teniet el Abed,
a village famous mainly as a home of notorious sinners,
we should immediately become the honoured guests of
a saint.

We had intended to cross the rocky ridge which forms
the right wall of the Wed Abdi and stay for a time in
the village of Bouzina, which gives its name to the neigh-
bouring valley to the north-west, but we received through
Belayed, the orderly who was then accompanying us,

104 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

such a pressing invitation from a celebrated marabout,
named Boubish, to visit him at his hamlet of Tijdad,
some two miles from Bouzina, that we determined to fall
in with his suggestion and so, perhaps, see something of
the blameless life for which the Moslem saints are believed
to be celebrated, as well as finding further opportunities for
general inquiries in one of the small places in which old
customs and crafts persist more hardily than in the larger
centres. We found Tijdad small enough to suit the most
enthusiastic worshipper of the quiet of rural life.

Situated upon the steep north-western slopes of the
great grey ridge, studded with juniper and ilex bushes,
which we had crossed on our way from the Abdi valley,
the score or so of tiny cottages, overlooking a narrow
stream, are scarcely discernible from a distance, the
grey stone of which they are constructed being of the
same colour as the surrounding rocky hills.

The village is built upon no special plan, the houses
lying huddled together on the slope, the roof of one
upon the same level as the floor of its next-door neighbour,
as is the case in many Shawia mountain settlements,
but if the village itself presented few features of interest,
we may at least examine an individual house as being
typical of a Berber dwelling of the western Aures in a
village apparently quite uninfluenced by foreign ideas of
modern or mediaeval times.

Built of untrimmed stones, the interstices between
which are filled in with mud, the walls include one or
two strata of small beams with a line of sticks beneath
them, the sticks running transversely through the wall,
the object of which is to add some solidity to an other-
wise rickety building. Supported by rough beams of
juniper, sustained by two or more juniper trunks accord-
ing to the size of the room, a number of thinner branches

MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 105

of the same tree act as laths to the earth with which the
roof is covered ; the roof being flat and unprotected from
the gaze of the passer-by by any wall or parapet, such as
we have noticed in the Arab houses of El Kantara, for
the heavy winter snow would soon soak through the
roof should a parapet hinder its removal, and, as we have
seen, the Berbers do not hide their women as do the
Arabs of the plains.

The windows, if such exist, consist of one or two small
rectangular or triangular openings near the roof in each
of the four walls. As we pass through the roughly-hewn
wooden door of such a house, a door fastened by one of the
quaint wooden locks, whose tumblers are lifted by means
of projections upon a wooden key, to be found all over
Algeria, in Egypt, and elsewhere, we enter a small
rectangular apartment, often the only one the house can
boast of, which is smoke-begrimmed and dingy to an
extent that must be seen to be believed.

Of furniture there is no more than in the Arab houses
of El Kantara ; some large halfa -grass baskets, plaited
at home, in which are stored grain, dried figs or apricots,
and other garden produce, a vertical loom set up beside
the wall, a stone quern, some pottery utensils, roughly
fashioned agricultural tools, a goatskin churn hanging
from a tripod of branches, a hanging basket to serve as
a cradle, such will be found to be the usual household
possessions of a poor Shawia family, possessions which
differ little if at all from the goods and chattels to be
found in an Arab establishment of a similar kind.

Along one side of the apartment runs a line of stakes
forming a fence, a yard, or perhaps two yards, from the
wall, with which the top of the fence is connected by
means of a platform of sticks. Upon this platform the
family sleeps upon old sacks and a rug or two, while in

106 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

the small enclosure beneath them, formed by the wall
and the fence, the goats and sheep, as well as chickens,
cats, etc., are housed at night, the animal warmth arising
from their bodies apparently affording some comfort to
their ill-clad owners sleeping above them during the
severe cold of the mountain winter, although the traveller
himself, when once he has experienced a few nights in
such surroundings, will probably decide that cold is the
least of the evils which night-time can bring with it in
the Aures.

It would be superfluous to add that the interior of a
poor Shawia cottage is as filthy as can be imagined, and
far more filthy than can be described.

The houses at Tijdad afforded us an opportunity of
noting the most primitive, and therefore the most inter-
esting, type of dwelling used in the western portion of
the Aures massif, but we were fortunately not obliged
to hire one of them as a temporary abode, our host, the
marabout, having provided us with accommodation in
the shape of an empty room built upon the flat roof of
his own house. This apartment, built of stone like all
the houses around, measured some sixteen feet by eight,
and was provided with a very small window at one end,
which, even at the very end of March, the cold at night
compelled us to block up, and it contained no furniture
whatever, other than a rug and some halfa-grass mats
upon which to sit. Here we spread our blankets and
settled down, making ourselves fairly comfortable, for
the room was clean compared to the ordinary Shawia
house, and, remarkable to relate, the rug was untenanted.
But if our slumbers were undisturbed by any occupant
of the rug, they were, to put it mildly, considerably
curtailed by the persistent efforts of some rats to dine
off the candle which, stuck into the neck of a bottle,

MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 107

stood beside my wife's head, the unwelcome visitors
even climbing upon her hat, which lay at hand, in order
to reach the tallow. Had we much horror of rats we
should have avoided the task of studying native life in
such places as the Aures, so realizing that these creatures
must be expected, even in the houses of the holy, we
merely asked our saintly host next day if he would lend
us the services of a cat for the defence of my wife's hat
and the candle. The following evening, as we were
about to retire to rest, the cat was flung into our room.

A more savage specimen of the so-called domestic cat
I have never yet beheld. It hissed and swore at our
every movement, and, despite all the soothing words
addressed to it by my wife (who had hitherto liked cats),
its growlings kept us awake throughout the night quite
as effectually as the activities of the rats, so that, called
upon to decide which of the two should be permitted to
annoy us, we agreed at once that an army of rats were
to be preferred to one Shawia cat ; the latter, therefore,
was removed at dawn by a native, whose arm it ripped
open in the process of capture, and we resigned ourselves
and our candles to our first tormentors for the future.

Living in a room built upon the holy roof as the guests
of the saint himself, we enjoyed an excellent opportunity
of obtaining some insight into the life of a man who
we found to be interesting as a fair type of the class to
which he belonged.

Although the word " marabout " is easily the most
used Arabic term employed by the tourist in Algeria,
it seems probable that very few European visitors to
North Africa are acquainted with the precise meaning
of the word, a meaning which indicates the origin of the
class to whom it is applied, and almost as few know how
to give it its correct pronunciation, " mrabat."

108 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

To give my readers a clear idea of the origin of the
class of holy men to be found all over Algeria to-day, I
must refer them to a translation of the work of an eleventh-
century Arabic author, El Bekri, prepared by the
eminent French orientalist, de Slane. In the early days
of Arab conquest the extreme frontiers of their far-flung
dominions were guarded from the attacks of the infidel
by means of a chain of block-houses, known in Arabic
as " ribat," from a verb-root signifying " to bind
together."

Those Moslems who wished to display the greatest
possible devotion to the holy cause volunteered to serve in
these remote outposts of their faith, and during the in-
tervals of actual warfare applied themselves to the study
of their religion and to prayer. These occupants of a
" ribat " were known as " morabet " — the spelling is
de Slane's — whence is derived the modern Franco-Arabic
word of " marabout," a term which is often applied
nowadays to tombs of departed saints and to trees or
hills which are believed to contain holiness, as well as to
the living holy men themselves.

Thus the modern marabout owes the origin of his class
to the devoted band of early Moslem stalwarts who,
renouncing the pleasures of this world, sought hardship
and banishment on the confines of the Islamic empire,
some trace of their predecessors' spirit being now dis-
cernible in the hermit-like existence of certain marabouts,
while the block-house may, perhaps, be considered to
have left to posterity some reflection of itself in the
M zawias " of certain of the greater holy men, establish-
ments which, as wc have seen, combine to a certain
extent the properties of a feudal castle, a college, and
a monastery.

But the title of " marabout " has at some period become

MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 109

hereditary, with the result that the term is applied not
only to those who really practise in all sincerity the
religion to which, following in their father's footsteps,
they have devoted their lives, but also to a few degenerate,
dissolute scoundrels, the black sheep of the family from
which they are sprung ; while heredity of title has in
many cases brought great wealth to the saintly families,
for a well-known holy man has a very wide following of
adherents who seek his counsel and who subscribe as
much as they can afford in money or in kind to the
treasures of the saintly house, and many a pious Moslem
will leave a handsome legacy at his death to the particular
marabout whose advice he believes to have benefited
him during his lifetime.

The great majority of marabouts are very hospitable,
not only to their followers, from whom they derive their
wealth, but to the wandering stranger within their gates,
indeed it is wise for the traveller in Algeria to cultivate
as far as possible the friendship of these holy men, for,
as we have seen, their influence is often very wide and
their approval may be as helpful during a journey as
their disapproval would probably turn out to be the
reverse. Thus, in 1920, I joined a small group of natives
in a remote village, of whom I was acquainted with
only one.

His companions, though polite, were by no means
effusive until my friend, having been asked who I was,
remarked : " Don't you know ? This is Simsim, he
stayed with Sidi Lakhdar, the marabout, at Baniane,
before the war." The mention of this venerable saint,
whose home lay fifty miles away, at once thawed the
reserve of the party of natives, who forthwith carried me
off to a cafe to cement the friendship formed through
our mutual acquaintance, Sidi Lakhdar, of Baniane. The

110 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

marabouts are sometimes supposed to possess magical
powers of healing, and to be endowed with " second
sight," while an amulet in the form of a slip of paper,
upon which the saint has written some magic words, is
believed to protect the person who wears it, sewn up in
leather, or encased in a silver box, suspended around the
neck ; but the great power of the marabout is to be
found in the advice he gives to his followers, advice which
they will usually follow to the letter.

Thus, should it be possible for all the marabouts to
give the same political advice to their followers, very
widespread results would undoubtedly ensue, but, perhaps
fortunately, there exists suspicion and jealousy, rather
than unity and concord in the ranks of the holy men,
so that combined action, with its probably unpleasant
results, seems very unlikely to be taken in the Barbary
states.

Our host at Tijdad, Ahmed ben Mohammed Boubish,
appeared to be typical of the best class of marabout.
Some fifty years of age, tall, with the not unpleasing face
of a dreamer, he lives with his son and two wives (for
celibacy does not appeal to the Algerian saints) in a manner
as simple as any of his neighbours, dispensing generous
hospitality to all who pass his way, but eating little him-
self, though indulging, perhaps to excess, in two of the
luxuries of the Shawia, coffee and cigarettes of juniper
leaf, the latter usually prepared for him by a follower.
Most of his nights are devoted to solitary wandering
upon the rocky hills, but, seated upon the opposite bank
of the brook, whence he can overlook the hamlet of
Tijdad, to the discomfiture of any intending sinner among
its inhabitants, he spends his days in reverie or in giving
counsel to those who seek his aid, many persons bringing
their disputes to him instead of to a Kai'd or to the

THK HAMLET OF TIJDAD.

• - ~ t „

&9S

^^

BOUBISH RECEIVING HIS FOLLOWERS.

To face p- 110.

MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 111

French law courts, his judgment being usually accepted
without question by the parties concerned.

Indeed, he is reputed to have prevented a lot of litiga-
tion among his followers, for it is said that loss of his
case will inevitably punish the claimant who goes to law
in defiance of Boubish's advice. Many women bring
their troubles to the saint of Tijdad ; being invariably
received with the same grave courtesy which the marabout
extends to his followers among the other sex, and he is
accredited with the power of divining an applicant's
difficulties before they are explained to him.

Boubish certainly seemed to me to set a very fair
example indeed of the blameless life usually supposed
by the faithful to be led by marabouts as a whole, and
his advice, as far as I could judge from a number of
instances which came to my notice, appeared to be very
sound indeed, while he did not seem to abuse his position
by exploiting to his own pecuniary advantage the
credulity of his followers, a temptation to which many
marabouts succumb.

His views on morality were strict ; utterly disapproving
of the customs of the Ouled Abdi dancers, he believed
in the removal of temptation as the best means of com-
bating vice, and, accordingly, he countenanced no music
in his village, the oboe being considered the adjunct of
the danseuse, while, in his opinion, the end-flute (the
only other wind instrument of the Aures where strings
are unknown) might be expected to give rise to the
practice of serenading, with its usual unfortunate result,
murder, and the beginning of a blood-feud.

From what I have seen of marabouts in the Aures,
and I am on friendly terms with most of those to be found
in the massif, I have arrived at the conclusion that, so
long as they will continue to avoid politics, their presence

112 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

is a help rather than a hindrance to the peace and good
order of the community, and that, looked at from the
moral standpoint, they do far more good than harm.

While staying at Tijdad we frequently found occasion
to walk over the couple of miles or so which separated
us from Bouzina, and so were able to form some acquain-
tance with one of the greatest Berber centres of the
western Aures, the greatest, perhaps, after the progressive
Menaa.

Lying at the head of the valley which bears its name,
at the foot of the horseshoe-shaped rocky wall of Mahmel,
one of the highest of the Aures hills, Bouzina is invisible
until very nearly approached by the traveller from
Tijdad, that is to say, from the east. As we walked along
the track which leads to the town we first noticed a
couple of ruined towers, evidently outworks, such as
are to be seen near many an Aures village, which had
doubtless defended Bouzina in the troublous days of
old, and only upon arriving at one of these towers did
we become aware of the existence of a cup-like depression
in the main valley, which revealed to us the village of
Bouzina, built upon a knoll in the centre of it, at our
feet. In this cup-like depression rises a considerable
stream, flowing south-westwards to Tagoust, and thence
into a gorge, which, as we have seen, leads it to its junc-
tion with the Wed Abdi at Menaa. The houses of
Bouzina, huddled together upon the knoll, are, of course,
of Berber type, and they are in many cases well built,
for the natives of the place are noted as trimmers of
building stones, in which capacity they obtain employ-
ment in many a distant village of the hills.

But my readers have accompanied me to enough of
the villages of the western Aures ; I will not, therefore,
weary them with a description of Bouzina, which differs

MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 113

in no essential detail from such places as Beni Ferah
and Menaa.

I will rather lead them over the Mahmel, and so to
the railway, in order to invite them in succeeding chapters
to explore the different settlements of the central part
of the massif, settlements which will be found to be
more picturesque, more remote, and, therefore, more
interesting than any of the Abdi or Bouzina valleys.
As we climbed into the saddle to take our departure
from Tijdad our host, the marabout, appeared to be
depressed, and, calling me aside, he handed me a ring
from his own finger, a ring of silver in which was set a
piece of blue glass, telling me that I was to keep it as a
protective charm, such trinkets belonging to holy men,
as well as the food they offer to their guests, being
considered to contain some of the holiness, in Arabic
" baraka," of their sainted owners. I thanked Boubish
heartily for his present, and rode off.

As we wended our way up the narrow ledge on the
hillside, which zigzags from the valley of Bouzina to
the crest of Mahmel, I had been admiring the wonderful
view of the broad valley which lay beneath us, and, in
some doubt as to the name of a distant village or peak,
I turned to inquire it of the orderly, Belayed, who was
riding a few paces behind.

Touching his horse with the spur, Belayed came up to
hear my remark, whereupon, I suppose, his horse bit
my mule in the tail, for, next instant, the tellis upon
which I was riding and I descended some yards down
the precipitous rock-strewn slope, on the edge of which
lay the track, leaving my mule kicking furiously on the
path. Having been picked up, severely shaken, and
firmly convinced that I had broken at least one rib, I
was helped up to the path again, and the natives gathered

8

114 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

round me to inquire how much I was hurt, all the time
exchanging glances among themselves.

At last Belayed said : " The marabout foresaw this.
He told me he was uneasy about you, and did not wish
to let you go ; that is why he gave you that ring. If
you had not been wearing it you must have been killed."

Nursing my rib, my temper as ruffled as my body was
shaken, I was on the point of inquiring why the ring had
not prevented the fall altogether, but, realizing that I
really had had a remarkable escape, I decided to agree
with Belayed and not to risk offending the marabout by
expecting more than his powers were supposed to have
done for me.

When once we had crossed the ridge of Mahmel we
found ourselves at a great altitude above the sea, upon
a tableland which sloped away to the wooded country
to the north.

As we traversed this plateau snow began to fall — we
were already in the first half of April — and we rode up
to the home of another marabout on the edge of the
forest in a blinding snowstorm. This marabout, though
he practises agriculture rather than religion, being
merely an hereditary saint, proved to be most hospitable,
and quickly provided us with a hot meal and with a huge
and magnificent carpet, spread before a roaring fire, to
lie upon, remarking naively as he pointed it out : " You
need not be afraid of it ; the weather is too cold for
fleas ! "

A statement which was apparently true, for we suffered
no ill-effects from contact with it before we rose at dawn
to continue our way to Batna.

The track lay through grand forests of cedar, pine,
and other trees, whose size, though in no way remarkable,
struck us as extraordinary after our stay in a country

MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 115

in which dwarf juniper, ilex, and fruit trees are the largest
members of the vegetable kingdom ; the region we had
now entered resembling in all respects the area in which
we hunted boar near Taghit Sidi Belkheir.

As we came to the summit of the slopes overhanging
Batna we obtained some glorious views of the level
plateau to the north of the Aures massif, in which that
French settlement lies, and, riding down these wooded
slopes, we passed through the great gates in the loop-
holed walls of this garrison town, finally pulling up at
an hotel. Having paid off our men, and arranged for
the return of Belayed to his headquarters, I took my
ribs to a doctor, and my wife began to arrange our baggage
with a view to returning to El Kantara by train on the
morrow to pick up various cases of specimens for the
museum, which, as occasion offered, I had sent there to
await my arrival, thus relieving our baggage of much
weight as we moved about the hills.

CHAPTER VI

TO THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF
THE MASSIF

THR VALLEYS OF THE CENTRAL AURES — OUR RECEPTION AT BRANIS

IRREGULAR CAVALRY OF THE DESERT — A " FANTASIA " — FEAST AT

BRANIS — THE " MECHWI " MECHOUNECH, ITS OASIS AND ITS

OOROE A GREAT ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY — DEFENSIBLE GRANARIES

OF BANIANE — A ROMAN " SEGGIA."

HAVING explored the valleys of the western portion
of the Aures massif we turned our attention to
those of the central part of the range, namely the great
canon of the Rassira, a stream which enters the Sahara
through the gorge of Mechounech some twenty miles
to the east of Biskra, and the higher valley of this same
stream, known in the northern portion of its course
as the Wed el Abiod, that is to say the " White
River."

To my mind the scenery of the canon of the Rassira
in its beauty and its grandeur, is not excelled by any
of the other valleys of the Aures, even if its equal can be
found in any other part of Algeria with which I am ac-
quainted, and the very heart of this great gorge lies no
more than thirty or forty miles in a direct line from the
crowded hotels of Biskra.

It may seem almost incredible therefore, that in 1914
my wife was said by the Shawia to be the first European
woman to be seen in some of its hamlets in which we
stayed, a statement amply corroborated by the eagerness

116

THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 117

of the women, and of those who had not wandered as
far as the railway, to obtain a glimpse of her.

The reason of the tourist's neglect of the area is, however,
by no means far to seek.

Roads have hitherto been non-existent through the
Rassira valley, and some of its mule tracks are difficult ;
the Kai'ds of this region appear to hold authority over
wider stretches of territory than in the valleys we have
hitherto visited and, accordingly, the hospitality of their
homes is less frequently to be found, the traveller often
being obliged to hire some dingy Shawia hovel in which
to live; while the "guides" of the tourist centres, as
a rule, appear almost to be ignorant of the very existence
of this great ravine and its interesting Berber settlements,
their ignorance doubtless being increased by the lack of
creature comforts to be found therein and the admitted
dislike of the Shawia to these " hangers on " to Western
civilization and wealth.

Nevertheless the day may not be so far distant when
the rocks of the Rassira will resound to the blast of the
motor horn and its canon become one of the great
spectacles of Algeria ; indeed, as we shall find later on,
a bordj similar to those at Djemora and Menaa has already
been erected in the centre of the valley ; so that the
wanderer in search of a glance at primitive native life
and at villages unspoiled by the introduction of European
ideas will be well advised to pack his blankets on a mule
and betake him to the central Aures in the van of the
influx of visitors which, I think, must immediately follow
upon the construction of a road passable to wheeled
traffic, especially to cars.

Obviously, with Mechounech, the southern entrance
to the Rassira, at so short a distance from Biskra and
the track between the two lying over level desert devoid

118 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

of sand, Biskra would seem to be the ideal centre from
which to approach the central part of the Aures massif;
but for two reasons we again selected El Kantara as our
base for our journey into this country.

Firstly, by proceeding from the Mouth of the Desert
and leaving Biskra to the south-west of our road, we
should find an opportunity of visiting the oasis of Branis,
another settlement of the Ouled Ziane nomad Arabs,
somewhat similar to Djemora, which we had not previously
seen, and, secondly, the small demand by tourists for
riding and baggage animals at El Kantara would,
we thought, lead to our being able to secure them at
prices lower than those demanded at Biskra, prices which,
though the animals were to be hired for one stage of the
journey only, would be likely to increase those asked for
each subsequent hiring, with the result that prices in
general would be enhanced throughout our wanderings
in the hills.

Upon leaving El Kantara for Mechounech we marched
direct to Djemora, and there spent a week or so as the
guests of our old friend Basha Bashir, subsequently
moving on the ten or a dozen miles to the south to meet
the Administrator of the region at the oasis of Branis.
This gentleman, who has since fallen in the service of
his country by the hand of an assassin, had arranged
to leave his headquarters at Ain Touta by train and,
quitting the railway at El Outaya, to ride into Branis
from the west while we approached the oasis from the
north accompanied by the Kai'd of Djemora, attired in
the scarlet burnous which denotes his office and mounted
upon his best horse saddled with the most ornate harness
he possessed.

Evidently the chief of Branis had decided that the
simultaneous visit of his Administrator and of two British

THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 119

travellers was an occasion to be marked by as much
ceremonial as he could arrange for ; as we came in sight
of the hillock upon which the village stands, therefore,
a musket was fired from a house-top (a complimentary
salute, we were carefully informed) and, as we rode through
its tortuous lanes we noticed a display of the " tricouleur "
and a number of arches made of palm-leaves such as
we had not previously met with in the Aures. I am
afraid we rather spoiled the dramatic effect intended to
be produced by a meeting with the Administrator in
the village itself beneath the folds of the French flag,
by arriving an hour too early, but we made the best
of this hour by comfortably settling into the room pro-
vided for us, partaking of a lunch which, if we could have
foreseen what lay before us, we should have left untouched,
and finally walking a little way along the track towards
El Outaya to meet the French officer who was to arrive
accompanied by the Kai'd and his " goum."

Soon the plaintive notes of the oboe and the beating
of drums heralded the approach of the Administrator
and his escort. Headed by a couple of mules each
carrying an oboe player and a drummer, the little column
came into sight round a corner of the palm groves of
the oasis ; the Administrator immediately followed by
the Kaid, clad in his scarlet robe and riding with drawn
sword, who in his turn was closely attended by a mounted
man bearing the brightly coloured standard of the
" goum," behind whom rode a score or so of the
" goumiers " themselves attired, as their personal fancies
dictated, in cloaks of many brilliant hues.

As the French officer dismounted to greet us the horse-
men lined up and discharged their smooth-bore guns
into the air while their chief gravely saluted with his
sword, after which formal greeting we walked slowly

120 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

back to the village accompanied by the Kai'd, the
musicians and the " goum."

The " goumier," or irregular armed follower of an
Algerian chieftain, can, perhaps, best be likened to the
" special constable " recruited in England to meet the
requirements of a national emergency.

Certain natives of good character and undoubted loyalty
are voluntarily enrolled in the area of each chief upon
the understanding that they shall be called upon to serve
the French in times of internal commotion under the
leadership of their Kai'd. These men are provided with
arms varying in character according to the locality or
the services they will be required to render.

In the higher country of the Aures the " goumier "
usually serves on foot, in the northern portion of the
Sahara and upon the plateau he responds to a summons
to arms mounted upon his own horse, while far down
in the great desert he rides the " mehari," or trotting
camel, so well suited to the vast stretches of barren waste
he will be obliged to cover in the execution of his duty.

Should outlaws appear in a district, terrorizing its
usually peaceful inhabitants, the Kai'd will summon his
" goum " to effect their capture ; should one tribe in the
Sahara attempt a predatory excursion into the pastures
of its neighbours' flocks the " goumicrs " will assist the
authorities to bring the freebooters to book ; and, in
the extreme south, the " goums " of friendly Arab tribes
have long served the useful purpose of keeping open the
caravan routes despite the marauding proclivities of
the Tawarek Berber nomads and have rendered signal
service to the French in providing mobile columns by
means of which these bandits have been driven discom-
forted to their far-off desert homes and peaceful traffic
has been restored to the great highways of the Sahara.

THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 121

But the " goumier " has not served the cause of civiliza-
tion in his own land alone. Many a troop of irregular
horse has accompanied the French in their various cam-
paigns in Morocco, and in the early days of the great
war many of the gaudy flags of the desert irregular horse-
men fluttered in the breeze over the plains of Flanders
when the manhood of all warrior nations combined to
face the Hun. Although, of course, the " goumiers "
who served in Flanders were fully equipped with modern
weapons and with uniforms, in their own country these
horsemen turn out upon mobilization attired as pleases
them best, a fact which makes a ceremonial parade of
the " goums " a very brilliant spectacle indeed, for every
Arab cavalier loves finery and outward show as much
as anything this world can offer him.

In the dazzling Algerian sunshine, beneath which no
colours seem to clash, the many hues displayed by a group
of desert horsemen, their gorgeous burnouses tossed from
side to side by the prancing of their spirited little horses,
usually kept tied up to increase their natural restiveness
before any important assembly, lend a wonderful tinge
of colour to the throng, their gold embroidered harness
adding many a twinkling point of light to the barbaric
splendour of the scene.

It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that a dis-
play of horsemanship by a number of gaily cloaked
warriors mounted upon horses thus brilliantly capar-
isoned in the wide desert beneath a burning sun should
constitute one of the most gorgeous spectacles that can
be found the world over.

A " fantasia," as such a display is termed, upon a very
small scale it is true, was organized by the Ka'id of Branis
to celebrate the arrival in his territory of the Adminis-
trator and ourselves. Upon returning to the village with

122 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

our host, having partaken of the usual cups of coffee,
we ascended to the roof of a house overlooking the stream,
which flows down to Branis from Djemora, whence a good
view was obtainable of the level country beyond the
river, the place selected for the display.

Having forded the stream the horsemen, numbering
but a score or so, for the local " goum " was by no means
large, lined up on our left and proceeded to gallop past
us one by one, their wiry little horses urged to their utmost
speed, each rider uttering a long drawn cry as he rode
and, standing in his stirrups, firing blank charges from
the double barrelled shot-gun with which he was armed,
one shot usually being fired over the horse's head, as
if at an enemy in flight, and the second over the cantle
of the saddle at some imaginary pursuer behind.

When each " goumier " had thus given his individual
display the whole party galloped past in line headed by
the standard-bearer, his gaily coloured banner streaming
in the breeze.

This concluded an exhibition which was more remarkable
for the brilliance of its general effect than for any special
skill displayed by the riders who took part in it.

The Arab is by no means so accustomed to the practice
of tricks of horsemanship as are the cow-boys of America
and other world-famed horsemen, but he sets up a high
standard of efficiency for those who desire to pride them-
selves upon their riding.

For example, it is said that no man can call himself a
horseman who cannot perform the " fantasia," with its
shooting and turning in the saddle, holding the while
a coin between the sole of each shoe and the stirrup,
the downward curve of the stirrup at both ends rendering
this test by no means easy ; while a couple of really
accomplished horsemen will occasionally give the display

THE " GOUM " AT BEANIS

COOKING A " JIECHW'I.

To face p 122.

THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 123

side by side, one with his right foot in his neighbours'
" near " stirrup and the other with his left in the " off "
stirrup of his companion.

The little impromptu " fantasia " at Branis having
been brought to a close, we wandered around the village
of mud brick, exactly resembling the desert villages we
have already described, which forms the base of the
southern portion of the Ouled Ziane nomads as Djemora
constitutes the headquarters of their kinsmen immediately
in the north, and at sundown we returned to the house
of the Kai'd to be regaled with a feast which caused us to
regret having partaken of any food for several days past.
I will not weary the reader with a description of the
first nine courses, consisting of various well -cooked stews
and kuskus, our attacks upon which were encouraged
by such exclamations as " Eat, eat," " You are eating
nothing," " Perhaps you do not like Arab food " from
our host, the Kai'd, who waited upon us in person ; but
I will pass on to the national " plat d'honneur " of Algeria
with which the very sumptuous repast was terminated,
namely the " mechwi," or lamb roasted whole. This
dish, which every wealthy Arab loves to place before
an honoured guest, would certainly be the most appetizing
form of sustenance the traveller can meet with in his
wanderings in the desert and the hills, were it not for the
fact that it is almost always preceded by a number of
other courses of which he has been practically forced to
consume an immoderate amount and that he is expected
to attack it in no half-hearted manner, despite his previous
efforts to do justice to the hospitality of his host.

The lamb is cooked in the following manner. A fire
of logs is made, the glowing embers of which are placed
upon the ground at some distance from the fire itself.
A pole having been thrust through the lamb from head

124 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

to tail, the carcase is held horizontally over the glowing
embers by two men who slowly and continuously turn
it upon the spit formed by the pole, one of them basting
it the while by means of a tuft of wool upon the end of
a stick which he dips into a bowl containing melted butter
and salt. The cooking being accomplished over the
embers all risk of charring the meat in the flames of a
fire is obviated, while the fact that the guests have to
wait upon the convenience of the cook instead of the
cook upon that of the diner ensures that the lamb is
eaten exactly when " done to a turn." When ready
for eating the carcase is removed from the pole and
placed, often standing upon the stumps of its legs, upon
a large brass tray which is set in the centre of the group
of guests, upon the floor in the more primitive families
or upon the table in the case of most Kai'ds.

No vegetables or condiments are served with the
" mechwi." When the dish is served each guest, murmur-
ing the customary " Bismillah," " In the name of God,"
proceeds to tear off with his fingers some of the crisp and
delicious outer skin from the back and ribs, after which
he tears or cuts away some of the meat from the same
part of the animal, endeavouring the while, if he be a
European, to convey to his host the impression that he
is helping himself more liberally than is actually the
case, for the Arabs expect very full justice indeed to be
done to their favourite dish. It is remarkable that the
flesh of the back and the ribs and the animal's kidneys
are considered to be the best portions of the carcase, the
hind legs and the shoulders being usually left to be finished
by the servants outside, a task which they accomplish
in no uncertain manner, leaving not one scrap of meat
upon the bones. At the conclusion of the almost inter-
minable feast offered to us by the Ka'id wc turned in to

THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 125

spend a comfortable night upon a pile of carpets spread
for us in a vacant room in the chiefs house, the Adminis-
trator being accommodated in the apartment used by him
as an office during his tours of duty in the area, preparatory
to an early start for Mechounech on the morrow.

The French officer who had met us at Branis had never
before visited Mechounech, an oasis which lay outside
his jurisdiction ; he had arranged, therefore, to ride with
us to that village where we were to meet another French
official of our acquaintance who would at that time be
returning to his post in the hills after a visit to Biskra.

We were quite a considerable party, therefore, when
we rode out of Branis in the soft light of dawn, heading
towards the level desert of the Sahara.

The greater part of this long day's journey over a stony
plain with a distant panorama of the great oasis of Biskra,
lying like a shadow upon the desert to south-west, almost
constantly in view, was uneventful for, until we reached
the lower level of the actual Sahara at the village and small
oasis of Droh in the early afternoon, we came upon no
sign of human life other than an occasional group of tents
of the Ouled Ziane.

The natives of Droh were remarkable in that they
afforded us a passing glimpse of the third human type
to be found in south-eastern Algeria, namely the negroid
type which occupies the long since dried up bed of the
Wed Rhir between Biskra and the great desert centre
of Touggourt some one hundred and fifty miles to the
south.

Continuing our journey we turned to the north-east
and, following more or less closely the line of the stream
which flows down the central valley of the Aur&s, we
rode through the broken country between the Sahara
proper and the foothills of the massif towards the

126 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

oasis of Mechounech at the southern end of the gorge
which bears its name. Shortly before reaching the oasis
a cloud of dust overtaking us from the direction from
which we had come and distant cries of " Ee-oop-ee,"
by means of which native carriage drivers urge on their
beasts, heralded the arrival of the Administrator who
was to meet us at Mechounech and who, having left his
horse at that village, had hired a vehicle in Biskra to
convey him to rejoin it.

Upon arrival at the stream, however, which flows
through the oasis and must be crossed before the traveller
can enter the village of Mechounech the superiority of
the humble mule over the swifter moving carriage for
up-country journeys in Algeria was made manifest, for
the fiacre became wedged against a boulder amid the
swirling waters of the river and had to be abandoned by
its passenger for, although the greater part of the track
from Biskra to Mechounech, lying over the dry soil of
a desert, can be easily and fairly comfortably traversed
in a carriage, even the bed of the stream presenting in
normal times but an inconsiderable obstacle to wheeled
traffic, upon the occasion of our visit rain in the north
had swollen the river to unusual proportions and thereby
rendered the ford almost impassable to a fiacre.

Doubtless the track will very shortly be improved, if
indeed the work has not already been carried out by the
time these lines are in print, for, as we have noted, Mech-
ounech stands at the southern gateway to one of the most
remarkable districts in the whole of eastern Algeria,
an area which must sooner or later become a favourite
with those travellers who delight in grand scenery and
strange scenes.

The oasis itself, with its many thousands of stately
palms, lying at the foot of the precipitous wall of rock

THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 127

which separates the Sahara from the central Aures valleys,
is one of the most beautiful to be found on the edge of
the desert.

The narrow winding lanes between its date gardens, the
minaret of its principal mosque gleaming white in the
glorious sunshine over the tumble of mud brick huts
which forms the main village combine, with its mountain
background, to make up a picture of rare beauty at this
point where hills and desert meet, while its wonderful
gorge — the merest cleft in a great grey wall of rock through
which the stream of the Rassira finds its way to the
Sahara, a gorge so narrow as to offer no bridle path beside
the river to the traveller who would pass through it —
may well rank in its almost forbidding grandeur with
any of the great defiles of the Algerian hills. But for
all its natural beauty, which may soon make it the resort
of the motorists of Biskra, Mechounech is not a place
to appeal very strongly to the student of Shawia life.

The natives of the place, as a rule, claim to belong
to the Berber race and, indeed, fair complexions and
the Shawia dialect are common enough in the village,
but the negroid Rhouara and Arabs from the neighbouring
Zab Chergui area of the Sahara are also to be found
mingled with the population, a fact which caused me to
undertake few, if any, researches in the place, for I have
always preferred to study the habits of the Berbers in
localities as far removed as possible from the outside
influence of adjacent peoples. We accordingly spent
but a few days in this beauty spot of the fringe of the
Sahara, in the course of which, however, we made some
most interesting acquaintances, among them members
of one of the great aristocratic families of Algeria, for
the Kaid of the district came of very ancient lineage
indeed.

128 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

The Kai'd himself, Bou Hafs ben Chenouf, who has
succumbed to a lingering illness since our last meeting
with him, had his residence at the northern end of the
Rassira valley, over the whole of which he held sway,
but he happened to be at Mechounech at the time of our
arrival, on a visit to his younger brother, its headman
or sheikh, in whose house we were lodged, for the rest-
house or bordj which has recently been built at
Mechounech was not then in existence, and the Kai'd
himself owned but a small dwelling in the oasis.

The family of ben Chenouf is one of the most respected
in Algeria, and has been one of the most powerful in the
days when individual chiefs held absolute sway over
the land.

Of Arab descent, an ancestor having held important
office under the Caliphs of Baghdad in the early Middle
Ages, the ben Chenouf were a ruling family in the country
they now inhabit as long ago as the fifteenth century,
when the authority of the Bey of Constantine over them
was probably far more nominal than real.

Upon the arrival of the French a number of influences
combined to induce the family to espouse the cause of
the European, a cause which its members have ever since
most loyally served, so that position and honour have
continued to fall to their lot up to the present day.

The head of the clan, Si Ali Bey, held the office of Bash-
Agha, or overlord, near Khcnchela to the north of the
Aures massif until, a year or two ago, he fell a victim to
a miscreant's treacherous ball ; Bou Hafs held the
position of Kai'd of the Rassira and the Amar Khraddou,
a very large " Kai'dat " indeed ; various other members
of the family of ben Chenouf hold or have held other
responsible offices in the administration ; and, upon our
visit to Mechounech, we were invited to return later in the

THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 129

year to be present at a military parade and " fantasia "
at which three brothers of the family were to be decorated
by the French with different ranks of the Legion of Honour
for services rendered, not only at home but when in
command of their " goumiers " in various campaigns in
Morocco.

Thus it will be seen that the French in this instance,
as in many others, have found some of their most valu-
able and influential supporters among the aristocracy
of Algeria, among families whose word was law in the
land before the advent of settled conditions and the
approach of the civilization of the West, for among no
people in the world is pride of lineage held in greater
esteem than among the Arabs of Algeria who, I am
convinced, would even prefer to be thoroughly mis-
governed and taxed beyond endurance by a despot of
undisputed pedigree than to be administered faithfully
and well by a chief whom they could regard as an upstart
or a person of inglorious ancestry.

Bou Hafs ben Chenouf entertained us royally during our
stay at Mechounech. Speaking perfect French, having
travelled extensively in France as well as in his own
country, he was typical of the progressive Arab Kaid of
to-day, yet he never laid aside the customs of his people,
dressing always in the costume of the desert and leading
a life of stern simplicity in his home, when not engaged in
the occupation he loved so well of entertaining an official
or a guest. Anxious to resume our researches among
the Berbers of the Aures in villages in which the risks
of an infusion of foreign customs into their life could be
regarded as reduced to a minimum, we moved on from
Mechounech to the oasis of Baniane higher up the valley
of the Rassira stream, riding up the steep hillside through
which runs the gorge, leaving that defile to the west for,

9

180 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

as I have pointed out before, the bed of a mountain
torrent in a chasm of the Aures is often dangerous in the
autumn or the spring, owing to its liability to sudden
flood.

Having surmounted the rocky ridge which overlooks
Mechounech, with its glorious view of the Sahara stretched
like a carpet at our feet, we descended to the course of
the river, now flowing through a less restricted channel,
and followed it till we came, after but an hour or two's
slow riding, to the date gardens of Baniane and the first
of the hamlets which lie scattered amidst its groves.
A mere glimpse at this hamlet with its houses of stone
showed us that we had returned to the land of the Shawia,
while a feature of the place, unknown in the western
portions of the Aures through which we had wandered,
at once arrested our attention and brought to our notice
one of the outstanding differences between the villages
of the Rassira and those of other parts of the massif.
Upon the brink of a sheer wall of rock overlooking a
bend in the river, its walls built flush with the edge of
the cliff some fifty feet above the water, stood a large
four-storied stone building, each story provided with
a rickety balcony from which a small doorway led into
the house, the whole edifice so much larger than any
Shawia structure we had yet seen that we at once in-
quired of Belayed, the orderly who accompanied us,
what its purpose might be.

It was, he replied, the " guelaa " or defensible granary
of Baniane, a building which we soon discovered to be
characteristic of most, if not all, of the Shawia settle-
ments in the Rassira valley. These buildings have
been called into existence by the exigencies of the
troublous times before the French occupation of
Algeria. Obviously rain falls more plentifully upon the

THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 181

hills than in the Sahara and, just as obviously, in the
bad old times of inter-tribal strife, when a man's lawful
possessions were those which he could acquire by means
of his own right arm (or, more probably, by means of a
musket-shot fired from behind a rock at the back of an
unsuspecting member of some neighbouring community),
the dwellers in the hills would be only too glad to turn
to the fullest advantage the streams resulting from this
rainfall by tapping them with the " seggias " we have
already described to an extent which would allow the
minimum quantity of their precious water to reach the
burning plains of the south ; and this despite any agreement
such as, I believe, was entered into between the inhabitants
of the hills and of the desert with regard to the quantity
of water which should be allowed to pass out of the
mountains.

Superior, then, as are the crops of the Shawia to those
of their Arab neighbours of the Sahara to-day, in the
troublous times gone by they were probably very much
more abundant still ; small wonder, therefore, that the
nomads of the desert may often have been driven by
sheer want to undertake those predatory raids the smallest
occasion for which would be eagerly embraced by the
warrior herdsmen to whose " goums," now under the
orders of the French, we have referred in this chapter.
Defensive measures to meet such raids were thus rendered
necessary to the Shawia, who constructed these granaries
for the purpose of storing their grain in a place in which
its capture would be a task of extreme difficulty to an ill-
armed foe.

To judge by the appearance of the " guelaa " at Baniane,
and of others which we subsequently examined, the
buildings were eminently suitable for their purpose.
Its outer walls rising flush with the edge of the cliff offer

132 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

no possibility for assault to an attacking force approaching
it from the river, whose flint-lock muskets would make
little or no impression upon its masonry, while the
balconies, used for the drying of fruit in the piping times
of peace, would afford excellent accommodation to the
sharp-shooters of the garrison who could obtain shelter
in the doorways leading out on to them should the
enemy's fire become unpleasantly hot. The interior of the
" guelaa," a veritable labyrinth of narrow lanes in many
cases bridged by ladders of palm trunk giving access to
the upper floors, provides shelter in its dingy store-
rooms for the families of the beleaguered village, and the
entrance to the defensible granary is usually so narrow
as to enable the merest handful of determined men to
withstand the attacks of the largest party of raiders
which a desert chieftain would be likely to bring against
them.

In considering the impregnability or otherwise of
Shawia villages it is, of course, necessary to bear in mind
that the long-barrelled flint-lock musket, still frequently
to be found in the Aures and the desert, was the weapon
upon which its assailants had perforce to rely, the arme
blanche of the horseman being practically useless in
an assault upon a mountain stronghold whence rocks
and other missiles, in addition to bullets, may be showered
down by the garrison from their eerie-like position to
the discomfiture of any storming party which might
attempt to scale the rocks to come to grips with the
defence.

The flint-lock muskets, and pistols of the same descrip-
tion, arc so commonly used to this day by the Shawia,
although many of them are retained unmarked and un-
authorized by the government, that we have found a
native in the fastnesses of the hills who made his liveli-

THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 133

hood by chipping flints for use in them, a survival, in a
more or less modern form, of a prehistoric art now well-
nigh passed away before the advance of civilization,
with its cartridges and percussion caps for fire-arms
and its matches to replace the now rarely noticed flint-
and-steel.

Close to the " guelaa " of Baniane may be seen a relic
of antiquity in the form of a " seggia," still in use, hewn
in the solid rock by, it is said, the hands of the Romans
whose irrigation works carried out, perhaps, upon the
same system which obtains to-day in the Aures were
evidently constructed with a view to the welfare of
posterity rather than to economy of labour on the part
of the ancient engineer ; other traces of archaeological
interest, however, we did not discover, for our study of
existing native life, necessitating a constant readiness
to listen to discourses by any chance acquaintance, many
of which discourses were as valueless as some others have
proved fruitful, and to investigate any art or craft, super-
stition or rite which might present itself to our notice,
occupied too much of our time to admit of our embarking
upon any inquiries into matters relating to centuries
long since passed which are properly the study of arch-
aeologists equipped with the training necessary to their
pursuit.

At Baniane we were received by a very well-known
marabout, Sidi Lakhdar, to whom I have briefly referred
in a previous chapter and who welcomed us most
cordially to his " zawia," which forms a little hamlet of
its own amid the palm groves on the western side of the
oasis. He at once provided us with a couple of rooms
in which to work and to sleep, or rather to spend the
night, for the carpets placed in our " bedroom " were so
well populated as to render sleep impossible upon the

134 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

night of our arrival, so that it was only after tactfully-
explaining that we always preferred to spread our blankets
upon the bare floor, and thus causing the removal of
the carpets, that we were able to settle down in com-
parative comfort and commence our work among the
Shawia.

The family of the marabout were most eager to see my
wife, indeed I was asked if anything had been done to
offend us because she had not expressed a wish to visit
his wives immediately upon our arrival at the " zawia,"
so that she was able to spend much time among his
womenfolk, securing as a result quite a number of silver
trinkets which our host and his hospitable wives and
daughters pressed upon her at the numerous " receptions "
given in her honour, entertainments at which the female
members of the family and their lady friends danced
to the rhythmic beat of a tambourine in a manner more
suggestive of the professional danseuses of the Wed
Abdi than of the relatives of a great and, I believe, really
worthy saint.

Old Sidi Lakhdar has remained a staunch friend to us
since we first visited him in his mountain home ; indeed,
as I have already pointed out, his friendship has more
than once secured us a welcome in villages far removed
from Baniane, for his influence is very wide, and this
friendship we find all the more valuable in that it was
quite spontaneous and has not been called into being by
anything we may have been able to do for the old man
nor by gratitude for presents offered him, which latter
are responsible for so many so-called friendships between
natives and Europeans in North Africa. Having made
a fair number of acquaintances among the Shawia of
Baniane, and having become the recipients of much
hospitality, wc decided to attempt to return a little of

THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 135

the latter by means of a " mechwi," such as we had
partaken of at Branis. We, therefore, purchased a
lamb for the absurdly low price asked before the war,
and invited our friends to dinner.

This little feast was an unqualified success, indeed it
is discussed even now, after the lapse of a number of
years, whenever we meet an acquaintance from Baniane,
and did much to enable me to carry on inquiries into
various phases of native life in the hills of a character
too technical or, it must be confessed, too indelicate to
be described in any work other than a strictly ethno-
graphical report.

Apart from our interest in our work, which kept us
busy from morning until night, our stay at Baniane
was distinctly enjoyable, for the place is beautiful as well
as interesting. Lying at the foot of the western slopes
of Ahmar Khraddou, the " Red Cheeked " mountain
whose glorious shades of pink, deepening to purple at
sunset, delight the eye of the hotel dwellers of distant
Biskra as they gaze upon the panorama of the Aures to
the east, the great date forest of Baniane amidst and
around a number of small hillocks combines some of
the beauties of a desert oasis with those of a settlement
of the mountain valleys.

As I have remarked, the houses of Baniane are of the
Shawia type, their inhabitants also displaying, in the
vast majority of cases, the physical characteristics of
the Berber race, an indication that a study of the customs
of the natives of the central valleys of the Aures can be
conveniently commenced there before the traveller finds
his way to the remoter hamlets of the Rassira canon
itself.

i

CHAPTER VII
LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE

THE RASSIRA CANON — A VILLAGE ON THE CLIFF — SHAwfA WOMEN'S CURI-
OSITY — MAGIC IN THE AURES — DEMONS — AMULETS — " THE MOTHER
OF THE NIGHT " — A REMARKABLE PROPHECY — DIVINATION BY A
SORCERESS — EVIL SPELLS — CHARMS — CLIMATE OF THE RASSIRA
VALLEY GHOUFI.

THE bridle path from Baniane to the northward,
a path which may well be transformed into a
road accessible to cars, led us along a wide stony valley
bounded upon the east by the great ridge of the Red
Cheeked mountain and on the west by the peaks which
separate the Wed Abdi near Menaa from the central
valley of the Aures, a valley which for a few miles beyond
Baniane, though beautiful enough for its mountain
panoramas, betrayed to our gaze no sign of the wondrous
scenery it contains until, turning off the main track to
the eastward, we headed for our destination, the remote
hamlet of Ouled Mansour.

As we rode slowly forward across the apparently level
country of the centre of this valley we suddenly halted
to find ourselves upon the lip of a hitherto unseen ravine,
the vast chasm of the Rassira gorge yawning at our feet.

The totally unexpected arrival at the edge of a canon
some four hundred yards, as I should guess it, from lip
to lip, so deep as to reduce the stately date-palms which
border the stream below to the dimensions of mere
oleander bushes in the eyes of the beholder on the cliff

136

>v

&*

*5 • s*!

OULED MANSOUR AND THE BASSIRA CANON.

To face p. 130.

LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE 187

edge, its sides sheer and in places overhanging, its barren
rocks glowing bright in the glare of an afternoon sun,
produced an impression which would require a far abler
pen than mine to describe, a closer examination of the
canon revealing features as interesting as its first sudden
appearance had been grand. This marvellous gorge,
the merest cleft wrought by the action of its swiftly-
flowing stream throughout untold centuries, in which
a greater rainfall had made of the river a more powerful
instrument than it is to-day, runs unseen until closely
approached through the central portion of the wide
desert valley, to which I have already alluded, from the
higher portion of that valley near the village of Tifelfel
in the north to the broken ground around Baniane which
we had just left behind us, numerous small water-courses,
most of them now dry, from the slopes of Ahmar Khraddou
forming tributary ravines which enter the main canon
from the east.

As we gazed from the cliff edge numerous tiny hamlets
of stone huts were to be seen clinging to the very brink
of the precipice upon the eastern or left side of the great
gorge, while upon the angle formed by the gorge and a
deep tributary valley, a site such as we have already
noticed as a first favourite with the Shawia for the build-
ing of their settlements, the village of Ouled Mansour
could be descried in the distance, perched like an eagle's
nest upon the towering rock, the deep green of its date
groves and more emerald patches of cultivated land
beside the stream hundreds of feet beneath it affording
a welcome relief to eyes strained by the contemplation
of the shining grandeur of the barren rocks around.

Although but a comparatively short distance in a
direct line lay between us and our destination when we
first came suddenly upon the brink of the Rassira gorge,

138 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

it was necessary to wander many a weary step before
we could reach it, for Ouled Mansour lay upon the farther
side of the canon, a descent into which could be made
by very few and precipitous paths ; accordingly we rode
for some time along the very edge of the overhanging
cliff, a track on which the nervous traveller, or one whose
head is not thoroughly to be trusted in such localities,
will do well to close his eyes and rely upon the sagacity
of his mountain-bred mule to bring him in perfect safety
to the point at which a narrow boulder-strewn path
zigzags from the cliff edge down to the stream beneath.
Arrived at this point we dismounted, for the track was
one of the few mule paths I have seen in the Aures upon
which I have more confidence in my own feet than in
those of even the surest beast, and scrambled down to
the gardens and the river ; our approach, which had been
noticed long since in the village, causing a small crowd
to assemble on the housetops high above us on the
opposite cliff, while two or three men hastened down from
the hamlet to meet us.

Arrived beneath the grateful shade of the palm trees
we mounted to ford the river, some fifteen yards in width,
whose swiftly flowing waters almost washed the bellies
of our mules, and on its eastern bank we were greeted
by the headman. The Kaid, Bou Hafs, as we have
seen, had his residence farther to the north, so that at
Ouled Mansour there was to be found no chief to offer
us shelter, but a message from Bou Hafs had directed
the headman to find us a hut in which to sleep ; after
bidding us welcome to his village, therefore, this official
informed us that he had selected a couple of apartments
cither of which wc could occupy upon payment of a very
small " rent " to its owner and, he stated, we should
experience no difficulty in securing the services of a

LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE 139

Shawia woman to cook for us such simple meals as we
could expect in so remote a hamlet.

Sending Belayed with the mules by a circuitous route
through the tributary ravine, the only track by which
beasts can approach the village from the river, we followed
the headman slowly up a path resembling a flight of
rough hewn steps up the very knife-edge of the rocky
angle upon the summit of which the village lies and at
last, entering a narrow tunnel in the rock, we scrambled
upward to emerge into the sunlight upon a rocky platform
in the hamlet of Ouled Mansour itself.

We proceeded immediately to the selection of a tempor-
ary home and, having declined the offer of one house
on account of a filthy condition to which our, by this
time considerable, experience of life in native hovels
could scarcely reconcile us, we decided upon a single
apartment which, though occupied by its owner's family
up to the moment of our arrival, was clean by com-
parison with some lodgings we had endured in the
mountains.

Forbidding any attempt to sweep out the house, a
proceeding which, advantageous if thoroughly carried
out, only serves to disturb and enrage the unseen though
by no means unnoticeable inhabitants of the place to the
detriment of the traveller's repose if performed in the
usual half-hearted native fashion, we caused some
freshly pulled halfa grass to be placed upon the floor
beneath our blankets and installed ourselves as best
we could in our dingy and restricted surroundings. A
small room, situated above a similar one which was
entered by a door upon a lower level in the village street
than our own, our new home was typical of all the poorer
Shawia dwellings of the Aures.

Built of untrimmed stones, like the huts of Tijdad,

140 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

our house was filled to overflowing with the usual medley
of articles to be found in a Shawia hut, and it was so
dark that only after we had opened another small door
in the wall opposite to the entrance, could we obtain
sufficient light to take stock of our new surroundings.

The opening of this door gave us a surprise for, having
approached the house by means of a narrow tortuous
lane between similar buildings, we had not realized ex-
actly its position in the village ; I withdrew my head
somewhat quickly, therefore, when, having peered through
the newly open door, I discovered that it led out to a
very narrow and insecure looking platform of sticks
beyond and beneath which was — space. The house,
indeed, like all its neighbours on the outer sides of the
village, was built upon the very brink of the precipice
upon which Ouled Mansour is situated ; in this case,
upon the cliff overlooking the tributary ravine to which
I have referred, its outer wall rising so straight from the
edge of the rock as to be quite indistinguishable from
it when seen from a distance, the balcony, intended as
a small platform for the drying of fruit and provided
with no rail or other protection for those who might care
to trust their weight upon it, overhanging the abyss
beneath.

Although not normally addicted to sleep-walking, we
at once made a mental note of the necessity of keeping
that door shut at night, however stuffy our small apart-
ment might become !

The house we were to live in, then, was primitive
enough to promise great opportunities in the village for
the study of Shawia life undisturbed by the progress
of modern civilization, a promise amply fulfilled when
We explored the hamlet and became acquainted with
its inhabitants. The outer dwellings of Ouled Mansour

LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE 141

are built, as we have seen, flush with the edges of the
cliffs, the apex of the angle formed by the junction of
the tributary ravine with the main valley being occupied
by the " guelaa " tenanted by many families in addition
to providing store room for the crops, its narrow lanes
often mere tunnels beneath one or more stories of apart-
ments built over them for the purpose of economy of
space.

This " guelaa," approached by a narrow flight of
steps culminating in a tunnel or shaft up the angle of
rock from the main Rassira valley, can be entered by
but one gateway upon the " land " side, so that it must
have formed a splendid position for defence in the old
days of turmoil and strife. Nowadays, however, pre-
sumably since the French have introduced order into
the land, a number of houses, including our own, have
been erected outside the " guelaa " but adjacent to it,
while a few scattered dwellings are to be found among
the gardens in the valley beneath, some occupied all
the year round, others intended only to accommodate
their owners in the seasons when their crops of dates,
fruit or corn require to be protected from the nocturnal
attentions of thieves.

Just outside the gate of the " guelaa '.' a flat rocky
platform, commanding a magnificent view up the great
Rassira canon, affords a place of meeting to the village
council, or " djemaa," and provides a convenient spot
in which the male inhabitants of the hamlet can indulge
in their favourite occupation of dozing idly in the sun
after such labour as they undertake in the cultivation
of the narrow strip of useful soil beside the river at the
bottom of the gorge.

But, if the men can find ample time for dozing or sleepy
contemplation of the remarkable landscape overlooked

142 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

from Ouled Mansour, their women folk are scarcely so
fortunate. Every drop of water used in the village has
to be carried in goatskins up the long steep track and
through the tunnel from the bed of the stream below, the
women and girls staggering beneath its weight as they
toil, morning and evening, at this necessary but literally
heavy task ; indeed the traveller may well expect to
find at Ouled Mansour a state of filth such as he encountered
at Djemora though, in fact, the people of Ouled Mansour
are clean by comparison with the Ouled Ziane, plenti-
fully supplied though the latter are with warm water
from a natural spring at a stone's throw from their doors.

Thus the women of the nest-like villages among the
Rassira crags have a severe task to perform before they
commence their day's work and another towards its close ;
the rest of the hours of daylight being spent in the usual
occupations of spinning, weaving, pottery making, dye-
ing, dressing skins for bottles, the washing of clothes
at the brook, cooking and grinding the corn for kuskus
with the aid of a twin-stone quern. This latter occupa-
tion they commence at an unholy hour of the morning,
as we have good reason to know, for the activities in this
respect of the family occupying the room beneath us quite
precluded any chance of sleep after the first streak of
dawn, and often caused us to wish that we could have
chosen for our visit to Ouled Mansour a period in which
the sound of the grinding was low.

Our arrival in the village, I am afraid, rather interrupted
the routine of household duties of the Shawia women
and girls. It was very noticeable, from the moment we
first set out to explore the village, that my wife aroused
an unusual amount of interest among its female
inhabitants, who came scuttling out of their houses to
stare at her, and even struggled in their efforts to obtain

LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE 143

a closer view ; indeed, so pressing did their attentions
become that I inquired the reason of them, learning that,
in the memory of the oldest inhabitant (who claimed
to recall quite clearly incidents of the arrival of the
French in Algeria some eighty or ninety years ago ! ),
no European woman had set foot in Ouled Mansour
and the neighbouring hamlets, so that the local Shawia
women, who never leave their mountain homes, had not
previously seen a " Roumiya," or female Roman, though
most of the grown-up men had had opportunities of
seeing them during periodical visits to a town.

The ladies of Ouled Mansour, therefore, never tired
of inviting my wife into their houses or to join them in
their outdoor pursuits, invitations which were gladly
accepted owing to the opportunities they offered of
observing domestic life in the hills, but which resulted
in the consumption of too many meals for the personal
comfort of the visitor. Of course, the absence from her
person and attire of masses of jewellery struck the Shawia
as very remarkable, only a fictitious description of the
quantity of earrings, anklets, etc., she usually wore in
England, left for safe keeping at home, convincing them
that she was not cursed with the meanest of husbands,
indeed I am not infrequently taken seriously to task
by Shawia women with regard to my wife's lack of
ornaments, attacks which I usually parry by endeavouring
to buy those worn by my critic, upon which the subject
is invariably changed at once.

The men of the village were just as delighted to show
us around their native place as were the women to enter-
tain and examine my wife, so that we were able to explore
every inch of the village under the guidance of various
newly made friends who were careful that we should
miss nothing which they considered to be of interest,

144 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

showing us upon more than one occasion a spur of rock
projecting over the valley hundreds of feet below from
which a woman had fallen to her death in the course
of the previous year.

It is remarkable how few of the sure-footed Shawia,
to whom the dizziness produced by heights appears to
be quite unknown, are killed as a result of falls from
their villages into the depths beneath, and it is also
noteworthy that the majority of those who do so fall
are women, a fact which might seem to suggest that simpler
means even than the divorce, so very easily obtained
under Mohammedan law, have been discovered by
husbands of the Aures who may wish to rid themselves
of wives whom the old age which overtakes them in early
middle life has rendered unattractive and so no longer
to be desired.

The population of the hamlets of the Rassira valley
is very nearly self-supporting, the great majority of
its simple requirements being manufactured in the
villages themselves, the few articles in daily use
which cannot be so supplied, for example the cotton
stuffs used for the shirts and turbans of the men and
the dress material of the women, soap, antimony, tobacco,
matches and similar odds and ends, being purchasable
at the tiny native shops to be found in every settlement
or from Kabyle pedlars, enterprising traders from the
Berber tribes of the hills near the coast, who wander
over the Aures, their wares carried upon the backs of
sturdy little donkeys, spreading as they go some items
of news from the outside world among the Shawia, the
only news, other than that brought back by some native
who may wander to Biskra in the desert or Batna to the
north of the Aures, which reaches the dwellers in the
remote fastnesses of the hills.

LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE 145

In the course of our stay at Ouled Mansour we became
acquainted with a number of interesting natives.

Among them we discovered a veritable mine of informa-
tion in the person of an elderly man who combined the
trade of a leather worker with the more scholarly vocation
of a scribe, so that, in the former capacity, he turned an
honest penny by the manufacture of neat little red leather
cases to contain the written charms from which he
derived a perhaps less irreproachable income in the
latter.

Now a remote village such as Ouled Mansour, as out
of touch with the desert and the great towns as any
settlement of the Aures, offers an excellent field of research
to anyone desirous of studying Shawia superstitions
and other folk-lore; we accordingly passed many an
hour in the tiny workshop of our friend the scribe, seated
upon a mat and consuming cup after cup of coffee as
the old man, encouraged by our evident interest and
apparent credulity, described in ever-increasing detail
some of the mysteries of his magic art. The great majority
of Algerian magical rites and the various charms worn
by men, women and children, as well as by certain
domestic animals both in the desert and the hills, are
designed to defeat the machinations of some " jinn,"
or demon, to the native's belief in which I have several
times alluded in the course of these pages, especially
when describing the cause and effect of the " evil-eye "
and the protective measures taken against it in the wearing
of certain silver ornaments, among them the " hand,"
such as are made by the jewellers of Menaa, and to which
I shall have to refer again when dealing in a later chapter
with the main object of my researches in the hills, the
healing art of modern native doctors.

These " jenoun," the plural of the word " jinn," would

10

146 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

be an intolerable curse to the existence of the superstitious
dwellers in the desert and the hills were it not for the
numerous charms which they believe to be efficacious
in dealing with them, for, although some of them are
considered to be harmless, the great majority appear to
devote their whole existence to working mischief in the
affairs of man. Writers of charms to be worn around
the neck, therefore, like the marabouts we have already
discussed and scribes such as our leather worker of Ouled
Mansour, are daily in request to provide protective
amulets for those who go in dread of supernatural attacks.
The millions of " jenoun " which infest this earth choose
such varied places as rivers, manure heaps, empty houses
or pools of blood as their abode ; indeed it was ludicrous
upon one occasion, when I severely cut my thumb, to
notice the concern of the owner of the house I was in as
he saw the blood spurt upon the floor, where he covered
it with dust as quickly as it fell lest it should attract
some demon into his home.

These unpleasant enemies of mankind are invisible
as a rule, but are capable of assuming the guise of animals,
human beings, or, indeed, of anything when engaged
upon their nefarious practices but, in the opinion of
most natives I have met with, they cannot readily be
destroyed by earthly weapons.

In the opinion of those who write charms for a fee,
the only really effective amulet for protection against
" jenoun " consists in the slip of paper covered with
scrawling Arabic characters and often including some
mystic diagrams in the shape of triangles or squares
which, encased in leather or cotton material for a man
or in a neat rectangular silver box for the use of a woman,
is to be found suspended from a cord around the neck
or from a brooch upon the person of every native in Algeria

LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE 147

whom a veneer of civilization has not led to despise his
old beliefs. The writing on the paper is popularly
supposed by tourists to consist of a verse or verses from
the Koran, indeed many an Arab or Shawia will assure
the traveller in all good faith that this is the case but,
as a matter of fact, it is by no means true.

Most of the amulets contain words from the writings
of some early medijeval author of books upon magical
subjects, and bear no resemblance to texts from the
Koran of the Arabian prophet, but it must be remembered
that the vast majority of Algerian natives are unable
to read the Koran or anything else, so that they are very
ready to attribute any mystic or semi-sacred writings to
Mohammed himself, into whose mouth have been forced
many sayings, invented long after his death, to which
in all probability he would never have given utterance.

Some scribes, indeed, attribute the origin of written
charms to a supposed incident in the life of Mohammed.

One night, while wandering in meditation in the desert
of Arabia, the prophet became aware of the presence
of a very large, ugly and generally fearsome looking
dame, who informed him that she was known as the
" Mother of the Night " and that, assisted by the whole
body of " jenoun," of whom she claimed to be the sovereign,
she was in the habit of spreading ruin and death among
mortals and destroying the possessions of the dwellers
upon earth. Upon hearing this startling announcement
the prophet, not unnaturally perhaps, invoked the aid
of Allah, at the mention of whose name the chieftainess
of the demons displayed signs of fear and promised
protection to Mohammed and his followers who, however,
she said must wear some written words to act as a pass-
port by means of which her unseen minions could
recognize them and so allow them to go their ways unhin-

148 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

dered and unharmed. Such is the origin, as given to me
by certain scribes, of the wearing of written amulets in
Algeria.

Many scribes, as well as marabouts, in addition to
the writing of charms make a considerable addition to
their incomes by foretelling the future to those who
are about to undertake some enterprise or journey, some-
times with an accuracy which is really remarkable. An
instance of this occurred to us at Ouled Mansour.

In order to make clear to my readers the knowledge,
or rather lack of knowledge, in the light of which the
prophecy was made, I should observe that Ouled Mansour
is so remote and of so small consequence in the affairs
of the outside world as to be quite beyond reach of foreign
propaganda or intrigue and that, in the opinion of the
scribe, England was situated somewhere in Cairo, for
he had apparently never heard of the little island in
the North Sea whose sons, with those of France, were
so soon to stand between him and the yoke of
Teuton rule.

On March 6, 1914, my wife and I asked the old man
to foretell our future. After putting one or two questions
to us as to our parents' names, the days of the week on
which we were born, etc., he proceeded to consult a book,
a cheap reprint obtained from Tunis of an old magical
work, and finally announced that before the year was
out I should be serving my " sultan " and that my wife
should have a son.

In six months I held a commission in the Army (in
which I had had no previous service), and on December
21, 1914, our son was born ! Coincidence, no doubt ;
but these are the cold hard facts.

The practice of foretelling the future is by no means
confined to the scribes and marabouts, for sorceresses

LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE 149

or " wise women," such as the hag whom we have
mentioned in an earlier chapter as being capable of bringing
down the moon, are to be found all over the hills quite
prepared to forecast the issue of events upon receipt of
a small fee. This they perform in various ways, the most
usual method at Ouled Mansour and some other villages
of the Aures being as follows. The sorceress places a
large flat wooden dish bottom upwards upon the ground
and draws across the bottom of it, so that they intersect
at right angles in the centre, two lines, one white,
having been made with chalk, and the other black, of
soot.

She then hangs a necklet of beads upon the hook of
a spindle- whorl, to the other end of which is tied a small
piece of string. Placing the necklet in the centre of
the dish at the point of intersection of the two lines,
she gently raises the spindle-whorl by means of the string,
at the same time asking the question to which an answer
is desired, until the necklet is lifted from the dish and
can swing to and fro above it.

Should it sway along the white line a favourable or
affirmative answer is held to have been given, while
movement along the black line indicates an unfavourable
or negative reply.

Very obviously the sorceress can control the motions
of the necklet and thus return what answer she chooses
to her client but the native is incredibly stupid in his
superstitious beliefs and seems quite unable to detect
the possibility of fraud.

Not only do the sorceresses of the Aures practise divina-
tion of the course of future events, and, as we have seen
in an earlier chapter, provide magical philtres to enable
wives to retain the waning affections of their husbands,
but they are also ready to set evil influences to work to

150 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

injure those who are unlucky enough to incur their wrath
or whose personal enemies enlist the help of a magician
to wreak vengeance upon them.

For example, a woman who has failed to secure the
affections of some man upon whom she has cast an
amorous eye will, with the aid of a sorceress, take the
fresh liver of a goat or sheep and, having inserted a
number of pins or thorns in it, hang it up in some secret
place, such as a chimney in the victim's house, in the
belief that as it dries and shrivels up so will the object
of her jealous anger gradually waste away and die, a
practice which finds many a parallel in the customs of
primitive peoples in widely separated parts of the earth
and which must be a survival of the magic of ages long
since gone by, before the faith of Islam had spread over
the Barbary States. The victim of these machinations,
as soon as failing health warns him that some secret spell
has been cast upon him, betakes himself to a scribe who
will pretend to diagnose his case and prepare for him
amulets the wearing of which is intended to counteract
the evil influences which have been set to work, the
resulting magical duel between the scribe and the unknown
caster of the spell terminating, of course, according to
the real nature of the complaint from which the victim
happens by chance to be suffering, although, no doubt,
persons who have reason to believe that they are
being magically assailed may often work themselves
into a state of nervous depression from which their blind
faith in their amulets may well bring real relief. A
great part of the trade, for so it may accurately be des-
cribed, of the sorceresses of the Aures consists in the
preparation of charms usually supplied to women and
children, for the menfolk more often place their trust in
the scribes who, as we have seen, consider written amulets

*. i

LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE 151

to be the only reliable means of defeating the machina-
tions of " jenoun."

But the semi-human character of these demons renders
them susceptible to influence by such an enormous number
of various charms that the sorceresses are well able to
thrive upon the credulity of their clients.

A mere list of even a small proportion of the substances
used in magic with which we have come into contact
in such remote hamlets as Ouled Mansour would occupy
considerable space and would involve much technical
discussion, out of place in any but a strictly ethnographical
work, I will therefore describe in some detail the uses
of a few of the commonest among them.

We have already noted in describing the magical uses
of jewellery that "jenoun" are liable to fear, the wearing,
therefore, of a charm which suggests the presence of
some savage or dangerous creature is considered to be
very efficacious against them, so that dogs' teeth, the
heads of vipers, or the whole bodies of scorpions enclosed
in a reed are commonly to be found in use for this purpose,
as are models of weapons, old bullets, or packets of gun-
powder which threaten the " jenoun " with the death
to which they can succumb, and demons are supposed,
for some reason which at present seems obscure, to dread
iron or anything made of it, a fact which accounts for
the wearing, especially by children, of any scrap of iron
they can lay hands on, very frequently an old European
key, suspended by a string from their necks, a practice
which the traveller will notice at once in any village
of the desert or the hills should he keep his eye open
for trivial signs of native superstitions and beliefs.

Substances with a powerful or unpleasant smell, such
as asafcetida, or a strong taste, such as red pepper, are
considered to be useful in keeping away " jenoun " if

152 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

worn in little packets of rag attached to the costume,
while a vast selection of dried plants, one of the commonest
of which is rue, can be similarly employed owing to the
demons' supposed aversion to them.

With all this medley of charms to choose from, a Shawia
mother takes no risks in the precautionary measures
she adopts for her son and, to a less extent, for her daughter ;
obtaining one magical substance from one sorceress and
another from another and amulets from various scribes,
she attaches these objects to a string worn as a bandolier
over one shoulder beneath his cloak by her little boy,
some of these strings containing upwards of a dozen
charms to combat the attacks of demons and the ravages
of disease or to ensure for the infant success in whatever
career may lie before him.

Magic, then, plays a most important part in the daily
lives of the Shawia and their nomad neighbours of the
great desert and, even in the great centres of modern
civilization, its hold upon the natives has by no means
ceased to exist as a result of contact with the European
and his ways ; it is, however, a subject which is notori-
ously difficult to study.

Firstly, the natives are extremely reticent about their
superstitions until the traveller has gained their con-
fidence, itself a difficult task ; and, secondly, although
they know well the uses of their various charms, very
few of them are able to offer any reason for their employ-
ment which would afford the student some clue to their
origin or insight into the principles underlying their
use, a fact which is scarcely to be wondered at if we
consider for a moment how many of our English friends,
who will not walk under a ladder, could explain the
reason of their reluctance to do so, the custom persisting
long after its origin has been generally forgotten.

LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE 153

Life at Ouled Mansour, in the very heart of the land of
the Shawia, proved interesting enough, and the days passed
quickly for us, busy as we were, from morning until night,
investigating the customs of its inhabitants, an occupa-
tion by the way, which must not be indulged in too
obviously for fear of arousing the suspicions of the people,
who cannot be expected to understand the real object
of the wanderer's inquiries, and are accordingly apt to
regard the inquisitive observer as a spy who may report
their various little infractions of the letter of the French
law to authorities who, in the normal course of events,
know well the wisdom of occasionally shutting their eyes.

Residing in the cottage we had hired, and partaking
of stews of chicken or goat prepared for us by a Shawia
woman, whose services as cook we had enlisted, supple-
mented by a few European stores we had brought with us,
we were by no means so uncomfortable as our first glance
at our surroundings had led us to anticipate that we
should be, but, nevertheless, a stay in such a hamlet
is not to be recommended to any one unprepared to
dispense with all the creature comforts he can enjoy at
an inn and to take life in the hills as he finds it.

Although the climate of the Rassira valley is delightfully
sunny and dry, the elevated position of the villages upon
the brink of its mighty cliffs renders warm clothing a
necessity even so late in the year as March, for sometimes
the north wind blows keenly from the snow-clad peaks
of the higher Aures and the nights are often remarkably
cold, though, should the wanderer chance to be lodged
in a hut among the date groves which fringe the stream
at the bottom of the great ravine sheltered from the
mountain winds, he would probably find the temperature
several degrees higher than in the lofty villages themselves.

Indeed, warm clothing and a good supply of blankets

154 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

are always necessary in the Aures since fires, except
perhaps a few glowing embers in an earthen bowl, can
rarely be indulged in Shawia houses for, in the absence
of any fireplace, other than three stones upon which
to stand the stew-pot beneath a minute opening in the
roof, the building soon becomes filled with the heavy
smoke of burning juniper which, pleasant enough to
the nostrils when smelled from afar, would soon make
the place unbearable to a European.

We were able at Ouled Mansour to collect a fair number
of objects for the museum at Oxford, some of which we
had not noticed in other parts of the hills, such as a type
of powder-flask which provides one of the few examples
of wood-carving of any merit whatsoever that we have
met with in our rambles in the mountains, for decorative
art, other than the ornamentation of rugs, mats, and
cushions, the barbaric patterns of the Shawia silver
trinkets and the very rudimentary designs upon some
of their pottery, is conspicuous by its absence in the
homes of the ancient Berber race upon the edge of the
desert, though their Kabyle cousins of the north display
a rather more artistic spirit in this respect.

A comparative study of the patterns used in art in the
hills, when a sufficient number of them are available
for the purpose, should prove extremely interesting,
for those of the silver ornaments appear, at first glance,
to bear no relation to the patterns on the rugs and cushions
which latter differ from the designs displayed upon the
powder flasks, while the more primitive ornamentation
of the pottery seems to fall into a different category to
all three.

No doubt this is attributable to the different periods
at which the designs have crept into the Aures from
without, but a systematic examination of many patterns

LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE 155

must be undertaken before any opinion of value can
be hazarded as to when these periods were and whence
the decorative art of the Shawia in its various stages
has originated.

The usual arts and crafts of the Aures, the spinning,
weaving, pottery making and other occupations, such
as we have noted in preceding chapters from other parts
of the massif, are to be found carried on at Ouled Mansour
in the same manner as in the villages of the Wed Abdi
and those of the other valleys we have visited, and they
can readily enough be studied owing to the friendly char-
acter of the native.

We found, therefore, that we had increased our ac-
quaintance with many phases of Shawia life when the
time arrived for us to leave the little hamlet overlooking
the great Rassira canon and turn our steps towards the
higher lying valley of the Wed el Abiod to the north.

Scrambling through the shaft and down the precipi-
tous rocky knife-edge by which we had first reached the
village, we joined our mules beside the stream and, having
gained the opposite lip of the canon overhanging the
date groves and the river, we rode slowly along the cliff
edge enjoying magnificent views of the wide valley through
which, as we have seen, the canon runs, the great gorge
itself lying at our feet as we wended our way towards
the village of Ghoufi upon the opposite side of the canon
to that upon which stands the hamlet of Ouled Mansour.
All the time numerous small settlements of the Shawia,
built upon the very brink of the chasm, were in sight
as we moved, their gardens and date groves forming
a continuous belt of green beside the river some hundreds
of feet below us, for the villages of the Rassira appear
to be as numerous as those of the Wed Abdi though
somewhat smaller in size.

156 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

After passing a small mosque, lying by itself in the
open country beside the track and boasting no minaret
from which the faithful could be called to prayer, we
came upon a lonely terebinth tree believed by the natives
to be possessed of " baraka " or holiness, its branches
covered with the rags with which passers-by had adorned
it in the hope that some of this holiness might safe-
guard them upon their journey, a typical example of
the " marabout trees " to which we have alluded before,
and, continuing our way, pulled up at Ghoufi to partake
of a meal and wander round the village before riding
on to Tifefel, our destination, to the north of the
Rassira canon.

Since our visit to the central valleys of the Aures a
bordj, similar to those at Djemora and Menaa, has been
erected by the French at Ghoufi to accommodate officials
and those who care to wander through this part of the
massif, so that the traveller can stay in comfort in the
Rassira valley without being compelled to hire a native
hut such as we had inhabited at Ouled Man sour, and
he will find Ghoufi itself extremely interesting as a typical
Berber settlement of the district.

Built like the neighbouring hamlets upon the edge
of the ravine, its " guelaa " entered by but one gateway,
consisting of a mass of tiny dwellings and store-houses
for the protection of its crops, their upper floors reached
as at Baniane by the most insecure looking ladders,
bridges and balconies of untrimmed logs, the village
will afford the traveller who stays at its " bordj " an
excellent example of the villages of the Rassira and,
no doubt, its natives will be found to be as primitive
and as hospitable as their neighbours with whom we
stayed ; in addition to which its proximity to numerous
other hamlets, which can readily be examined in the

LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE 157

course of a day's ramble, would seem to render Ghoufi
a remarkably convenient centre from which to explore
the country round so that, when a roadway suitable to
cars runs down beside the edge of the great canon from
the northern part of the Aures to the Sahara at Mechounech,
it will probably become a halting-place for the tourist,
and the Shawia women of the area will soon cease to
gaze with wonder upon one of their European sisters, as
they were so eager to do at the time of our visit to their
country in the spring of 1914.

As we had moved up to Ghoufi from Ouled Mansour,
the canon had gradually decreased in depth so that,
beautiful as were its glowing cliffs and its gardens, the
deep green of which was now increasingly relieved by
the admixture of numerous fruit trees in their spring
dress of blossom, it was scarcely so impressive in its wild
almost forbidding grandeur as at the village we had just
left behind us, and, continuing our journey along its
western edge, we found that this decrease in depth became
more and more noticeable and the number of fruit trees
greater and greater until, after we had descended into
the bed of the stream itself and ridden some distance
along its course in the water, the canon became nothing
more remarkable than a shallow though beautiful gorge,
upon emerging from which we entered a wide basin at
its northern end, through which the Rassira River mean-
dered after passing through a narrow cleft in the
mountains from the Wed el Abiod some miles to the
north.

This, then, was the end of the great canon of the Rassira
beneath the shadow of the glowing rocks of the Red
Cheeked mountain, a gorge more extraordinary in its
grandeur and wild beauty throughout its fifteen miles
of length than any ravine to be found in those parts

158 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

of the French North African dependencies with which
I have become acquainted in my wanderings, and yet
a district of which so few European visitors to Algeria
have so much as heard the name ; a land in which the
tourist is unknown.

CHAPTER VIII
IN THE HEART OF THE AURES

THE UPPER RASSIBA BASIN — A CONNECTING LINK BETWEEN AFRICA AND
EUROPE — AGRICULTURE IN THE AURES — CEREMONY AT THE COM-
MENCEMENT OF PLOUGHING THE SHAwfA PLOUGH — THRESHING

THE HARVEST FESTIVAL SCALES VENDETTAS DYEING THE

GOVERNMENT STATION AT TKOUT — A " SUN-DIAL " THE GORGE OF

TIGHANIMINE — A MILITARY EPISODE — THE HAMLET OF TAGHOUT —
OVER THE HEIGHTS TO TIMGAD.

WHEN we emerged from the Rassira canon in our
leisurely journey northward through the Aures we
had by no means reached the higher central portion of the
massif, for the wide basin, to which I have referred, lying
at the foot of an amphitheatre of rocky hills, had to be
crossed before we could enter the one cleft in the sheer
wall of the Djebel Zellatou, known as the gorge of Tighani-
mine, through which the stream of the Wed el Abiod,
or White River, flows down from the valley which bears
its name to become the Rassira River whose course we
had ascended, which valley of the Wed el Abiod we must
traverse for the greater part of its length before arriving
at the snow-capped mountain Ichemoul, one of the
highest peaks of the massif, whence we could proceed
to the real highlands of the Aures overlooking the plateau
to the north. The journey from the Rassira gorge across
the basin to the Wed el Abiod resembles in some degree
the remarkable passage from Djemora to Menaa, the
rapid transition from Africa to Europe which we noted
in a previous chapter ; for, leaving behind him typical

159

160 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

North African scenery and foliage as he emerges from
the date groves of the mighty canon, the traveller finds
himself in the corn fields of the basin mentioned above,
where a mixture of scattered palms and fruit trees causes
the country to resemble a sort of hinterland between
the Africa he has just left behind him and the southern
European scenery, grey rocks and stunted evergreen
trees, which he will discover to be characteristic of the
valley of the Wed el Abiod so very few miles to the north.

In the midst of this basin — this connecting link, as
it were, between the scenery of two continents — lies the
little village of Tifelfel, our destination in our journey
from Ouled Mansour, surrounded when we approached
it by numerous fruit trees clothed in blossom and wide
green fields of rising corn.

Dismounting at the residence of a sheikh, who adminis-
tered the district under the great Kai'd Bou Hafs, a
building situated amid a number of scattered huts a
hundred yards or more from the massive " guelaa " of
the village which, with the gleaming white minaret of
a mosque, had been visible for some time as we neared
the place, we were made very welcome by our new host
and provided with a large apartment, a dais at one end
of which was to serve us as a sleeping place, while a
European table and some chairs at the opposite end
showed us that we were not to lack opportunity of eating
and writing in a state of comparative comfort such as
we had not enjoyed for some time past.

While the village of Tifelfel is by no means so picturesque
in its construction and surrounding scenery as the nest-
like hamlets upon the Rassira crags it, nevertheless,
afforded us, during the days we stayed with its hospitable
sheikh, an opportunity of seeing something of the methods
of Shawia agriculture in the carefully tilled land around.

IN THE HEART OF THE AURfiS 161

These methods may be taken as typical of those em-
ployed throughout the whole of the massif. In a land
such as Algeria, in which superstition is so rife and so
great importance is attached to mystic ceremony and
rite, it is scarcely surprising that the ploughing of the
soil to receive the seed, upon the fruitfulness of which
the very life of the community depends, should be made
the occasion of some magical formality, the object of
which is to ensure a plenteous harvest such as may banish
the ever threatening spectre of famine for a season from
a country in which drought, and its attendant misery
and want, all too frequently afflict the dwellers in its
arid wastes and sun-scorched barren hills. When the
season for ploughing approaches, a season naturally
varying according to the district but which in the greater
part of the area we are considering may be taken as
October, the inhabitants of the Shawia village have to
decide which member of the community shall first put
his hand to the plough, for it is necessary that the first
person to commence the work should be a member of
some old, well-known and respected family who may
be considered likely to bring luck to the operations of
the community as a whole.

Such a person having been chosen, his family proceeds
to prepare a toothsome dish of semolina, butter, honey
and sugar, known in the Shawia dialect as " ademine,"
such as is usually offered to guests at wedding ceremonies
both in the desert and the hills, and fills a bag with a
number of assorted fruits, including a melon or pumpkin,
and bread.

Upon the day appointed for the commencement of
the work the iron " share " which is fitted to the primitive
plough of the Aures, is solemnly dipped in butter, after
which the sacks of seed are placed upon a mule, the

11

162 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

plough and harness upon another, and the menfolk of
the family start forth to their field, in very barren districts
nothing but a patch of dry soil indistinguishable from
the desert around it and marked out by no visible boun-
daries, though its position and proportions are equally
well known to the natives.

The little party is followed by a female member of
the family, attired in her very best garments and bedecked
with all the glittering mass of silver ornaments she can
lay her hands on, bearing with her the dish of " ademine '*
and the bag of fruits and bread.

Arrived at the field the mules are relieved of their
burden and harnessed to the plough, after which
the pumpkin or melon carried in the bag is solemnly
transfixed upon the ploughshares, from which it
is immediately removed again, " in order," as my
Berber friends informed me, " that the harvest may
be good."

This done, all members of the family present, and all
passers-by who happen to be within call, partake of a
spoonful of the sweet dish of " ademine," after which,
preceded by a brief prayer to Allah for the blessing of
a fruitful year, the work of ploughing and sowing is
commenced. The gaily dressed woman of the party then
returns home, carrying with her the dish of " ademine,"
of which she oilers a spoonful to any one whom she may
meet upon the way.

Such in brief is the ceremony which marks the com-
mencement of ploughing in the hills.

The plough itself, a primitive locally made implement,
will be found on examination to be very little advanced
from the adze-like hoe from which it has been evolved,
for it consists merely of a forked branch of a tree to the
lower, and shorter, arm of which the share is socketed,

IN THE HEART OF THE AUR&S 163

mules harnessed to the end of the longer arm drawing
the implement which is steered by means of a flimsy
vertical handle at the junction of the two arms.

At the time of the harvest the young and old of both
sexes in the mountains turn out to reap and carry.

The corn, cut by means of small sickle hooks of
native make, is conveyed from the field to the threshing-
floor in nets slung across the backs of mules if the inter-
vening distance be considerable, or by that scarcely less
enduring beast of burden, woman, if the way be short,
the willing carrier of the season's crop uttering the
while the long-drawn quivering cry which we have already
found to be so freely uttered as a sign of rejoicing by
the women at weddings in the hills.

Threshing is carried out by means of a line of mules
which tread the corn beneath their feet as they wend
their way round and round a vertical post set up in
the centre of the threshing-floor ; the floor itself consisting
either of a level slab of natural rock or of an artificially
prepared surface of trimmed or untrimmed stone.

The conclusion of the harvest is marked by a feast
in the village to which the inhabitants subscribe according
to their means, the natives partaking of kuskus and
meat, and witnessing the usual ungraceful dances per-
formed by unmarried girls or, in areas in which their
services can be obtained, of professional dancers whose
antics we have already described, the women of the
community attending the festival attired in their best
to greet with cries of joy the dancing of each performer
as she moves to and fro to the strains of the oboe and
the drum.

The fruits of the apricot trees, so common in the hills,
are dried and preserved for use during the following
unfruitful period of the year, being often consumed

164 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

cooked in stews of meat — a dish by no means to be
despised if cleanly and carefully prepared — while in regions
too high above sea-level, and so too cold for the cultiva-
tion of dates, the place of this staple food of the desert
is taken to some extent by the produce of the very
numerous fig trees to be found in the gardens of the
higher villages of the hills, though the Shawia who cannot
grow dates for themselves usually obtain a supply of
them by purchase or by barter, travelling to the northern
oases of the desert to exchange a given weight of some
such garden produce as, let us say, turnips against an
agreed quantity of dates. The scales used in these
transactions are very primitive.

Two halfa-grass baskets of equal weight are suspended
by cords one from each end of a straight bar of wood,
itself suspended by a joint at its centre from a wooden
handle so that, when the scales are held up by means
of this handle, either basket can dip down as weight
is thrown into it, the Arab date owner and the
itinerant Berber purveyor of turnips, suspicious enough
of each other as representative of more or less antagon-
istic races, watching one another meantime with eagle
eye, as turnip by turnip or handful by handful the pro-
duce is placed upon the scales.

Among peoples of avaricious character, whose tempers
arc short and whose love of sharp practice over a bargain
can be likened only to that of the proverbial " horse
coper," it is not to be wondered at that these deals
occasionally lead to disputes, in the course of which a
knife, drawn in the heat of the argument, inflicts a fatal
wound and so inaugurates one of those vendettas which
modern law and order have not yet succeeded in
suppressing in Algeria.

The village of Tifelfel, its scattered huts lying in the

IN THE HEART OF THE AURfiS 165

vicinity of its " guelaa," appears to be typical of the
Shawfa settlements of the neighbourhood, of which we
visited a number during our stay with its hospitable
sheikh.

The " guelaa " itself resembled those already described,
but its outlying dwellings were curious for, built half
embedded in little hillocks, we often found ourselves,
when descending such a hillock, standing upon the roof
of a house the existence of which we had not noticed,
the dry mud covering its flat roof being exactly the same
colour as the surrounding soil from which, indeed, it
had been obtained.

The houses, too, not huddled together in the confined
space of the surface of a rocky spur, were larger than
those of the Rassira hamlets and frequently boasted a
courtyard.

Such time as was not spent in wandering about the
village and its fields we occupied in watching the sheikh's
family at their daily tasks ; for he, a Berber, allowed us
free access to his home and the quarters of his women
folk.

Upon one occasion we found them engaged in dyeing
a pair of knitted woollen leggings, much worn by the
mountaineers of many nations and made by the Shawia
themselves.

A mixture of a certain earth, black goats' hair, butter,
mutton fat and dripping was set on fire in a bowl, the
smoke arising therefrom nearly suffocating us as we
stood by, after which it was extinguished and, some
water containing pomegranate skin having been mixed
with it, it was set upon the hearth to boil, when the white
woollen leggings were placed in it and boiled for a few
minutes, after which they were removed, dyed black as
soot, to be hung up to dry in the sun.

166 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

As I have already pointed out, imported dyes are very
rapidly rinding their way into the Aures to the detriment
of the native-made carpets, pillows etc., and to the
destruction of an ancient Shawia art, but the ladies of the
sheikh's household at Tifelfel preferred the use of the
old-fashioned home-made article for the red, black,
green or yellow colouring of their wool, dyes which,
with the exception of the black, they obtained from
local herbs, to the less laborious task of dyeing their wool,
by means of imported European powders ; my wife
was able, therefore, to glean quite a fund of information
relating to an art which is fast vanishing from even the
remoter villages of the Aures.

When we moved on from Tifelfel our destination
was of a very different character from the squalid
hamlets we had recently been examining, for we were
to pay a visit to the government station of Tkout, a
few miles to the north, in which a single European
family, that of the Assistant Administrator who had
met us at Mechounech, endured banishment from all
the amenities of modern culture in the cause of law,
order and civilization, leading a life of absolute isolation
amid a people still in a state of barbarity which must
have rendered the existence of a French family mono-
tonous in the extreme.

Here, enjoying the boundless hospitality of our genial
hosts, we soon began to realize that circumstances of
which we had tried to make the best in the hills had
been none too comfortable for us in the past months ;
but the fleas of Baniane, the cold and draughty nights
spent upon the floor at Ouled Mansour, the hundred
and one little inconveniences of mountain travel merely
served to increase our enjoyment of the luxury which
surrounded us in the defensible " bordj " of Tkout.

IN THE HEART OF THE AURfiS 167

We attempted no serious study of native life during
our stay at Tkout, partly because we were only too glad
to enjoy a brief period of rest in the society of our
European friends and partly, too, because I do not con-
sider a centre of the French Administration, however
small, to be a suitable spot in which to carry on researches
into the manners and customs of the Arab or Shawia.
The secretive side of the native's character becomes very
much accentuated when he is afraid that tales of his
habits may be carried to and fro, and many of his
customs cannot be expected to find favour with the
officers who rule over him ; it is hopeless, therefore,
for the traveller to endeavour to obtain reliable informa-
tion while living as the guest of an official. In addition
to this a detachment of cavalry, recruited from all over
the country, which had recently been removed from the
" bordj " had doubtless left its mark upon the customs of
the natives of Tkout who, from our point of view, could
scarcely be considered fair specimens of the Berber race
to which in reality they belong. One interesting custom
we noted, however, during our stay at the " bordj,"
namely a system of measuring time.

It has scarcely been necessary to state that the more
or less fertile basin in which Tifelfel and Tkout are
situated owes its fertility to the same system of irriga-
tion which is to be found all over the Aures, namely the
canal or " seggia " system formed by placing barrages
in the stream which flows through the district, a system
employed in the days of the Roman empire.

We have noted at Beni Ferah that the flow of water
into the various " seggias " is regulated by means of
a " water clock," or sinking bowl, but at Tkout another
method obtains of apportioning to the various " seggias "
the hours of water supply to which each is entitled.

168 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

A post set up in a little open space in the village is
carefully watched over by a native specially appointed
for the purpose who, as the shadow of this post, beneath
an almost always cloudless sky, moves slowly round
from one known point to another upon a neighbouring
building or rock, cries out to those who are waiting to
stem the flow of water into one " seggia " and turn it
into the next when the shadow indicates that the moment
has arrived for the stream to be deflected.

This very primitive sun-dial appears to satisfy the
native's requirements as completely as the " water clock "
we have already described.

The Kaid, Bou Hafs, was absent during our stay at
Tkout, but we visited his house in the company of the
Administrator and were received there by his son.

The house itself, the residence of so progressive a chief,
contained rooms furnished in a European fashion for
the reception of honoured guests and equipped with
every regard to luxury which had occurred to its
wealthy owner, while upon its walls were displayed
some of the finest specimens of native firearms I have
ever seen, their barrels a mass of silver inlay and their
stocks encrusted with ivory, coral, and mother o' pearl.

Bou Hafs' son invited us to a meal which, it was
decided, should take the form of a farewell lunch to
be given near the gorge of Tighanimine upon the day
of our departure for the north.

When that day arrived, therefore, the day upon which
we were to exchange the comforts of Tkout for the
squalor of the hamlets of the Wed el Abiod, we rode
out from the " bordj " accompanied by the Administrator,
his wife, and one of his two small daughters, escorted
by three or four mounted orderlies, in their uniform
burnouses of blue trimmed with scarlet braid, and, after

IN THE HEART OF THE AUR&S 169

retracing our steps nearly half-way to Tifelfel, turned
westwards to meet our host at the southern entrance
to the cleft in the great rocky wall of Zellatou, through
which, as we have seen, the White River flows from
the upper Aures to become the Rassira where it enters
the great canon to the south.

Here we found a most sumptuous repast prepared
for us by a small army of the Kai'd's followers.

Tents had been pitched, a " mechwi " was being
slowly turned upon its spit, and every indication was
apparent that a royal send-off into the mountains was
to fall to our lot.

Such, indeed, turned out to be the case, so that it
was after a very sumptuous banquet indeed that we
turned our steps towards the gorge in which our hosts
were to leave us to pursue our journey to the hamlet
at which we were to continue our work among the
natives.

The gorge of Tighanimine, deeper and more forbidding
in appearance than that of El Kantara, may in some
respects be compared to the latter in that it forms a
gateway between the European scenery of the higher
Aures valleys and the African country of the Rassira
canon, though the impression of a sudden passage from
one continent to another is scarcely so vivid as at the
" Mouth of the Desert," owing to the existence of the
hinterland formed by the fertile basin around Tkout
and Tifelfel. The rugged and precipitous rocks of
Tighanimine are grey rather than ruddy in appearance,
suggestive of the hillsides which lie immediately to the
north of them, so that, grand though it undoubtedly is,
the short defile between Tkout and the Wed el Abiod
can scarcely be held to rank with El Kantara in the
splendours of its scenery nor with the great canon of

170 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

the Rassira whose wild magnificence we have, albeit
feebly, attempted to describe. But there is an interest-
ing story told about the gorge of Tighanimine which
may well be repeated here.

In the early days of the French occupation of Algeria,
to be exact, I think, in the summer of 1850, a column of
French troops was carrying out a series of marches
through the heart of the Aures with a view, presumably,
to showing its then turbulent inhabitants that Pax
Gallica was not unsupported by might ; which might,
as a matter of fact, has been frequently challenged at
one time or another by the warlike descendants of those
Berbers who stemmed the tide of the Arab invasion some
twelve hundred years ago. In the course of one of these
marches the column came upon the gorge by way of the
Wed el Abiod, the first French troops to reach the almost
impassable defile.

In those days the track, passable to wheeled traffic
when we saw it and soon, I suppose, to be converted into
a highroad, by which we passed northward overlooking
the right bank of the stream, did not exist, the only
passage through the gorge consisting of the narrowest
of ways, so encumbered by boulders as to be practically
impassable by the laden mules which carried the im-
pedimenta of the troops.

The Frenchmen, therefore, set to work to clear the
way, and laboriously struggled through the chasm
beneath its frowning cliffs to the open country beyond,
improving the track as they progressed.

Regarding themselves as the first trained soldiers
to work their way through the pass, considered at the
time to be one of the most inaccessible in all the rugged
valleys of the Aures massif, the units engaged were
somewhat naturally proud of their achievement and

IN THE HEART OF THE AURfiS 171

requested the officer commanding the force to allow
them to commemorate it by carving the names of their
regiments and the date upon some suitable rock in the
valley.

To this he readily assented, and a search was made
for a rock flat enough to take the inscription.

Such a boulder at once arrested their attention,
ideally placed for their purpose and flat as if trimmed
to receive their chisels.

Climbing up to this well-chosen rock the soldiers began
to clean it, preparatory to immortalizing their exploit
by means of graven stone. The rock, however, upon
closer examination did not present so smooth a surface
as had been imagined, and a preliminary rubbing revealed
the fact that human hands had worked upon it in the
past.

Judge of the amazement of the soldiers of France when
some one among them, accustomed to the deciphering
of inscriptions, announced that the rock already bore
the name of a unit of a great disciplined army, an army
whose traditions had been as glorious as their own, for
the time-worn letters discovered upon the stone informed
the column that the gorge of Tighanimine had been
traversed and a track laid through it by the Sixth Legion
of the Roman Army in the reign of Antoninus Pius more
than sixteen centuries before !

The French, naturally, left the honour of the passage
to those to whom it was justly due, and the rock with
its simple announcement of a military achievement,
greater in the days of equality of arms between the dis-
ciplined soldier and his determined Berber foe than any
such exploit can be in modern times, still reminds the
traveller through the gorge of the days when Rome
held sway over Numidia, when her cohorts stationed at

172 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Lambese to the north of the Aures were called upon
to hold in check the warlike activities of the forefathers
of the Shawia in the hills.

Taking leave of our kindly French hosts and the
Kaid's son beneath the shadow of the towering cliffs
of Tighanimine, we continued our way through the defile
to emerge into the valley of the White River and halt a
few miles higher up at a tiny hamlet upon the slope
overlooking the right or north-western bank of the
stream.

Here we were received by the local headman, for Tag-
hout, with its score and a half of tiny huts, was not
important enough to require the residence of a sheikh,
and we found that a very small and dark room, containing
a platform of sticks covered with a mat upon which
to spread our blankets, had been placed at our disposal.

Softened, no doubt, by the luxury of a European's
home at Tkout, we passed a more or less uncomfortable
night wakefully listening to the animated conversations,
carried on by very powerful voices, in the houses round
which went on far into the night and commenced again
even before the first streak of dawn in the morning,
the few hours in which the human voices were still being
disturbed by the short sharp barking of the native dogs.

We had arrived at Taghout after dark ; it was only
next morning, therefore, that we learned the reason of
the loud-voiced discussions which had disturbed our
night's repose.

Caf6s, those crowded clubs of the larger villages in
which the male population spends so much of its time
and money, arc conspicuous by their absence at Taghout
and the nights, even in spring-time, are far too cold at
this altitude to encourage the gossips of the place to
foregather at the draughty corners of its narrow lanes,

THE DEFILE OF TIGHANIMINE.

TAGHOCT,

' •> *■*:■;.!

Tl ■'S*,-\: n 11

IN THE HEART OF THE AUR^S 173

the people, therefore, simply retire to their own houses
and carry on their conversations from them, for the
hamlet is so small that the human voice, if the strident
tones of an excited Shawia may be called human, can
easily be heard from one end of it to another.

Thus, just as the tired wanderer rolls himself in his
blankets and closes his eyes in the hope of a refreshing
sleep he will be started to wakefulness by a shout of
" Oh, Ali ben Mohammed ! " from the next-door apart-
ment, answered, a moment later, by " Here am I ; Oh,
Salah ! " from the opposite end of the village, a prelude
to conversation lasting an hour or more which, loud as
it must necessarily be in any case, will soon cause him
to marvel at the wondrous capacity of the human lungs
should the discussion develop into a dispute.

The houses at Taghout were such as might be expected
in so small a hamlet, mere hovels of grey stone resembling
the dwellings of Tijdad and similar villages of the higher
districts of the Aures, but in all of them we were hospit-
ably received and pressed to partake of the usual honey
and walnuts which are always offered to a guest in the
poorest households of the hills.

In olden days the site of the village had lain higher
up the slopes of the north-western wall of the Wed el
Abiod but, in the troublous times before the arrival
of the French, it had been destroyed in the course of a
conflict between some Arabs from the south and the
Ouled Daoud Shawia tribe, which inhabits the district,
and had been re-erected lower down a quarter of a mile
or so from the bank of the oleander-bordered stream
beside which the inhabitants of Taghout cultivate their
tiny fields of corn, their apricots, walnuts and their
figs.

The grey rocky valley in which the village lies, its

174 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

sides dotted with the stunted juniper trees which we
have found to be the characteristic of the valleys farther
to the west, can scarcely be considered beautiful, especially
when visited after a stay in the Rassira canon, and
northerly winds sweeping down it from the snow-capped
mountain, Ichemoul, which stands at its head, render
the district unpleasantly cold, especially at night, even
when spring is well advanced, but the valley and its
villages are interesting in that they afford opportunities
of studying the Berber people as much uninfluenced by
the outside world as in any part of the Aures.

We found plenty of occupation, therefore, during
our stay at Taghout of becoming further acquainted
with Shawia crafts and customs, an examination of
which we had commenced elsewhere, and many of which
I have already described, so that it was with no regret
at having endured for a spell its unavoidable discomforts
that we eventually continued our journey up the Wed
el Abiod towards the northern plateau, the railway and
home. Wending our way up the vale of the White
River, along a track which might well be described as
a fairly good road even just before the war, we soon
came upon the village of Arris, then a station of the
White Fathers, the great missionaries of North Africa,
followers of Cardinal Lavigerie whose statue at Biskra
overlooks the desert in which he and his subordinates
have worked so bravely and so hard, but now the head-
quarters of the administration of the Commune Mixte
of the Aures, an administrative area which may be
taken to comprise the whole of the central portion of the
massif from the northern plateau to the desert.

From Arris we continued our way up the Wed el Abiod
to the point beneath the great mountain of Ichemoul
at which it receives upon its right bank the waters of

IN THE HEART OF THE AURjftS 175

the insignificant brook known as the Wed Basha,
following the course of which the road led us to the
small village of Basha in which we were to pass the
night.

Here, as at Taghout, no chief existed who could offer
us a lodging ; we were obliged, therefore, to sleep in a
disused store-room, the numerous cracks and crevices
in which compelled us to light a fire, for the night was
extremely cold, and to submit to the state of semi-suffo-
cation which is the only alternative to freezing in the
higher villages of the Aures during a great part of the
year. Next morning, after making a few small purchases
for the museum at Oxford, we again took the road for
an hour or so, before turning off to the north-west to
follow a bridle-path to the village of Bou Hamar, situated
in the valley of the Wed Taga on the northern slopes
of the massif. As we gradually ascended the high
ridge which forms the backbone of the Aures overlooking
the level plains to the north we encountered a bitterly
cold wind and found much snow still lying around us,
indeed we partook of our midday meal among deep
snow-drifts in a spot sheltered from the wind in which
the sun, already powerful, soon made us realize that
a move of but a yard or two may make all the difference
between spring and winter on the summits of the
Algerian hills.

Having basked for an hour in the genial warmth of
the sun we again faced the icy blast and surmounted
the ridge, whence glorious views of the plateau unfolded
themselves to our gaze, and commenced our descent
of the northern slopes of the Aures, passing through a
rocky gorge in which it was necessary to ford the Wed
Taga upon several occasions, and so eventually arriving
at Bou Hamar situated in a comparatively fertile valley

176 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

from which we obtained many fine glimpses of snow-capped
hills, now left behind us to the south.

At Bou Hamar our host, the sheikh, provided us
with warm accommodation, for the place lies high, in a
well-built room attached to his own house containing a
fireplace, built upon the European plan with a sufficient
outlet for its smoke, which enabled us to spend our even-
ings in comfort untempered with suffocation, a blessing
for which we were duly thankful after some of our recent
experiences in less pretentious dwellings. The sheikh,
upon whose burnous the scarlet ribbon of the Legion
of Honour recalled a very gallant action in the service
of the French performed in years gone by, expressed
every willingness to help us in our work, and used to
spend much time discussing with us the various subjects
we were attempting to study.

Not only this, but, being a man of very considerable
learning in Islamic lore, he insisted upon entering into
long discussions on comparative religion, which means
that he was anxious to get my views upon the birth
of our Lord in order, as I thought, to refute them by
his own.

Now this placed me in a very awkward position, for
if there is one subject which I have found, as a student
of Mohammedan customs, it is wiser to avoid than to
discuss, that subject is my own religion. Let the student
and the Shawia agree to differ upon this subject and
no ill feeling will result on cither side, but a chance remark
falling from even the most careful tongue in the course
of such a discussion may well have the effect of putting
an end to the traveller's researches over a wide extent
of country.

At Bou Hamar, however, I found that the sheikh
was merely questioning me with the object of advancing

IN THE HEART OF THE AURfiS 177

his own knowledge of the religion of France, so that I
was able to retire from the discussion on the score of
ignorance of the Roman Catholic faith and so extricate
myself from a somewhat difficult position, for our talks
took place in the presence of other natives who might
reasonably be expected to take hold of my words and
use them to our disadvantage.

The village of Bou Hamar is similar to the hamlets
of the Wed el Abiod, but larger and rather more scattered,
and its houses are distinctly well built, though con-
structed upon the usual plan of dwellings in the northern
parts of the Aures, indeed its little minaretless mosque
of modern construction is the best example I have seen
of pure Shawia building for, as my readers will have
observed, the Berbers of the hills are not famous for
their architectural skill.

Leaving Bou Hamar after a few days spent in the
revision of our notes and the addition to them of a certain
amount of material not already obtained, we rode through
a wooded country to descend into the plateau at the
great Roman ruins of Timgad, one of the most remarkable
sites to be visited in the whole of the ancient world, the
fair city which was called into being by a vast military
camp at Lambese a few miles to the west whence,
presumably, the soldiers of the Sixth Legion sallied
forth to the passage of the gorge of Tighanimine.

Even to those who can boast of no knowledge
of archaeology and the history of Rome, these ruins,
many acres in extent, with their theatre, their public
buildings and baths, their lines of graceful columns and
streets in the pavements of which are still to be found
the ruts worn by the wheels of Roman chariots, must
not only convey a very lasting impression, but provide
food for reflection upon the state of the country in the

12

178 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

days when it enjoyed a greater rainfall than at present,
before the destroyers from Arabia had laid their hands
upon the land and the ordered peace of Rome had given
place to the centuries of chaos and misrule which
intervened before the French assumed responsibility
for the reconstruction of Algeria ; and, as he passes on
by road to Batna, now the largest and most important
European settlement of the plateau, the traveller may
well be excused if he falls to comparing in his mind the
luxury and splendour of the past, traces of which he
has left behind him at Timgad, with the unlovely modern
garrison town he is approaching.

At Batna our rambles through the central portion
of the Aures massif had come to an end.

Having wandered from the Saharan oasis of
Mechounech to the Berber settlement of Baniane, to
the wild remote villages of the Rassira canon and the
civilization of the government post at Tkout, we had
passed to the upper valleys of the Aures and to a road
which, it is to be hoped, will some day be continued
southward until the motorist may follow in the foot-
steps of our patient and sure-footed mules to explore
for himself one of the most remarkable districts in
Algeria.

CHAPTER IX
THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS

THE MAIN OBJECT OF OUR JOURNEYS — THE HEALING ART PRACTISED
SECRETLY IN THE AURES — WE ATTEMPT TO STUDY IT — OUR PATIENTS
IN THE MOUNTAINS — UNEXPECTED MEETING WITH A NATIVE

SURGEON PRIMITIVE INSTRUMENTS — TREPANNING FORTITUDE OF

THE PATIENTS — A FRACTURED KNEE-CAP " CUPPING " AND DEN-
TISTRY— MEDICINE AMONG THE SHAwfA — ORIGIN OF THE HEALING
ART IN THE AURES MEDICINE AND MEDICAL MAGIC.

DURING the whole of our wanderings in the western
and central valleys of the Aures, and to rather
a less extent in our final journey up the region dominated
by the heights of the Djebel Cherchar, we had in view
a special object in addition to the general survey of life
among the Shawia which we were attempting to compile,
an object which we were fortunate enough to attain,
namely a study of the healing art which had been known
for many years to be secretly practised in the mountains.
This healing art has seemed to us so interesting, and the
new light we have been lucky enough to throw upon it
has revealed such remarkable facts connected with it,
that I have thought some description of the surgery and
medicine of the Aures should find a place in the pages
of a book in which an attempt is made to lay before the
general reader an account of native life in the hills ; and
as our information on the subject was gleaned here and
there, little by little, as we wandered over the country,
I have considered it best to devote a brief chapter to

179

180 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

it instead of giving in the sequence in which they were
obtained such notes as we collected in the various hamlets
as we moved.

My readers who, in their imagination, have followed
in our footsteps and have noted the numerous quaint
superstitions and magical rites to which we have had
so frequently to refer may well learn with surprise that
medicine and surgery, worthy of any consideration at
all, are to be found in such a land of sorceresses and
magicians as the demon-haunted hills on the edge of
the Sahara ; they may reasonably suppose that, in case
of illness or injury, the Shawia have recourse only to
the use of charms or magical observances such as are,
indeed, largely employed by these sorceresses and
magicians, for even a fairly close acquaintance with the
natives formed in their mountain homes will not reveal
the fact that men trained in the healing art of the Middle
Ages practise this art to-day in remote hamlets of the
hills and in the tents of the desert nomads beneath them.

Many years ago, however, the existence of such
practitioners became known to the French authorities,
for persons bearing scars indicative of surgical operations
were observed by officials in the neighbourhood of the
Aures, persons who could never have undergone such
operations save in their own homes, and at the hands
of native surgeons, one particular scar being observed
with startling frequency, that left by the removal of
bone from the skull, the scar of the trepan.

But although these scars were found almost daily,
all efforts to investigate at all closely the methods of
the Shawia surgeons proved more or less unavailing, for
these men, suspicious enough by nature, became so
secretive when their occupation became known to the
authorities that they not only refused to discuss their

THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS 181

art but even pretended that it had ceased to exist in
the hills ; for, after French law had been established
in Algeria, the man who performed an operation re-
sulting in the death of his patient was, of course, liable
to be held responsible for the death, with consequences
very unpleasant to himself, if he were not in possession
of the recognized French qualifications to carry on a
doctor's work, qualifications to which none of the primi-
tive Shawia could pretend. The doctor, then, became
technically an outlaw and, in consequence, he considered
it necessary to practise his art with the utmost secrecy
and cunning, distrusting every attempt to pry into his
concerns and regarding with jealousy and well simulated
contempt the French medical officers attached to the
various government stations, for he realized that if his
patients became acquainted with modern European
medicine and surgery his livelihood would be gone.

The Shawia surgeon, therefore, in addition to conceal-
ing his own methods, loses no opportunity of belittling
those of European practitioners, whom he accuses of
ignorance of all operations save the one to which the
Mohammedan would rather die than submit, namely
the amputation of a limb.

In the circumstances it is scarcely surprising that the
traveller in the Aures sees nothing of the work of the
surgeons nor even learns of their existence in the course
of a hurried journey, and that collections of the very
primitive instruments with which they produce some
really remarkable results have up to now been extremely
rare in museums if, indeed, anything approaching a
representative collection had ever been brought out of
the hills before 1914.

It was, therefore, with scant hope of realizing our
ambition that upon commencing our general work among

182 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

the Shawia we decided to endeavour to learn something
of their surgery and to acquire such of their instruments
as we could find.

Now I am not a doctor and, except for the little know-
ledge of medicine — sometimes a dangerous possession —
which comes to those who spend much of their lives
beyond the reach of skilled medical aid, I can claim
no acquaintance with the healing art, nevertheless I
decided that the most likely road to success in my search
for native practitioners would be found in the distribu-
tion of medicines to all and sundry who might ask for
them in the mountains.

We accordingly provided ourselves liberally with
dressings, bandages, and such simple drugs as we knew
to be harmless, and commenced our work in Algeria
in an almost officious readiness to benefit, or at any rate
to practise on, our neighbours. The natural love of
both the Arab and the Shawia for anything which can
be obtained for nothing soon brought us plenty of
opportunities of getting rid of our drugs. No sooner
did we become at all well known in a village than our
residence would be besieged from morning until night
by the halt and the maimed, some of them brought upon
mules from many miles around, to try the effect of our
pills, our tincture of iodine, our Elliman's, our salts, or,
especially, our quinine, the use of which had become
known throughout the hills, but for the purchase of which
during a visit to a town the natives begrudged the money.

But not only the sick and injured demanded our
assistance ; many perfectly healthy spectators at our
outdoor consultations considered that they, too, might
benefit by a dose for some complaint to which they were
liable, while some, more crafty than their neighbours,
tried their best to secure a small stock of pills for various

THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS 183

ailments to be sold to their friends as occasion offered,
probably with no regard at all to the suitability of the
drug for the complaint. It was necessary, therefore,
to keep a sharp eye on our patients and to administer
medicine only to those who would swallow it in our
presence.

Needless to say, very many sufferers were brought
to us for whom we could do absolutely nothing, but
if a " practice " which constantly increases in size can
be taken as a criterion of the doctor's skill then, were
it not for the fact that our aid was rendered gratis, and
so to be eagerly sought, we should by this time have
begun to regard ourselves as no mean practitioners of
the healing art !

Any attempt at surgery, of course, we carefully avoided
unless the syringing of ears can be dignified with the
name of a minor operation. It seems that when once
the traveller has commenced to syringe ears in the Aures
he can continue that unpleasant occupation all day with-
out interruption.

No sooner will he have sent one patient away than
some one among the spectators will insist upon under-
going the treatment, apparently in the belief that it will
benefit him should he ever really require it in the future
rather than with a view to removing any existing incon-
venience ; indeed upon one occasion, when a syringing
had relieved a girl who was reputed to be deaf, we were
absolutely besieged by applicants for the treatment,
some of whom even accompanied us during a whole
day's march when our medicine chest had already been
packed on a mule preparatory to a move.

Lotions for the eyes, too, were in very great request,
for diseases of the eye are extremely common in the
desert and the hills, while all day long there came to us

184 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

parents bringing with them children suffering from skin
complaints caused, no doubt, by the dirty surroundings
in which the natives live.

Although we very soon found that free medicine can
rapidly build up a practice in the hills and the desert,
for a long time our carefully cloaked inquiries as to the
existence of native doctors met with no response. When-
ever we suggested to a surgical case that he should seek
the aid of one of the skilful Shawia practitioners, the
fame of whose reputation had reached us even in far-
off England, we were assured that no such surgeons
existed in the community, whereas we had heard from
a French official that trepanning was frequently practised
in the neighbourhood though, he said, we could hope for
no such luck as to find the operator or see his instruments.

The only reply to our inquiries which we at first received
was that all the sick and injured of the mountains
immediately called in the assistance of the French official
doctor at the nearest government post, many miles
distant over the hills, a statement which we knew to
be a lie ; we began to despair, therefore, of ever finding
a native surgeon, and to believe that all our distribution
of pills and syringing of ears would turn out to be labour
expended in vain. Suddenly, however, and quite un-
expectedly, our luck changed.

Having long since given up asking the direct question
as to whether or not a surgeon existed in the locality,
we were chatting on general topics to a chief and a small
group of natives in a village in which we had recently
arrived, when I suddenly inquired of the headman if
he thought the doctor of his community would care to
receive one or two English scalpels such as I produced
from my pocket for his inspection.

Apparently taken by surprise at my question the chief

THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS 185

replied, " No doubt he would ; but here he is, let us
ask him," and there, at last, stood before us a native
surgeon, the nature of his calling revealed. Quick as
thought we pressed home our advantage. Explaining
to the somewhat disconcerted doctor that the fame of
the practitioners of the Aures had induced us to travel
so far from our native land to learn something of their
methods, that no one need fear that his name would
be disclosed to the authorities if he should supply us
with details of his art and that, even if (as the doctor
doubtless believed) the surgery of Europe was in a
deplorable condition, English cutlery, in the form of
such instruments as we had brought with us, was of a
quality unobtainable in the hills, we persuaded our
newly found friend to accept a few presents from our
medical stores, and to give us our first glimpse of the
work of the surgeons of the Aures. Delighted at the
good fortune which seemed at last to be smiling upon
our efforts, we spared no trouble to ingratiate ourselves
with this the first practitioner we met, so that when the
time arrived for us to leave his village in the spring of
1913, we had already seen something of his work,
we had obtained from him all the instruments necessary
for performing the operation of the trepan and, most
important of all, we had persuaded him not only to
continue the instruction he had given us during the
following winter but also to promise us introductions
to some of his colleagues in the hills. Thus, from a
lucky and unexpected beginning, we were able to inau-
gurate our researches into Shawia medicine and surgery
with a very fair prospect of success, for subsequent ex-
peditions were to bring us into contact with most, if not
all, of the leading practitioners of the Aures, from whom
we obtained later on a fund of information as to their

186 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

methods and a collection of instruments, numbering
more than one hundred and fifty in all, of which some
sixty representative examples may be found in the Pitt-
Rivers Museum at Oxford to-day.

Those who practise the healing art in the fastnesses
of the Aures, while lacking all modern instruction in
medicine and surgery, can scarcely be termed untrained,
for the budding practitioner undergoes a long period
of apprenticeship to some established doctor, almost
invariably a relative of his own, before he commences
to make a livelihood by his art.

Thus for generations sons have learned from their fathers
the craft which the family has followed for years uncounted,
to pass on their knowledge to their children and so keep
alive the mediaeval surgery and medicine which we shall
find is practised in parts of Algeria to this day. Working
with the most primitive of tools, saws, drills, scalpers,
probes, cauteries, etc., cast from the roughest iron by
the silversmiths of the mountains, the Shawia surgeon
employs no anaesthetic to diminish the sufferings of
his patients, to whose natural toughness he must owe
much of the success which he undoubtedly achieves.
The patient — we might well say the victim — is held down
by a number of assistants, his groans notwithstanding,
and the surgeon wreaks his will upon him, relying, as he
claims, upon the delicacy of his touch to reduce to a
minimum the suffering his operations must necessarily
cause.

But for all the crudity of his methods and the rough
nature of his tools the Shawia surgeon can certainly
point to some very remarkable results of his work.

The cases of trepanning, already referred to as having
first drawn attention to the existence of real surgery
in the hills, furnish excellent examples of what has been

THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS 187

and is being done. The frequency with which they
have been noted is extraordinary.

In a stony country, among quick-tempered and vin-
dictive natives, blows on the head requiring the removal
of a piece of damaged bone from the skull are certain
to be far from uncommon, but the Shawia surgeons
appear to delight in this operation more than in such
others as they can perform and, therefore, it is probably
resorted to more frequently than is really necessary,
while two French writers, Doctors Malbot and Verneau,
many years ago recorded a case which had come before
them of a living woman who had actually allowed a
piece of bone to be removed from her skull in order to
substantiate a fictitious charge of assault which she wished
to prefer against her husband !

This oft-performed operation of the trepan may be
chosen for description as providing an excellent example
of the methods employed by the Shawia surgeons of
the Aures.

Let the reader imagine the interior of an ordinary dark
and dirty stone hut, such as we have already described.
In a corner of it, upon a heap of mats, rugs or old
sacks, lies the patient, surrounded by friends who have
come in to help the surgeon, awaiting in his own home
the arrival of the practitioner who has been summoned
from some neighbouring village to attend him, for by
no means every hamlet can boast of a doctor among
its inhabitants. A fire glows upon the hearth tended
by some of the women of the family, others of whom are
busy tearing up strips of cotton dress material to serve
as bandages, preparing bowls of water or, if they be
skilled in the requirements of a Shawia sick-room, melting
the butter and honey which the doctor will almost certainly
require for his dressings.

188 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Presently the great man arrives accompanied by one
or more of his pupils.

A preliminary examination having shown him that
an immediate operation should be performed, the doctor
produces from a leathern wallet provided with several
pockets, which he is wearing slung over his shoulder
beneath his cloak, the few simple instruments he will
require and, selecting the one with which he will com-
mence his task, a scalping iron with a circular cutting
edge some two inches in diameter very much resembling
a large wad-punch such as is used by gunsmiths in England,
he proceeds to heat it in the fire until it glows red-hot
when, his assistants holding the patient in position,
he applies it firmly to the scalp over the seat of the
injury, the iron searing its way down to the bone, after
which he removes by means of its red-hot edge the piece
of scalp thus burnt round, the hot iron preventing the
flow of blood which the use of a cold instrument would
have caused.

This done he takes a drill, on the blade of which a
couple of " shoulders " or projections are designed to
guard against excessive penetration, and proceeds at once
to bore a hole in the skull which may completely pierce
it, should the surgeon consider it necessary to provide
an outlet for any haemorrhage which may have taken
place beneath the bone, or which, in some cases, is drilled
only partly through the skull in order to afford a starting-
point for the saw. The European spectator will note
when the surgeon commences to use his drill that not
only does he seem to disregard even the most elementary
principles of surgical cleanliness as understood in Europe,
but that he does not even attempt to wash his instruments
before use.

I have frequently questioned Shawia doctors upon this

SHAWIA SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS.

1. Scalper. 2. Drill. 3. Saws.

4. Elevator. 5. Retractor. 6. Dental forceps.

A DEMONSTRATION OF SPLINTING.

To face p. 188.

THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS 189

point, and have always received the reply that they
clean their instruments after use only, and then merely
by washing them in any water, cold or hot, which may
be available.

The hole having been drilled into his skull, the patient
will often be left to recover from the treatment he has
undergone until the following day, when the doctor will
return to continue the operation. During the next
stage of the proceedings the surgeon applies to the hole
he has made a small and often very coarse iron saw, the
blade of which is usually flattened and turned down
at right angles to the handle at its farther end, the end
thus turned down being serrated with a number of roughly
filed teeth. But the saw is used with great care, and
only a very little work is done with it by most practi-
tioners upon the first occasion of its use, the operation
being recommenced daily until all of the bone to be
removed has been sawn round, when it is raised by means
of a small iron instrument resembling a screw-driver
(I have found a European tool of this description in use
by a Shawia for the purpose) and subsequently removed
with the aid of iron retractors or hooks.

Upon some occasions so little use is made of the saw
upon each daily visit of the doctor that one of the most
successful practitioners I have met with frequently takes
a fortnight or more to cut round a piece of bone as large
as a halfpenny, his object being to reduce to a minimum
the strain to which he must necessarily cause the sufferer
to submit.

An operation having been completed, a dressing of
honey, butter, and certain powdered herbs is applied
to the part, which is then covered with a pad of sheep's
wool held in place by dirty strips of dress material
provided by the patient's household.

190 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Such is the operation of the trepan as performed by
one of my native surgeon friends and indeed, with very
slight modifications, by all the practitioners I have met
with in the Aures.

Without attempting the wellnigh impossible task
of deciding what percentage of success attends the Shawia
surgeon or discussing further the various cases of head
operations, and they are many, which came to my
notice in the hills, I will merely give one definite example
of recovery, that of the first such case I met with.

The patient was a youth who had received a violent
blow from some such implement as a stone, or a club,
or whose injury may have resulted from a fall upon a
hillside ; when I saw him in 1913, the portion of his skull
to be removed had been but half sawn away, and he was
suffering, in addition, from a fractured bone in the leg.

When I returned to the Aures a year later I found
the lad in an apparently excellent state of health, I saw
the scar of the operation, and I procured from the
surgeon the fragment of bone removed from his head,
which fragment, together with others I have collected,
may now be seen in the Pitt-Rivers Museum with the
instruments used in its removal. While the operation
of the trepan is one which is performed with remarkable
frequency in the fastnesses of the Aures, it is by no means
the only one which the Shawia surgeons are capable
of undertaking with success.

Not only do most of them carefully remove bone that
has been injured by, let us say, gunshot wounds from the
limbs, but some of them have succeeded in replacing
such bone by pieces cut fresh from the limbs of animals
although, curiously enough, no attempt is made to replace
bone removed by trepanning, the skin of the scalp, re-
forming over the aperture, being the only covering deemed

THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS 191

necessary for the hole in the skull. There can be no
doubt that the wiry constitutions of the Shawia do much
to help their surgeons to success.

To any one unused to a life of hardship it may well
seem incredible that the human frame can stand the
appalling suffering which the operations of the Shawia
surgeons must inflict ; at the risk of harrowing my
reader's feelings, therefore, I will describe a scene I
witnessed in 1920 as an example of the treatment the
native can and does endure.

I was invited by a surgeon well known and much
respected over a wide area of country, who had come
to regard me in the light of a pupil, to accompany him
to a neighbouring village to see a case which was causing
him much anxiety.

We found the patient lying upon the usual bundle
of rugs, etc., in a large room in a patch of sunlight stream-
ing through an open door. He was suffering from a
lateral fracture of the knee-cap, the result of a fall in
the mountains, the upper half of the knee-cap having
been drawn upward, and so away from the lower half,
by contraction of the muscles. The problem before
the surgeon was how best to restore the upper fragment
of bone to a position in which it could reunite with
the lower one.

Causing four of the patient's friends who were present
to hold the man still, the doctor attempted without
success to force the bone downwards with his hands,
wringing groans from the sufferer whom he and his
assistants endeavoured to calm by means of rough chaff
which, brutal though it would doubtless be considered
in a European sick-room, certainly produced the desired
effect of causing the patient to forget his agony as soon
as the pressure on his injured limb was removed.

192 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Finding himself unable to move the bone sufficiently
by hand, the surgeon determined to resort to sterner
measures.

Placing the round wooden handle of one of his instru-
ments above the knee-cap, he proceeded to beat the bone
downwards by means of heavy blows of an iron hammer
applied to the wooden handle above it ! The patient,
his face like death, redoubled his previous groans.

At last, after nearly a dozen blows had been struck,
the surgeon found that he had beaten the bone as far
as he wished ; he accordingly smeared some hot pitch
over the surrounding skin, applied (by means of a red-
hot iron) the cautery to which the natives resort upon
every possible occasion and, finally, bandaged the knee
in such a manner as he hoped would retain the two portions
of the broken knee-cap in contact with one another.

This done, he murmured the usual " In the name of
God," and the operation was at an end.

And now I come to the point of my story. Within
five minutes of the application of the cautery (itself,
I should imagine, a most unpleasant experience), after
all the terrible agony he had endured during the slow
pressing and the hammering of his injured knee, the
patient calmly proceeded to join the doctor in a meal
of meat and kuskus, ordering coffee for me, and directing
his women-folk to explain to me the working of a loom
which he had noticed I was looking at, laughing good-
humouredly when I complimented him upon the forti-
tude he displayed !

In very truth a life of hardship has made the Shawfa
hard !

The native practitioner who carried out the treatment
I have just described was very doubtful if it would prove
successful for, although the Shawfa are skilful enough

THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS 193

in the setting of ordinary fractures, for which purpose
they often employ wooden splints shaped with an adze
to fit the limb, they are ignorant of any means of wiring
together the ends of a broken bone when these tend
to separate as in the knee-cap which my friend was
treating.

He was of opinion, therefore, that his hammering
would prove to be useless, and that his patient would
always be lame.

The great majority of the operations performed by
the surgeons of the Aures seem to be those necessitated
by injuries to bones, for the Shawia appear to be very
reluctant to interfere with the internal organs of the body,
with the anatomy of which I believe most of them to
be but ill acquainted.

Such small operations, however, as the application
of cautery, a treatment that is used for almost every
imaginable complaint, the introduction of " setons,"
and " cupping," or blood-letting, they daily perform
in addition to the more serious ones to which I have
referred.

The last-named operation, if the term can be applied
to so simple a performance, is carried out by barbers
and other laymen as well as by surgeons, so that the
traveller, who can witness it in almost any village he
visits, must not jump to the conclusion that he has
caught a Shawia practitioner in the act of pursuing his
calling, a mistake which I made in the beginning of
my researches, and so undergo the disappointment which
will follow when he discovers that the operation is
performed everywhere by laymen, often in the street,
with no attempt at secrecy whatever.

" Cupping " is usually carried out by making a
number of small incisions in the back of the patient's

13

194 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

neck, a small tin cup being then pressed over these
incisions from which the blood is induced to flow freely
into it by means of suction, applied by the mouth of
the doctor to a tube attached to the cup for this purpose,
the tube being stopped up when the flow has started in
order to maintain something approaching a vacuum
in the cup. The extraction of teeth seems to be carried
out as much or more by the jewellers and smiths of the
mountains as by the doctors themselves, the forceps
employed, not at all unlike in principle the modern
instrument with which many of us are only too familiar,
being furnished with handles bent up at the end to afford
a firmer grip.

In a country in which chairs of any sort are unknown
in native dwellings, the dentist, amateur or professional,
often carries out his work in the street, the patient sitting
upon the ground, his head between the knees of the
torturer whose shoulders sway to and fro in the exertion
of loosening and removing some particularly obstinate
stump.

On the whole the teeth of the Shawia are good, but
almost any jeweller, if asked whether he can wield the
forceps with success, will produce for inspection a box
full of ghastly trophies of his prowess as a dentist, and
a large number of natives have applied to us for a cure
for toothache in their very natural reluctance to place
themselves at the mercy of the local doctor, jeweller
or smith.

As regards the fees asked by Shawia surgeons for their
operations, these appear to vary considerably according
to the patient's capacity to pay ; I have known a man
who has received as much as a couple of hundred francs
for an operation on the head, and who has asked another
patient to put two francs in the mosque box to mark

THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS 195

his gratitude for a cure, refusing for himself all remunera-
tion for a similar operation to the one for which he had
received the sum, so large in his estimation, mentioned
above from a richer sufferer ; indeed it would seem that
the doctors of the Aures, while ready enough to accept
high fees from the wealthy, are extremely generous in
their treatment of the poor.

It must not be imagined that surgery alone is practised
in the Aures. On the contrary, all the doctors I have met
with have been general practitioners, carrying on the
medical as well as the surgical side of their profession.

Possessing a very remarkable knowledge of the plant
life of their mountain land, they prepare the majority
of their medicines from wild herbs which they seek among
the rocks or in the gardens beside the streams, drying
them in the shade and reducing them to powder, obtain-
ing extract from them by pounding them when fresh in
a large wooden mortar with a heavy pestle of wood, or
even, in some rare cases, distilling them by means of
a primitive " still," of which I was fortunate enough
to secure a specimen.

Indeed the natives are of opinion that every plant
which grows has its medicinal value if only its correct
uses can be ascertained ; the list, therefore, of local herbs
used by the doctors must be very long indeed, while
such herbs as are not to be found in the mountains,
together with various other material, of which acetate
of copper, sulphur, asafcetida and myrrh are examples,
can be secretly purchased in the tiny native shops of
the larger towns or from dealers in dried medicinal
herbs who can be seen seated upon the ground, with
their wares spread out around them, in the market
place of many a centre of commerce in the neighbourhood
of the hills.

196 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

It is not my purpose here to deal in any detail with
all the various operations and forms of treatment
carried out by the Shawia practitioners of the Aures ;
I have attempted to describe some of the surgery I have
observed among them to the History Section of the
Royal Society of Medicine in London, and I hope some
day to publish in full the results of my work among the
doctors in the hills, the now very numerous notes upon the
practice of medicine and drugs, as well as upon surgery,
which we have been lucky enough to acquire ; but the
reader may well ask one question to which I will
endeavour to supply an answer, " Whence is derived
the healing art as practised in the Aures to-day ? "

By the instruments used by the Shawia surgeons, by
the drugs employed in their treatment of disease and,
especially, by the Arabic books to which the natives from
time to time refer in cases which perplex them, we are
driven to the conclusion that the healing art of eastern
Algeria entered that country in the wake of the Moham-
medan religion ; that is to say that Shawia, who embraced
that religion and undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca,
which it prescribes for all the faithful to whom the task
is possible, in days gone by spent some time in the study
of medicine and surgery in such centres of mediaeval
learning as Tunis or Cairo or even more distant cities
of the Moslem world, and that they there acquired a
knowledge of thirteenth-century Arab medicine and
surgery which they have passed on by oral tradition from
father to son in their families until it has been found in
existence, little modified by the lapse of time, in the heart
of the Aures to-day. These families whose ancestors
introduced the healing art into the hills and whose members
still follow the medical profession are, curiously perhaps,
not regarded as holy or maraboutic, nor arc they in any

DRUG SELLER IN A MAEKET.

DRESSING A FINGER IN THE STREET.

To face p. 196.

THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS 197

way to be confused with the charlatans, the writers of
charms and the sorceresses, whom we have already found
to exist in comfort upon the credulity of a naturally
superstitious race.

Nevertheless, with medicine in a state similar to that
existing in parts of Europe seven centuries ago, it is not
surprising to find that professional doctors employ certain
forms of treatment which are obviously magical in origin,
and that magicians recommend others which may even
reasonably be expected to produce the desired results.
Thus a well-known Shawia surgeon has informed me that
one eye of the owl is permanently wakeful while the other
eye is sleepy.

In order to ascertain which is the wakeful eye the two
are placed in a bowl of water, whereupon the sleepy
one sinks to the bottom, leaving the wakeful eye afloat
upon the surface.

The latter, my Shawia friend asserts, is a valuable
charm to be worn around the neck by persons of a sleepy
disposition, while the sleepy eye should be so worn by
those who suffer from insomnia.

Further examples of the magical value of sundry
materials employed by professional doctors are to be
found in the use of earth as a dressing because " as
we are sprung from the earth it must, of necessity, be
good for us," and the wearing of the paw of a porcupine
by young mothers as a preventative against soreness
of the breast, a practice which is recommended even
by doctors who enjoy a wide reputation for their surgical
and medical skill.

On the other hand a magician, possessed of no know-
ledge of practical medicine whatever, once explained
to me as follows, the cause of epidemics of disease and
the measures he recommends to combat them.

198 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

The epidemics are caused by whole armies of invisible
" jenoun," or demons, who, invading a village in their
thousands, strike down the inhabitants, spreading whole-
sale slaughter as they go.

The only wise course for the people to follow, according
to the magician, is to abandon the unequal struggle
against their supernatural foes and to flee to the pine
woods of the higher slopes of the Aures, whither the
" jenoun " will not dare to pursue them owing to their
supposed dread of the smell of the pine tree, small pieces
of which are often worn as charms against illness by
the Shawia.

It would seem from these instances that the magician
is sometimes as scientific in the remedies he recommends
as the real doctors are occasionally the reverse, indeed
among a people still in a primitive state of culture the
exact border line between medicine and magic is almost
impossible to define, for who, bearing in mind that faith-
healing has a powerful hold upon many people in com-
munities such as our own, will care to deny that even
the wearing of written amulets, so implicitly believed
in by the natives, may produce a beneficial effect in
some cases among the Shawia ?

CHAPTER X
THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR

BISKRA — A DESERT JOURNEY — OUR RECEPTION AT ZERIBET EL WED

HORSES — KHANGA SIDI NADJI — A MODEL VILLAGE — JOURNEY TO
OULDJA — A PREHISTORIC OLIVE PRESS — DOMESTIC LIFE AMONG THE
SHAWIA — CHEBLA — VISIT TO KHEIRANE — THE CLIFF VILLAGE OF
DJELLAL — WE FINISH OUR WORK AT TABERDGA — A ROAD THROUGH
THE MOUNTAINS.

NOW that we had traversed the western and central
valleys of the Aures, in order to complete, as far as
possible, our survey of the land of the Shawia the necessity
arose to undertake a journey from south to north up the
valleys beneath the great ridge of the Djebel Cherchar,
which, as we have seen, forms the eastern bastion of the
massif, so that we might compare the arts and crafts,
manners and customs of their inhabitants with those we
had already attempted to examine further to the west.

In order to reach a suitable starting-point at the foot
of the hills for such an expedition, we found ourselves
obliged to travel some fifty miles or more over the desert
to the east of Biskra, to which centre, therefore, we
descended by train to prepare for the journey which lay
before us.

During our stay at Biskra to rest after our wanderings
amid the luxuries of its civilization in the glorious climate
of the spring, so delightful after the rapid changes of
temperature we had experienced in the Aures, we found
plenty to occupy our time.

199

200 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

" The Queen of the Zibans," as the place is called,
while scarcely a spot in which to attempt a study of
native life owing to the mixture of races to be found in
it, is a centre to which so many natives, Shawia from the
Aures as well as nomads from the great desert, come
in to make purchases, that we were continually encoun-
tering old friends from remote camps and hamlets who
were always glad to see us and to supply us with the
latest gossip of the little world in which they moved.

Indeed, we could scarcely walk a yard from our hotel
without being carried off to consume coffee by some one
whom we had met in the desert or the hills, so that our
holiday from research work among the natives really
resembled that of the oft-quoted " busman," but, never-
theless, our surroundings in a centre of civilization proved
restful enough.

After our usual practice of turning in almost at dusk
in order to save our stock of candles, we took a childish
delight in sitting up late at the Casino listening to the
strains of an orchestra, whose music appeared divine to
ears accustomed to the wailing of the oboe and the
monotonous beating of the drum ; while to sit in the
warmth of the early evening outside a well-appointed cafe
and consume an apiritif to the strains of a band seemed
to us the very height of luxury ; and, even though we
may prefer the glories of nature unrestrained to the finest
efforts of the gardener, we experienced an extraordinary
feeling of delight in roaming beneath the palms in the
scrupulously tidy and well-ordered garden of the Chateau
Landon, the neatness of which afforded such a contrast
to the surroundings we had left behind us in the hills.

It is not my intention to attempt any description of
Biskra. This has been attempted, and, as far as pen
can achieve it, accomplished by so many writers of guide-

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR201

books and travellers, not to mention a well-known author
of fiction, that my halting pen can add nothing to their
word-pictures of the great oasis and its surroundings,
indeed, an account of life in a modern tourist resort
scarcely falls within the scope of a work that aims at
nothing more than to bring remoter regions to the notice
of the traveller and to throw some light upon the daily
lives and customs of natives unspoiled by contact with
the outer world. I will pass over, therefore, the incidents
of our various visits to Biskra and invite the reader to
accompany us upon our journey in the desert to Zeribet
el Wed, the headquarters of the nomad Arabs of the
Zab Chergui district of the Sahara, whence we were to
turn northward to the hills.

During our previous travels we had become acquainted
with the Kai'd of this area, a descendant of the great
family from Barika to which, as we have seen, the people
of Menaa still pay tribute in their gratitude for the
foundation of their village, and he, upon our meeting
him in Biskra just before our departure for his country,
kindly asked us to stay with him at Zeribet before going
up into the mountains, and offered to send us from his
own oasis the couple of camels we should require for
our baggage, thus relieving us of the necessity for
searching for a comparatively reasonable camel owner
within reach of the hotels of Biskra, a search to which
that for a needle in a haystack would seem simple by
comparison. Upon the morning fixed for our departure,
therefore, the camels duly arrived at the time appointed
(a fact which is not so common as to pass unnoticed by
the traveller, and which showed that animals ordered
by a chief are more to be relied upon than some others),
and, having superintended their loading, we sent them
on to the oasis of Sidi Okba in the charge of a mounted

202 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

orderly, whose services the French officer in command
of the military district in which Biskra lies had courteously
placed at our disposal, with orders to await our arrival
by diligence in the evening.

For Sidi Okba lies but a dozen miles to the south-east
of Biskra, and, as we were to spend the first night of our
journey there, we had succumbed to the temptations of
the fleshpots of our hotel, and had decided to commence
our travels by carriage in the afternoon in preference
to riding beside slow-moving camels — a monotonous
experience, as many hundreds of miles of desert travelling
had long since taught me, and one to be avoided when
possible.

An hour or two before sundown, therefore, we drew up
outside a gateway in one of Sidi Okba's narrow sandy
lanes, after rattling over the road from Biskra in the
ramshackle coach which carries the mail, and alighted
at the house of the sheikh, himself absent at Biskra,
who had been requested by the French authorities to
provide us with accommodation for the night.

Finding that a room equipped with European furniture
had been got ready for us, and that supper was in course
of preparation, we had nothing to do for ourselves. We
accordingly set off in company of one of the elders of the
village council to renew our acquaintance with the place
formed many years ago, and to pay a visit, together with
my customary mite, to the tomb of the warrior saint of
Islam, Sidi Okba ben Nan, the first Arab invader of the
Barbary States, who, slain by the warlike Berbers of the
Aures, sleeps his last sleep beneath a " kouba " attached
to the mosque which bears his name, a mosque more
visited by Europeans, perhaps, than any other in Algeria,
for few tourists are allowed to stay for any time at
Biskra without being taken to inspect it. The mosque

THE VALLFA7S OF THE D.7EBEL CHERCHAR 203

itself, though larger and better built than is usually
the case in Saharan places of worship, has little of real
interest, other than its historical associations, to offer
to any one who has already visited a number of such
buildings, though the view from its minaret over vast
stretches of the desert with a magnificent panorama of
the Aur£s to the north glowing beneath the rays of the
setting sun, kept us engrossed in the occupation of picking
out many familiar peaks and landmarks until the
approach of the short twilight warned us that the time
had arrived to return to our room in the sheikh's house
to rest, in view of an early start upon the morrow.

Leaving Sidi Okba behind us we rode eastward over
a level desert of dry earth, in which sand was practically
non-existent, to the small oasis of Ai'n Naga, ten or twelve
miles distant, the glorious views of the Aures always
visible to the north, while the flat landscape of the
desert around shimmered in the glare of a powerful sun
before us and to the south. The weather now, at the
end of March, was distinctly warm for travelling in the
open plains, where no shade of any sort is obtainable
between the oases ; we were glad enough, therefore, of
the protection afforded by a couple of cheap topees,
bought in Biskra, as we moved over the arid wastes of
the Sahara towards the few palms of Ai'n Naga, a mere
cluster of huts amid some extremely unfertile looking
gardens, above which but an insignificant number of
date-palms reared their heads skyward, their long
branch-like leaves motionless in the quiet of the early
afternoon as we rode up to the " bordj " which had been
built among them for the convenience of passing officers.

Here, although there is no resident guardian who can
prepare a meal for the wayfarer, we found that ample
provision had been made for us by the Kaid of Zeribet,

204 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

who had arrived before us to spend a few days in the
oasis which lay within his borders, and had arranged for
a meal to be sent in from some hut or tent close by, so
that we had only to wander about Ain Naga for an hour
or two, ample time in which to become thoroughly familiar
with all the attractions of the place, and then turn into
our blankets spread upon the floor of an upper room
in a solid well-constructed building.

The third and last stage of our march to Zeribet el
Wed was considerably longer than either of the preceding
days' journeys, but the heat of the day was tempered
by a cool breeze and we rode a couple of willing mules,
who got over the ground at a sufficient pace to bring us
to our destination well before darkness set in, so that
we suffered no discomforts whatever on the way. Indeed,
this desert journey compared most favourably with
many of the long days of marching, with nothing in
view save the dreary level of the horizon, which I had
endured in the far south in years gone by, for here, but
a few miles south of the Aures, a fine panorama of moun-
tain scenery, of barren ruddy rocks reflecting in many
wonderful shades the rays of the scorching sun, was
always in view as we travelled, and a mirage, invisible
scarcely for a moment, produced the effect of sheets of
glassy water a few hundreds of yards before us, which,
ever receding as we advanced, kept up their illusion
until, coming to the top of some imperceptibly rising
ground, we descried the mud huts of Zeribet el Wed
and the summits of its palm trees just showing above the
banks of the stream which waters its oasis. Of native
life we had seen practically nothing by the way.

A few nomad women drawing water at a well a little
distance from the track, whom we had asked to supply
our animals with a drink, rewarding them with a handful

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 205

of matches and such information as they demanded as
to our names, ages, number of children, their sexes, ages,
etc., in short, the usual " particulars " required by-
native women of a European stranger, and sundry
nomad families, passing with their worldly possessions
carried upon their slow-moving camels, were the only
human beings we encountered between the oases at which
we had halted for the night.

At Zeribet, however, we were to see and, in turn, be
inspected by a host of the Arabs of the plains.

Hospitably entertained by the Raid's cousin in the
absence of our host himself, we were lodged in apart-
ments in the chief's house, which might well have been
removed in their entirety from a neatly furnished hotel,
and so long as we remained beneath the roof of the
great man his official uniformed orderlies, of whom he
employed about half a dozen, would allow no intrusion
upon our privacy, but the moment we proceeded to
wander about the village unattended by an orderly we
were almost literally mobbed. It appears that travellers,
other than passing officials, do not frequent Zeribet, and
that the vast majority of its women-folk, the greater
number of whom pass their lives in the tents of the
Sahara, and pay but an occasional visit to the oasis, had
never previously beheld a white woman ; their curiosity,
therefore, quite got the better of them, and, being nomads
and so freer from restraint than their sisters of the towns,
of Arab race though they were, they crowded round us
directly we appeared to catch a glimpse of my wife.

Young and old, they rushed to look at her, even
elderly matrons literally fighting their way through the
throng, hurling aside boys and girls who impeded their
way in their eagerness to obtain a closer view, and ques-
tioning those who had already inspected her as they

206 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

passed, the motley crowd, in which a number of men
was added to the women and the children, arousing such
a commotion in the lanes inches deep in sand that we
momentarily expected suffocation.

Eventually one of the women would contrive to get
my wife into her house, whither I usually accompanied
her, for I was allowed into an extraordinary number of
dwellings, considering that Zeribet is an Arab village,
whereupon all her relations and friends as well, I should
imagine, as even her most distant " bowing acquain-
tances " would troop in after us to watch our hostess
proudly doing the honours of her home to a " Roumiya,"
a European woman, who had been so unexpectedly
called upon to play a very good imitation of the part of
the freak in a circus procession.

This sort of reception, which was accorded to us every
time we wandered around the village, was by no means
such as we had expected in an oasis like Zeribet, which
lies not more than fifty miles from Biskra, and could
even be reached in a car, for the track leading to it lies,
as we have seen, over desert devoid of sand, though the
innumerable little mounds, but a few inches high, with
which the ground is covered would necessitate careful
driving, and render the journey by no means luxurious.
Cars, however, have certainly sometimes reached the oasis
conveying military officers upon their tours of duty.

Zeribet el Wed, or " The enclosure of the river," lies
a few hundred yards to the north-west of the junction
of two streams which flow into the desert from the hills ;
the Wed Guechtan from the eastern side of Amar
Khraddou, and the Wed el Arab, which, flowing through
the valley upon the western side of the Djcbel Cherchar,
emerges from the hills through the defile of Khanga Sidi
Nadji, a dozen miles to the north.

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 207

In the depression formed by these streams are situated
the date-groves of Zeribet, their heads scarcely appearing
above the level of the surrounding desert to the traveller
approaching from the west. While a certain amount of
irrigation is carried out in the gardens by means of the
system of " seggias " employed in the hills, the presence
of a large number of shallow wells among them enables
another method to be used, namely watering by means
of the " shadoof," a method extremely common in the
Sahara, but not to be found in the mountain districts
I have already described. The "shadoof" consists in
a pillar of brick or palm-trunk, standing upright beside
the well, to the top of which a long pole is so attached
that its upper end can be pulled down to the mouth of
the well and, by means of a weight consisting of a large
stone attached to its shorter lower end, raised automatic-
ally to its vertical position again when the pressure which
has so pulled it down is relaxed.

The bucket of goatskin is attached by a cord to the
top of the pole, and is pulled down to lower it into the
well, the weight of the stone raising the pole, and so
drawing the bucket to the surface, when the native who
is using the contrivance allows it to do so by relaxing
his hold on the cord.

If the water so drawn up is intended for the irrigation
of the garden it is at once poured from the bucket into
a small trough, whence miniature canals, or " seggias,"
convey it to the part it is desired to flood. The village
of Zeribet el Wed requires no careful description here.

Its houses of mud brick, its narrow winding lanes, its
cafes, and its tiny native shops, to which the nomads of
the neighbouring camps send in for their simple require-
ments, are all such as can be found in any oasis of the
northern desert, for example, El Kantara, Djemora, or

208 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Branis, and, indeed, its inhabitants should not properly
be studied at Zeribet, but rather in their real homes,
the tents of the Sahara ; for Zeribet, like Djemora, is
the headquarters of a wandering people, and not the
residence of any considerable number of Arabs.

The district of the Zab Chergui, of which Zeribet is
the chief oasis, is noted for its horses, large numbers of
the best animals in the northern desert having been
bred in the camps around.

The French, therefore, are in the habit of sending two
or three valuable stallions there for a part of the year
to encourage the Arabs in their taste for horse-breeding,
with the result that some very fine animals indeed are
sometimes to be seen in the hands of the natives, the
pedigrees of which the owners hold in writing and proudly
display to any one who delights them by taking an
interest in their horses.

Our stay at Zeribet el Wed beneath the hospitable
roof of its Kaid, who, with the help of his " Khalifa,"
or second-in-command, his cousin, entertained us most
royally, was thoroughly enjoyable, but we were already
nearing the end of March, and we had a considerable
journey to perform through the region of the Djebel
Cherchar before the weather should become unbearable
in the lower country, and unpleasantly hot even on the
plateau to the north of the Aures, we therefore moved
on after several days at Zeribet to begin once more our
work among the Berbers.

We rode out from Zeribet upon our short journey to
Khanga Sidi Nadji, a large oasis at the foot of the moun-
tains, in the early afternoon, beneath a sun which made
us rejoice more than ever in our newly-acquired topees,
and following, more or less closely, the course of the
Wed cl Arab wc headed for the small oasis of Liana,

L^XU

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 209

just before reaching which we passed upon our right
the tiny hamlet of Bades, built upon a little mound in
the level desert, a mound said to consist of the ruins of
a former town, for, according to El Bekri, the mediaeval
Arab geographer, in the eleventh century Bades was a
place of considerable importance and boasted of two
fortresses.

At Liana we halted for a few minutes to partake of
coffee in the house of its sheikh, and we were joined by
a uniformed orderly from the Kai'd of Khanga Sidi Nadji,
into whose area we had now passed, who was to escort
us to the home of his master.

After leaving Liana we forded the Wed el Arab, and
continued along its left or eastern bank until we joined
an excellent track, quite passable at this point by wheeled
traffic, leading us to the oasis of Khanga at the point
at which it turned to the north-east towards the eastern
valley beneath the Djebel Cherchar ; a track to which
I shall have to refer at end of this chapter.

Before reaching Khanga we entered a valley at the
foot of the hills in which the oasis lies, and finally emerged
from its palm groves to obtain a beautiful view of the
village itself, lying at the foot of a steep hillside on the
eastern bank of the Wed el Arab, its cluster of houses
overlooked by the tall well-built minaret of a mosque.
Even as we rode for the first time through its winding
streets towards the residence of its chief we could not
fail to notice an air of cleanliness and absence of decay,
which seemed to mark it as a place apart from any Algerian
village we had seen, and, as we pulled up in a large open
square near the Ka'id's house and were received by the
chief himself, surrounded by well-dressed members of
his family, we realized that here at Khanga we had found
no ordinary settlement of the desert and the hills.

14

210 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

The Ka'id received us with the quiet hospitality of
manner and a dignity belonging to a bygone age, such
as we had come to expect from a member of one of the
ancient families of Algeria, and conducted us to a delightful
three-roomed dwelling, furnished in the European style
with everything we could wish for, even for the longest
of visits, a house used by the Administrator of the
district in the cool weather, which we approached through
a small but charming garden, beneath whose palms we
at once noticed the rare luxury of flowers, and around
which a high wall of mud brick safeguarded our privacy
from the well-meant but sometimes wearisome attentions
of inquisitive natives. Here, indeed, we were in luxury !

A delightful climate, not yet too hot to be pleasant, a
charming residence, and a beautiful garden in which the
sound of running water from a " seggia " almost banished
from our recollection the very existence of a desert, the
quiet peace of the whole atmosphere of the place caused
us first to wonder whether or not we were in the land
of dreams, and then, as we thought of the cold of the
high passes, the glare of the Sahara, the draughts and
the fleas of remote Shawia hamlets, to ask one another
if we could ever bring ourselves to leave the place and
wander again in the mountains !

The whole of our stay at Khanga Sidi Nadji consisted
of one great round of entertainment, for not only the
Ka'id of the place, but also his cousin, the Kai'd of Ouldja,
whose territory we were soon to visit, inhabited the
village, as did a number of their grown-up sons and
nephews, members of the great and respected Arab family
of Bel Hacine, each of whom vied with his relations in
the task of entertaining us and showing us everything
of interest they could think of.

Although the village of Khanga Sidi Nadji consists

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 211

only of a number of mud-brick houses amid its groves
of twenty thousand palms, it seems well deserving of
more than passing notice, for it is a fine example of a
prosperous settlement, founded, enlarged, and almost
entirely maintained by the great family which has held
sway over it for centuries gone by, a member of which
is its Kai'd to-day.

Surrounded by a wall, in reality consisting mainly of
the continuous outer walls of some of its houses and
gardens, the village can be entered by four gateways,
situated one at each point of the compass, of which the
great wooden doors are closed by night. The streets,
narrow and tortuous, but cleaner than those of any other
native village I am acquainted with, lie between rows of
dwellings, most of them built of mud brick, among which
a certain amount of stone work is to be found, especially
in the lower floors of the houses, most of which boast
an upper story, the stones being as a rule very neatly
trimmed.

The general impression produced by the houses is that
such care had been expended upon their upkeep that the
old are scarcely distinguishable from the new, a state of
things which could not exist for a moment in an Algerian
community in which some influential chief was not
constantly in residence, taking a personal pride in the
maintenance of his village, and insisting upon, or sub-
scribing to, its necessary repairs.

In the heart of the village are to be found the residences
of the Kaids of Khanga and of Ouldja, with those of
their relations, large well-built structures of mud brick,
the house of the former chief lying next door to the
mosque, with which it is connected by cloisters, the arches
of which are of a solidity rarely to be found in the desert,
and quite unknown in the hills. The history of this

212 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

mosque and, indeed, that of the whole village for its
three centuries of existence is simply that of the Bel
Hacine family, which history the existing Kai'd never
tired of discussing with us, for, proud as he is of his ancient
lineage, he was most anxious that we should learn and
appreciate all that his ancestors, whose " tree " he wrote
out for us, had done for the worldly as well as for the
spiritual welfare of the place.

The village having been founded some three hundred
years ago by the Bel Hacines, and named after Sidi Nadji,
one of their ancestors (the word " Khanga " signifying
" gorge "), its existing mosque was erected at a later
date by craftsmen from Tunis, with which city the family
had some connection, being friendly with its Bey. The
employment of Tunisian architects and builders has
resulted in the construction of a mosque which is superior
in beauty and solidity to any other I have seen in south-
eastern Algeria. Its arches are evenly and truly built,
its doors are neatly carved, and its cloisters, already re-
ferred to, built of small bricks, though of no great size,
appeared to be representative of an architecture much
in advance of that usually to be found in the Sahara.

The family mausoleum is situated beneath a dome
in a building opening out from the main hall or chapel
of the mosque, and in it repose all members of the Bel
Hacine clan, women as well as men, who have passed away
since its construction.

Texts or mural tablets, their characters executed in
relief, are to be seen over each of the main doorways,
a similar tablet containing a message from a former Bey
of Tunis, who had visited Khanga, being displayed upon
the wall inside the mosque. In addition to maintaining
the usual officials of a Mohammedan place of worship,
the Bel Hacines employ a teacher of religion and law for

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 213

the instruction of those who would study there, and have
provided a library of works for use in this " zawia," for
the family is maraboutic as well as old, and accordingly
keeps up one of those establishments which, as we have
seen, are commonly the residences of the saintly families
of Algeria. But, besides looking after the spiritual
well-being of their neighbours less plentifully supplied
with this world's goods than themselves, the succeeding
chieftains of the Bel Hacine line have made it a point
of honour each to add something to the temporal pros-
perity of the village or its oasis ; thus some have con-
structed new " seggias " to bring more land under culti-
vation by means of the waters of the Wed el Arab, one
of the most considerable rivers of the hills, others have
planted extensive gardens, while all appear to have carried
on the family tradition of philanthropy, not perhaps
quite untempered with profit to themselves, from genera-
tion to generation in the past. As the oasis grew larger
and the wealth of the village increased, it was found
necessary, in the days before the arrival of the French,
to provide some means of defence against any jealous
rivals of its ruling family, or the " goums " of the maraud-
ing nomad tribes of the Sahara. A fort was, therefore,
erected on the crest of the ridge overlooking the oasis
from the east, its ruins clearly indicating that Tunisian
builders, such as had constructed the mosque, had been
employed upon the task. This stronghold of very solid
brick, entered by one arched gateway from the south,
offered shelter in its courtyard to the ordinary inhabitants
of the village, while it afforded accommodation, in the
shape of rooms in an inner building, to the members of
the saintly family which had caused its construction.
So progressive were the Bel Hacines at this period of
their history that they even armed their fortress with

214 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

cannon, weapons which, I believe, eventually caused the
destruction of the place, for a Bey of Constantine,
under whom the Ka'ids of the country nominally held
sway, when upon a visit to Khanga was so impressed by
the strength and armament of its defences that by political
persuasion, rather than by force, he contrived to bring
about their demolition, fearful, no doubt, of the conse-
quences to his own authority should he permit his
subordinates to indulge in the possession of fortresses
equipped with guns. It was a genuine pleasure to us
to wander around the oases of Khanga, its village, and
its mosque, accompanied by the Kai'd, listening to his
description of the constructive policy of his ancestors,
observing the various improvements he himself had carried
out or intended to undertake, or standing by while the
chief inquired into the welfare of some individual among
his people for all the world like some old-time British
squire passing the time of day with a villager, whose small
affairs would appear to interest him as much as all the
broad acres which he owned.

Until but a few years since the head of the Bel Hacine
family held sway over the very extensive area known as
the Djebel Cherchar, the great ridge of which mountain
was included in his dominions, but during some recent
changes in the administration of the district the authori-
ties decided to divide the large " kaidat " into four smaller
ones, two of which were allotted to members of its former
ruler's clan, the Bel Hacincs to-day holding the posts
of Ka'ids of Khanga Sidi Nadji and of Ouldja, a village
but a few miles up the course of the Wed el Arab to the
north, whose chief, as we have seen, has his residence
at Khanga, the headquarters of his cousin.

When the time approached for us to move on* from
Khanga Sidi Nadji, the mixed Arab and Berber population

" Mk®

1

r%-.**

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■I

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 215

of which rendered it by no means so ideal for our studies
as its comforts, its scenery, and its genial chief had made
it as a resting-place, we were confronted with the choice
of two routes by which we could reach some of the
higher Berber hamlets upon the slopes of the Djebel
Chechar.

One, the excellent track by which we had entered
Khanga, leading beneath the easlern side of the great
ridge to the Shawfa villages of Djellal and Taberdga,
which we desired to visit, though by far the easier path
to follow, had little else to offer us by the way ; the other,
following the rocky valley of the Wed el Arab to Ouldja,
Chebla, and Kheirane in the north, though by no means
so easy, would enable us to see these three Berber hamlets
before turning to the east, climbing the ridge of the
Djebel Cherchar itself, and descending upon Djellal and
Taberdga from the west. Naturally we selected the
latter as affording us better opportunities of seeing more
of native life, and, as for the difficulty or otherwise of
a mountain path, so long as a mule can traverse it so
can the traveller upon its back ; while if the way, as is
very rarely the case, is quite impossible for a mule, then
the wanderer must avoid it altogether, or leave behind
him his baggage, his blankets, and his stores, for these
must be transported upon mule-back in any case, without
which he cannot well stay in the remote hamlets of the
hills.

The Kaid of Ouldja, learning of our decision, at once
sent a message to his village directing that a house be
prepared for us, and, an attack of rheumatism preventing
him from accompanying us in person, he handed us over
to his son, Si Abdelhamed, who was to escort us to
Ouldja and do the honours of the place in his father's
stead. Leaving our delightful house and garden, and

216 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

the families of our hosts, with whose women-folk my wife
had become friendly, we rode out of Khanga to descend
at once into the bed of the Wed el Arab, accompanied
by the Ka'id of Khanga, mounted upon a magnificent
black mare, and Si Abdelhamed, bestriding an equally
magnificent chestnut stallion. The northern limit of
his dominions lying at no great distance up the river,
the chief escorted us towards this point and then, after
cordially inviting us to visit his area again, turned back,
leaving us to continue our way to the gorge, from which
Khanga Sidi Nadji derives the first part of its name,
accompanied by the son of the chief of Ouldja and a
native mounted orderly, who had been sent by the
Administrator of the region to meet us.

At the beginning of our journey we found it necessary
frequently to ford the Wed el Arab, a stream which held
a good deal of water, but whose bed was sufficiently wide
at this point to enable it to be used as a path without
danger of sudden flood.

The country between Khanga Sidi Nadji and Ouldja
is rocky and extremely barren, the gorge, by no means
so deep or imposing as the others which we had traversed
farther to the west, lying between hills of a pale yellow
tint upon which plant life was reduced to a minimum ;
it was, therefore, with a feeling of some relief, after passing
through such a country in the glare of a powerful sun,
that we entered the oasis beside the Wed el Arab of the
little stone-built Shawia village of Tebouia Hamed to
rest for a few minutes on our way.

We were conducted by the headman to a room in which
to partake of coffee and dessert, where we noticed a small
point connected with superstitions that we had never
observed in the other parts of the Aures we had yet
visited. Over the doors and all the windows of the

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 217

apartment were affixed little written charms, unprotected
by any covering of cloth or leather, the object of which
was to prevent the entry of scorpions into the room.

Scorpions are said to be very plentiful in the area of
the Djebel Cherchar during the summer months,
accordingly we found similar charms in every native
house as we progressed, but the pests must be at least
as common farther to the west, where the usual method
of guarding against their bite consists merely in the
wearing of a charm upon the person, certain scribes of
the Aures being belieyed to be capable of writing words
and signs upon a certain kind of bone which, if worn,
will enable the wearer to pick up by hand any scorpion
unharmed.

After but a brief halt at Tebouia we rode on to Ouldja,
our destination, where we found that a hut had been
prepared for us, carpets laid down, and a table provided,
the two latter having been sent on by the Ka'id from
Khanga in the charge of one of his servants, who was to
cook for us during our stay.

The village of Ouldja, its huts of untrimmed stone
situated upon a low spur projecting into the valley of
the Wed el Arab from its eastern side, was obviously of
true Shawia type, but its oasis, which lies beneath it, was
somewhat different to any we had previously seen, for
its trees consisted of about equal numbers of date-palms
and olive trees, growing in the same gardens, to which
a number of other fruit trees were added.

The olive trees were valuable enough to the natives
as they enabled them to produce the oil which is so
much used in cooking in the hills, and concerning the
preparation of which we gleaned some interesting infor-
mation.

In another village, at Beni Ferah to be exact, we had

218 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

noticed a system of bruising the olives in a circular trough
by means of a heavy stone roller, which, drawn by a mule,
moves round and round the trough, pivoting upon a
revolving wooden post in the centre ; after which the
bruised olives are boiled and placed in baskets beneath
a massive tree-trunk, one end of which rests upon a ledge
in the wall of the house, while a heavy stone attached to
the other end lends additional weight to the tree, so that
it presses hard upon the baskets beneath it, and thus
causes the oil to exude from the olives. This system has
been found by eminent archaeologists to have existed,
exactly in the state in which we found it, in the time of
the Roman occupation of Algeria, but here, at Ouldja,
we discovered another system of obtaining oil which
must be very much more ancient still, very possibly, it
would seem, dating back to prehistoric times.

The bruising of the olives is carried out by the very
simple process of moving a large stone to and fro upon
them by hand, while, when boiled and placed in their
baskets, they are laid upon one large stone, a woman
then standing upon another slab of rock placed on the
top of the baskets, her weight, as she transfers it from
one foot to the other, giving the pressure required to
cause the oil to flow. Up to the present a pressure of
other work has prevented our searching for a parallel
to this system among the industries of other ancient
peoples, but there can be no doubt that such a simple
method of obtaining oil must be of very great antiquity
indeed, so that we may well presume that a prehistoric
craft, which we noted first at Ouldja, exists to this day
all over the fastnesses of the Djebcl Cherchar. During
our short stay at Ouldja we devoted our time, as usual,
to prying into the native's concerns, an occupation to
which no one seemed in the least to object, and we found

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 219

an opportunity of witnessing a wedding in one of the
very poorest cottages, a ceremony which differed in no
essential detail from others we had seen at Beni Ferah
and elsewhere.

In the Djebel Cherchar, as elsewhere in the Aures, the
sons of wealthy parents frequently marry at an absurdly
early age, a state of single blessedness being looked upon
with disfavour by the Shawia, and also by their Arab
neighbours ; but in poor families, such as the one whose
guests we were at the wedding at Ouldja, the bridegroom,
who must be in a position to maintain his wife, is usually
rather older. After the wedding it is by no means uncom-
mon for the young couple to take up their abode in the
house of the bridegroom's father, in which they are
provided with a separate apartment, the daughter-in-law
becoming the assistant of her husband's mother, turning
her hand to any of the hundred and one tasks which are
the daily lot of the Berber women, her position in the
bosom of her husband's family being rendered less pre-
carious than it might be in a more civilized community
by the fact that her mother-in-law is only too thankful
for her help in the performance of such domestic duties.
If, as time goes on, no olive branches appear in the family
then, indeed, the young wife may well look forward to
the future with dismay, for she will be considered to
have failed in her natural duties and may expect her
husband to divorce her with no more ceremony than if
he were getting rid of an unsatisfactory mule, leaving her
to return, unwanted and disgraced, to the home of her
parents, there to earn her living by her household work,
the object of the sneers of her more fortunate acquain-
tances. But the arrival of a child, especially of a son,
may reasonably be expected to give the girl a new lease
of life as the wife of the man she has married. The event

220 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

itself, so easy as scarcely ever to require the presence of
one of those Shawia doctors, some of whose operations
we have described, is made the occasion of much singing,
dancing, feasting, and other rejoicing should the child
be of the male sex, but is passed over in gloomy silence
on the part of the husband and his relations should a
daughter be born in the household.

When old enough many of the boys are sent to school.
That is to say, they squat in a semi-circle learning, first,
the Arabic characters from little wooden boards (the last
vestige, probably, of the tablets of ancient Rome), or
repeating texts from the Koran in chorus and at such a
pace that evidently no meaning of the texts is considered
so long as their form is acquired.

Education, even in this most elementary form, is not
required by the girls, whose time is fully occupied about
the house, their father often paying but little heed to
them until they reach the age at which suitors may be
expected to seek their hands with pecuniary advantage
to their parent.

The father, however, takes considerably more interest
in his sons. From the age of six onwards they will, by
watching him at his various tasks, learn to help him in
them, for, like the cannibal tribes of Central Africa and
other primitive peoples, the Shawia are very forward
and promising when young, often, it must be confessed,
quite failing as they grow up to fulfil this early promise
owing, no doubt, to the absence of a good native system
of education in the remote hamlets of the hills.

Although we found so ancient a method of olive pressing
as that which I have described still in use at Ouldja, the
other arts and crafts of its Berber people were exactly
similar to those which we have noted in the course of
our journeys in the western Aurcs ; we had merely amplified

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 221

some of our existing information, therefore, when we
moved on from the little village, and, leaving our genial
young host, the Raid's son, to ride back to Khanga,
started over a hilly country towards the village of Chebla
in the territory of the Kai'd of Alieness.

Avoiding the detour which would have been caused by
following the course of the Wed el Arab beside the banks
of which Chebla, like Ouldja, lies, we rode over a very
hilly and barren country in brilliant sunshine, the glare
of which upon the almost naked rocks and steep crumbling
hillsides was untempered by the sight of vegetation
which would have provided a welcome rest to our eyes.

As we surmounted various hillocks that lay in our
path we obtained distant views to the northward of the
wooded slopes of some of the central Aures peaks, but
all around us lay a country as desolate as any part of
the great desert, the ridge of the Djebel Cherchar, its
steep slopes rising wellnigh sheer a few miles distant
to the south-east, wearing no such mantle of woodland
as the hills above the Wed Abdi or Menaa. As we came
in sight of Chebla we noticed beside a brook which had
to be forded before the village could be reached a group
of natives, one of whom was wearing the scarlet cloak of
a Kai'd, and we learned that the chief of the area of
Alieness, whose residence lay upon the other side of the
Djebel Cherchar, had decided to meet us at Chebla and
to make a small tour of his territory in our company.

Having gone through the formality of greeting our
new host and the elders of the village council of Chebla,
who accompanied him, we rode on up the slope on the
summit of which, overlooking a bend in the Wed el Arab,
the hamlet of Chebla stands. Here we found that the
Kai'd had procured a fair-sized house for us to live in,
the property of an orphan boy named Mohammed the

222 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Little, a cheery lad some twelve years old, who became
our companion in our wanderings about the village.

Owing to the fact that Chebla is built upon the more
or less level top of a small hill, rather than upon a narrow
spur from a mountain, there is no lack of space in which
to build ; its houses, therefore, are larger and more
rambling than the cottages of the Rassira canon or the
Wed Abdi, the majority of them boasting a courtyard
and a separate apartment for such animals as goats,
etc., which are accustomed to live indoors in the Aures.

Five rooms, two of them quite large and furnished
with a dais at one end, as well as a small shed to serve as
a stable, opened out from our courtyard, one side of the
yard itself being partly roofed over and separated from
the rest of it by a wall about three feet high to provide
a sheltered corner in which cooking could be carried
on without making a fire in one of the rooms, or in which
the women could weave in hot weather.

The houses, built of untrimmed stone, seemed none
of them to possess an upper floor, and, as they adjoined
one another, their flat roof, devoid of any sort of parapet,
formed a platform by means of which one could walk
all round the village, looking down upon the inhabitants
in their courtyards below.

This, indeed, is actually done, and we ourselves wandered
about the roofs to visit the various friends we made in
the place in a manner which would have scandalized
an Arab, could one have seen us, and probably caused
him to make many totally unjust remarks about the
virtue of the Shawia women and the, to him, outrageous
conduct of their husbands in allowing such behaviour.

The Berbers, as we have seen, are far less strict in their
treatment of their women than the Arabs, yet I have
never seen the housetops used as a sort of promenade

OUR HOUSE AT CHEBLA.

To face p. 223.

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 223

in any of the other districts of the Aures. Upon the
roof of our house, as upon those of most of its neighbours,
stood a line of beehives, covered with pieces of halfa-grass
matting, and protected from the effects of the " evil-
eye " by a gleaming white jawbone of a mule suspended
from the roof below them, for the superstitions of the
Djebel Cherchar appear to be those of the rest of the
Aures.

As soon as we arrived in Chebla the assistance of our
medicine chest was called in for a couple of young men,
both of whom appeared to be suffering from pneumonia,
one of them so ill as to be quite beyond any help we could
give him. In the night following he died, the heart-rending
wails of the women of his family breaking the stillness
of the night as he breathed his last, for the women make
a point of demonstrating their sorrow as much as possible,
uttering piercing cries, and often drawing blood from
their cheeks by tearing them with their nails in a real
or assumed agony of grief.

Our other patient, however, began slowly to improve,
and when we left the village he was, I think, on the road
to recovery, not owing to any medical skill on our part,
but rather to the various little comforts we were able
to find for him, and to the fact that we encouraged him
to make a fight for life, for natives are very apt to resign
themselves to a death which they consider inevitable
even when they are not seriously ill at all.

A good deal of our time at Chebla, when we were not
partaking of the " mechwis " which our host, the Kaid,
placed before us with embarrassing regularity, was spent
in wandering about the gardens in the wide valley on
the other side of the Wed el Arab overlooked by the
village, gardens in which the date-palms of the lower
and more southern villages had given place to fruit,

224 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

olive, and fig trees, and to wider fields of corn and beans,
for at Chebla there is more space available for cultivation
than at Ouldja or Tebouia Hamed. Thus we were able
to learn some details of the methods of farmers in the
Djebel Cherchar, methods indistinguishable from those
of the basin to the north of the Rassira valley and other
parts of the western Aures. We also went over, accom-
panied by the Ka'id, to visit the " zawia " of two well-
known marabouts, brothers belonging to the family of
Abd el Hafed, who resided near the village of Kheirane,
a few miles to the north.

Riding over a steep hill to avoid a bend in the stream
— the Wed el Arab is very tortuous in its course — we
found the village beside the river, the " zawia " consisting
of quite a small village of huts, in addition to the resi-
dence of the holy men themselves, lying some three
hundred yards lower down the stream, also upon its
bank. The marabouts received us most cordially, bidding
us " Welcome, with blessing," and conducted us over
their settlement in the midst of which a large house,
designed more or less upon a European plan, was in
course of construction, our hosts expressing the hope
that, upon the occasion of our next visit, we should
occupy it ourselves. Indeed, I think the two brothers
were a little hurt that we could not stay for a few days
in the " zawia " then, for they pride themselves very
much upon their hospitality, but in the circumstances
this was not possible, in fact we could only spare one day
to examine the village of Kheirane itself.

This hamlet, of some sixty huts, is built upon the steep
slope of a rocky knoll, the opposite side of which consists
of a sheer cliff, about one hundred and fifty feet high,
overlooking the left bank of the Wed el Arab and the
cornfields and gardens beyond the stream, a view that

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 225

is especially beautiful in the spring, when the green of
the rising corn and the blossom of the fruit trees serve
to relieve the monotony of the sombre groves of olives.
In many respects Kheirane may be said to resemble
Beni Ferah, but I think the distant views obtainable
from it are superior to those from the rocky knoll of
the first Shawia village in which we had stayed, for from
Kheirane is visible a fine panorama of the steep and barren
slopes of the Djebel Cherchar, forming a most striking
contrast to the beauty of its oasis. A day or two after
our visit to Kheirane we left Chebla, and, still accom-
panied by our friend the Kaid, proceeded eastwards
towards the summit of the Djebel Cherchar at the southern
end of its great ridge, on our way to a village of which
we had heard much, Djellal, upon the eastern side of
the mountain. The main slope of the mountain is ap-
proached from Chebla through a dry ravine, descending
from the mountain to the Wed el Arab, after leaving
which we found ourselves upon the very steep upper
slopes of Cherchar, slopes of small stones and crumbling
soil, from which larger rocks were to be seen projecting
at all angles. The ascent was long and trying for our
mules, but, when once we had reached the crest of the
ridge, whence we obtained wonderful views of Chelia and
other high peaks of the Aures to the north-west and of the
boundless desert to the south, we entered a more level
country, a high-lying plateau sloping towards the south,
leaving to the north of our path the highest portion of
the great white ridge of the Djebel Cherchar, some six
thousand feet above the sea. At the time of our passage
the spring had called into being upon this high plateau
numberless wild flowers, yellow, mauve, pink, white,
and purple, while poppies glowed red in the fields of
corn, which, to our surprise, we found in considerable

15

226 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

numbers upon the hill protected by a number of scattered
stone huts, the majority of which were untenanted as
we passed, being only inhabited at the time of the harvest,
or when the heat of summer renders the low-lying villages,
such as Chebla, almost unendurable even to the natives.
We encountered quite a number of flocks of sheep and
goats grazing upon the summit of the ridge, a country
rather less barren than its western slopes, and we learned
that these belonged to members of the Raid's tribe who,
though belonging to the fair-haired Berber race, lived
the life of nomads beneath their tents of goats' hair.

These Shawia, however, merely move up and down
their own mountain, the Djebel Cherchar, according to
the season, their country sufficing to keep life in their
flocks without necessitating their removal to the northern
plateau in the summer, so that the area over which they
are obliged to wander is far less extensive than that of
their Arab neighbours to the south.

Indeed, a very large proportion of our host's people
reside in tents, a fact which accounts for the small number
of villages to be found in the region we were traversing.

When we arrived at the Government " bordj " of
Djellal, a building erected for the convenience of officials
in the days of the military administration, and not a
miniature hotel, such as those we had stayed in at
Dj^mora and Menaa, we found ourselves upon the western
slope of a fairly wide valley, running from the slopes of
the Djebel Cherchar southwards towards the desert,
great stretches of which were visible from the " bordj,"
but, although we looked out upon the back of the village,
we could not realize until we had examined it from the
east its truly remarkable situation, of which the Kai'd
had told us so much.

Two spurs of rock project into the valley to which I

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 227

have referred from its western side, just below the point
at which the valley opens out from the narrow gorge,
through which its torrent flows down from the mountain.

Upon the larger of these spurs, a mighty mass of rock
literally overhanging the fertile valley two hundred feet
below it, stands the greater part of the village of Djellal.

Its houses built flush with the cliff edge, crevices in
which are even bridged by logs whereon to rest their
rough stone walls, unapproachable save along the neck
of land which joins the spur to the hill on the western
side of the valley, Djellal is invisible from any distance
when approached from the north, for its buildings are
indistinguishable from the rocks on which they stand.
A certain number of houses, newer ones it seemed to us,
stand upon the smaller spur to the north of the main
village, and separated from it by a deep rocky chasm.

Djellal resembles some of the hamlets of the Rassira
canon more than those of any other of the Aures valleys,
and, though beneath the shadow of the Djebel Cherchar
there lies no such mighty gorge as that to whose brink
Ouled Mansour clings like an eagle's nest below the glow-
ing slopes of Amar Khraddou, the scenery of its surround-
ing country is at least as fine. Standing upon a housetop
in the main village of Djellal the traveller will find to
the north a narrow gorge, beautiful enough if mean
compared with that of the Rassira, while to the south,
looking down the valley, in which the green of orchards
and cornfields relieve the barren splendour of the scene,
he will discover the low foothills on the edge of the
Sahara, their slopes clothed at evening in the delicate
shades of grey, pink, and purple, which we have seen
to be characteristic of desert hills, and beyond them a
vast panorama of the desert itself will be unfolded to
his gaze.

228 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Immediately below the crag upon which the main
village stands the excellent track, which we have already
noticed as leading from Khanga Sidi Nadji to the north-
ward beneath the eastern wall of the Djebel Cherchar,
winds around the rocky spur, and, crossing the stream
below the village, ascends the opposite side of the valley
on its way to the plateau to the north.

This track, which very little additional labour would
render accessible to cars, was largely made by German
prisoners during the war. The treatment accorded to
these prisoners was of a kind which the Shawia could not
in the least understand. To them an enemy is an enemy,
whether a prisoner or not, and an enemy whose aggression
has raised the price of anything which he himself may
wish to buy is more of an enemy than any one else could
possibly become ; the fact that the prisoners were fed,
therefore, still rankles in the native breast as an instance
of European imbecility !

After spending sufficient time at Djellal to enable me
to compare certain of its customs and its crafts with those
of other portions of the Aures massif, we left our hospit-
able friend the Kaid and continued our way northward
to the village of Taberdga, formerly the residence of
the member of the Bel Hacine family who had ruled
over the whole district of the Djebel Cherchar, and now
the headquarters of an Assistant Administrator, who is
in charge of the area we had traversed since arriving at
Khanga Sidi Nadji.

The way itself was none too interesting when once
intervening hills had hidden from our view the desert
and its foothills to the south, and, though we passed a
number of groups of tents, we found but one small hamlet
on our way. The remarkable part of the journey only
began when, after meeting the French official by the

atfvT

"~V *'"~*>»1 "*»••*" ' *. jf >•> «^ La^ " fife. *«i/^^^BKSs»i^>

THE CLIFF-TOP VILLAGE OF DJELLAL.

To face p. 223.

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 229

wayside, we turned eastward from the main track and
approached the village of Taberdga itself.

Proceeding along the track from this point northward,
a road quite suitable for carriages equipped with powerful
springs, we suddenly found ourselves upon a hillside
overlooking a deep basin, the junction of four ravines,
in the midst of which a great knoll of rock, overlooking
a number of gardens and an oleander-bordered stream
beneath it, projected from the wall of the basin, to which
it was linked by a rocky isthmus no more than ten yards
wide.

Upon this knoll, huddled together in the small space
available on its summit, lay the mosque and houses of
Taberdga, while at a slightly lower level, upon the apex
of the knoll or spur, stood a large rectangular building,
somewhat prison-like in appearance owing to the scarcity
of windows in its walls, the former residence of Bel Hacine.
Descending into the basin, and passing close to the
modern French dwelling and office of the Administrator,
we commenced the ascent to the village itself.

The path, a good enough mule track upon which to
ride, led around the rocky wall of the main basin, gradually
ascending towards the isthmus, the rocks overhanging it
in some places to such an extent that Ave found ourselves
riding along a niche or cleft in the cliff, in which we were
often obliged to lean almost upon the necks of our mules
in order to keep our heads clear of the rocks above us.
Beneath us an absolutely sheer drop of three hundred
feet to the gardens and the stream caused us to bless
the Providence that had made sureness of foot one of
the attributes of the mule.

Upon the neck or isthmus itself we found such a drop
on either hand, the path commanded by the gateway of
the village, whose situation must have rendered it quite

230 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

impregnable in the days of old, and passing on through
the gateway we reached the only narrow lane of this
part of the hamlet, where the spur is too narrow to allow
of further expansion.

Continuing our way through the village, in which many
of its little stone-built cottages had fallen into disrepair,
owing to the settled conditions of French rule which had
enabled the Shawia to move into the valley from their
homes in a natural fortress, we drew up at the large house
of the former Kaid, in which we were to be entertained
by the present chief of the area.

This house, built under the direction of a European,
was solid and, in its way, stately, for its rooms were large
and lofty, its lack of windows, due to Arab requirements
as to the seclusion of women, however, rendered it
unsightly from without. Indeed, well built as it was,
the house appeared singularly out of place in such close
proximity to a picturesque cluster of Shawia dwellings,
and, for the sake of the landscape, it had been better
erected in a less conspicuous position than on the apex
of the spur. Entertained most hospitably by the Adminis-
trator and the Kaid, our days passed pleasantly enough,
spent in wandering around the village, engaged in our
usual occupation of trying to make friends among its
inhabitants, or sitting, sheltered from the rays of the
sun, beside a delightfully cool grotto, where a tiny stream
fell from a height of a few feet into a pool in a little basin
of rock with the sound of running water so enchanting
to the car of a wanderer in a barren land. But our life
in this, the last, Shawia settlement we were to visit was
devoid of incident, and we found no outstanding feature
of native life which differed in any but the smallest detail
from those we had noted elsewhere, many of which we
have attempted to lay before the reader in the foregoing

THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 231

pages. Indeed, our journey from desert to the plateau
up the Djebel Cherchar, described in this chapter already
too long, was more hurried than any of our previous
wanderings in the hills, and had for its object rather the
comparison of arts and crafts, manners and customs
studied in the west with those of the eastern Shawia
than a detailed examination of the latter. Little, then,
of interest to the reader resulted from this expedition,
nor is there any need to weary him with a description of
a thirty-mile drive from Taberdga to Khenchela on the
plateau, undertaken in a carriage obtained from the
latter town, through the dreary scenery of a broad valley,
the home of a nomad Berber tribe, after which we gained
the railway at Batna in a commonplace motor 'bus.

But there is one point about the area described in this
chapter, at least such of it as lies to the east of the Djebel
Cherchar, to which we may once more call attention,
and that is the track, I had almost said the road, which
runs from Khanga Sidi Nadji to Djellal Taberdga and
the north.

I believe that the greater part of this track is even now
passable to wheels, indeed, as I have pointed out, we
ourselves covered the northern portion of it in a carriage,
so that, perhaps, to-day the quiet and delightful oasis
of Khanga, the eerie-like hamlet on the crags of Djellal,
and the impregnable village of Taberdga may all be within
the reach of the tourist without the discomforts of a
prolonged journey on muleback.

And, no doubt, in the near future this way will be
opened to cars. But the traveller who desires to explore
in a carriage the villages described in this chapter will
be well advised to ascertain from the French authorities
whether or no the road is clear before setting out on
his journey. Here, then, at Taberdga at the moment

232 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

when we cease for the time being our investigations in
the hills, we will bid the reader farewell in the very faint
hope that in our efforts to lead him through the valleys of
the Aures and to point out to him some of the quaint
old customs of the Shawia, customs which cannot indefi-
nitely resist the advance of Western civilization and ideas,
we may have aroused in him a spark of that interest
which the hill-folk of Algeria long since kindled in our-
selves, and which successive visits to the mountains
have fanned into a flame.

APPENDIX I

HINTS TO TRAVELLERS IN THE AURES

IT is hoped that the following brief hints on outfit,
etc., suitable for journeys in the Algerian hills will
enable the traveller to arrive in the country equipped
with at least the necessities for his expedition.

1. Seasons. — The Autumn or the Spring, by which
latter is meant the months of March and April, are the
most suitable for travelling in the Aures massif, though
the high-lying villages could be visited as late as the early
summer, while the lower southern slopes of the range
and the oases, such as Djemora, Mechounech, and
Khanga Sidi Nadji, which lie at their feet, should not as
a rule prove too cold even in mid-winter.

2. Clothing. — The traveller to the hills or to El Kantara
and even Biskra should provide himself with garments
such as he would wear during an English autumn, for
nights are often cold, and the wind sometimes blows
chill from the snow-clad peaks in winter.

A warm overcoat is essential, especially for those who
proceed up-country from Algiers by car, for snow is to
be expected upon the high central plateau of Algeria.

For journeys in the hills, such as those I have attempted
to describe, a change of warm clothing, in which the
traveller can ride (ladies will find it wise to ride astride

233

234 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

along the narrow mountain paths), a good overcoat, and
a shady hat appear to be the only essentials.

Those who travel in the Sahara as late as the end of
March will probably find a topee a comfort, if not an
absolute necessity. These can be bought cheaply at
Biskra.

Tinted glasses will be found useful to those whose eyes
are weak in the glare of the desert and the barren rocky
hills.

We have long since discarded leather footgear, which
is worn through in no time upon the rocks, in favour of
canvas boots with rope soles, to which extra soles of motor
tyre are stitched by a native cobbler at El Kantara.
These, worn over two pairs of thick socks, will be found
to lessen the jar to the feet in walking over stony ground,
to give an excellent grip of the smooth rocks when
climbing, and to be noiseless (a great advantage to the
hunter). In addition they are cheap, and with three
pairs of such boots the traveller should be equipped for
a whole winter in the hills.

It is well to remember that, when staying at up-country
inns, it is often impossible to find a laundress capable of
starching collars and shirts, though ordinary washing can
always be done in such places.

3. Equipment. — Living in the huts of the Shawia, we
have never required tents in the hills. These, however,
are necessary for shooting expeditions in uninhabited
areas, and can be hired at El Kantara or Biskra, together
with the necessary material for a camp. Should the
traveller prefer to use his own tent, he will find that a
double-roof is unnecessary, as rain is infrequent on the
shooting grounds. Officers' sleeping valises, well pro-
vided with blankets, a couple of X-pattern chairs, a

HINTS TO TRAVELLERS IN THE AURfiS 235

large water-bottle (all purchased in England), and some
cheap table-ware, a kettle, saucepan and spirit lamp,
wherewith to prepare a meal in an emergency, complete
the list of the equipment we have used.

4. Saddlery. — In preference to taking out European
saddles from England, which cannot be expected to suit
every sore back they will encounter, we have used sur-
cingles fitted with stirrups, which pass over the native
pad or saddle upon the mule, and so hold it in position,
as well as affording a rest for the feet.

Such a surcingle, adjustable from sixty to seventy-five
inches, from shortest and longest hole to buckle, should
serve for any Algerian mule.

5. Stores. — Those who intend to live upon native
fare should provide themselves with a few stores, such
as soup-squares, preserved meats, porridge, etc., for use
if the Shawia cooking becomes intolerable.

Stores for the hunter in uninhabited areas can be
arranged for by the hotel from which he starts, should
he state his requirements in advance.

6. Maps. — Excellent maps of Algeria, Tunisia, and
Morocco can be obtained from Messrs. Carbonnel (late
Adolphe Jourdan), Place du Gouverncment, Algiers, or
from Messrs. Marcin at Biskra. A single sheet, to a
scale of 1 : 800,000, is a convenient map of Eastern Algeria,
while a far more detailed map (1 : 200,000) in seven
sheets covers the area dealt with in this book.

7. Expenses. — There is no question connected with
Algeria upon which it is so difficult to make a definite
statement at the present moment, as upon the possible
expenses of a journey in that country.

236 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Prices of everything have risen to a very great extent
from the very moderate rates current before the war,
and they are as yet by no means stable.

The only advice that can be offered to the intending
traveller is that he should make it a rule to inquire the
price of everything in advance (a precaution which is
neglected to an extraordinary extent), and that, upon
learning the terms suggested by " guides " for hire of
animals, camping, etc., he should refer these terms
where possible to some local resident or committee (e.g.
the Syndicat d'Initiative at Biskra) befoie accepting
them. The native usually bases his charges upon his
conception of the traveller's capacity to pay, and, it must
be confessed, the carelessness in money matters of many
tourists has encouraged this system to such a degree that
prices have risen to an incredible extent since the war.

When I say that tourists have paid as much as two
hundred and fifty francs a head per diem for camping
tours, the reader will understand the necessity for caution
in concluding bargains !

The traveller must haggle with the native, and, having
haggled, should arrange his final terms in the presence
of a European resident in Algeria with a view to avoiding
discussion at the end of his trip.

As regards hotels, if some are expensive, there are
plenty of others in the larger centres which are clean
and comfortable, yet more moderate in their terms.

APPENDIX II
SPORT

THE very brief notes contained in this Appendix
constitute an attempt to answer the questions so
often put to me as to the possibilities for sport existing
in the area described in the foregoing pages.

Of the various regions I have attempted to describe,
the desert and the hills around El Kantara are the most
likely to attract the attention of the sportsman.

The greatest prize which can fall to the hunter's rifle
in south-eastern Algeria is undoubtedly the Barbary
sheep, the Ovis Lervia of scientists, the " aroui " or
" feshtal " of the Arabs, miscalled the " moufflon " by
the French.

This great sheep, which sometimes stands more than
forty inches at the shoulder, is remarkable for the very
heavy fringe of long hair upon the throat, chest, and
knees of the rams, whose massive horns curve outwards
and backwards, but rarely attain a greater length than
twenty-five or twenty-six inches, though according to
Rowland Ward's Records of Big Game, a thirty-three inch
head has been obtained.

The ewes are smaller than the rams, but, owing to the
fact that they carry similar, though smaller, horns and
fringes, it is difficult enough to distinguish the sexes
when seen upon the hillside. Sheep are to be found
upon several of the hills around El Kantara (in 1914 I

237

238 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

shot one within sight of the inn upon the cliffs of
Metlili), but they are very hard to approach, for, although
the climbing in the country around El Kantara is not
so difficult as climbing can be in some of the haunts of
mountain game, it none the less requires a steady head
and a sound wind on the part of the sportsman, and a
stalk is often liable to interference owing to the frequent
presence of shepherds roaming over the mountain-side
with their flocks.

It appears that sheep are in the habit of moving from
one range to another if much disturbed, even crossing
many miles of intervening country on their way, so that
choice of a hunting-ground must be left until the sports-
man has been able to ascertain from local natives the
most likely hills at the time he proposes to start out.
Two species of gazelles are also obtainable from El
Kantara, and can even be killed without sleeping a night
away from the inn. These are Gazella Cuvieri, the " edmi "
of the Arabs, whose habitat is confined to the Barbary
States, where it haunts the slopes of the hills which
fringe the desert, and thus, to some extent, encroaches
on the ground of the sheep, and Gazella Dorcas, in Arabic
" ghazal," the beautiful little gazelle of the plains to be
found from Morocco to Syria, from the Mediterranean
to the Sudan. This animal, though properly a denizen
of the plains, is also to be found upon the lower slopes
frequented by the " edmi."

The two gazelles will be found to be almost, if not quite,
as difficult to approach as the sheep. This is largely due
to the lack of cover in the stony desert, and to the remark-
ably changeable character of the wind in the broken
ground which they inhabit.

The method of hunting which I have always adopted
for the three animals is substantially the same.

SPORT 239

Leaving the inn (or my camp if I have wandered far
in search of sport) before dawn with one Arab shikari,
a mule, and a native muleteer, I conceal the mule with
its man in the dry bed of a stream in the desert, or at
the foot of the hill I am about to search for game. The
shikari and I then proceed to work carefully over the
ground, and, concealing ourselves upon some coign of
vantage, search the country with our glasses in an
endeavour to find animals feeding before they lie down
for the day.

Once the game is seen the stalk begins over trying and
difficult ground, and, if successful, terminates in a shot
which is often long and usually at moving game. The
remaining animals to be found near El Kantara, the
striped hyena, the jackal, and the fox, are scarcely like
to tempt the sportsman, while the other game animals
of Algeria must be sought further afield ; the addax
antelope far down in the Sahara, around Wargla ; the
" rhim," or Loder's gazelle, among the sand dunes of
the great desert ; the Barbary stag (the only representa-
tive of the deer family to be found in Africa), near
Tebessa, or around Collo on the coast ; the leopard,
among the wooded hills near the shores of the Mediterra-
nean ; while the boar, Sus Scrofa of the naturalists, occu-
pies many of the wooded districts of Algeria, including
the higher parts of the Aures massif.

Several natives of El Kantara are accustomed to
acting as shikari to European sportsmen, all of whom
are keen and hardworking, but one of them seems to
possess a wider knowledge of the habits of game and
greater aptitude in stalking it than the rest, namely my
old friend Si Amar.

I have always found that this man, if left alone and
not worried by futile suggestions from his employer

240 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

(who, after all, cannot know the ground as a native knows
it), can be relied upon to find game if game is to be found,
and to approach it if it is approachable. What shikari
can do more ?

The method of hunting boar which I have found to
be the most satisfactory is to obtain the services of one
or two Shawia who possess dogs properly trained to hunt
these animals.

The sportsman and his native companions search for
fresh tracks of the animals beside some watering-place,
and, when these are found, lay on the dogs, which run
mute until they actually get a view of their quarry, when
they give vent to short sharp yelps.

Pursuing the boar as he makes off through the wood-
land, yelping as they run, the dogs will soon bring him
to bay, and thus enable the sportsman to come up and
obtain a shot.

As regards a rifle for use in hunting any of the game
of El Kantara, or the hills, I think any of the modern
high -velocity small bores will be found suitable ; I have
used a *256 and a '303. The rifle should be light and
fitted with a sling. No permit is required to import a
rifle or shot-gun as personal luggage into Algeria, but the
importation of ammunition is prohibited unless special
permission for it has been obtained from the Governor-
General. Shot-gun cartridges can be purchased in the
country, but it is absolutely necessary that the
sportsman should bring with him the few rounds he will
require for his rifle. These he cannot obtain in
Algiers.

Upon arrival at Algiers the sportsman must procure,
at the Prefecture, a shooting licence, costing twenty-eight
francs, which entitles him to kill any game to be found
in the country except the Barbary stag, to shoot which,

SPORT 241

I believe, a special permission from the Governor-General
is required.

The equipment required for a shooting expedition differs
in no respect from that already described as being desirable
for a journey in the Aures, save that the general coloration
of clothes and hat should be light khaki or fawn for use
in the desert, or among the barren rocks of the sheep
hills. The canvas boots I have mentioned will be found
excellent for hunting.

Most of the Algerian shikaris can skin trophies if care-
fully supervised (Si Amar does so quite well), and skins
will be found to dry quickly in the shade if treated merely
with cold wood ashes. Up to now my own trophies
from El Kantara have reached England in perfect
condition, doubtless owing to the dryness of the desert
climate.

In conclusion I will attempt to answer the general
question : " Is it worth while to take my rifle to
Algeria ? "

This question is very often put to me, and is by no
means easy to answer, for the reply must depend upon
the temperament of the questioner. Briefly my answer
is as follows. Sport is certainly obtainable, but Algeria
is no country for the mere " gunner."

The sportsman, the man who can appreciate a long
stalk under difficult conditions, with the bare possibility
of a difficult shot at the end of it, and who can enjoy the
pure crisp air of the desert, its great open spaces, the
freedom of its life and the companionship of enthusiastic
native hunters, may confidently look forward to a pleasant
shooting trip from El Kantara ; the person whose sole
delight is to be found in the magnitude of his bag had
better, for his own sake as well as for that of the country,
leave his rifle at home.

16

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INDEX

Accident, 113
Addax antelope, 239
"Ademine," 161
Agriculture, 160
Am Naga, 203
Ain Touta, 94, 118
Ain Zatout, see Beni Ferah
Alieness, 221
Alieness, Kald, 221
Amar Khraddou, 128, 135, 206
Amentane, 64
Ammunition, 240
Amulets, 152
Anklets, 79, 83
Apricots, 163

Arabic books of medicine, 196
" Aroui," 237
Arris, 174

Aures — the Mons AHrasius of Roman
times, 14, 15, 16 et passim.

Bades, 209

Baniane, 109, 129-35

Baniane, Zawia, 133

"Baraka,"27, 113, 156

Barbary sheep, 97, 237

Barbary stag, 239

Barika, 201

Basha, 175

Basha Bashir, 57, 118

Bash-Agha, 128

Batna, 14, 15, 17, 65, 90, 115, 178

Batna-Biskra railway, 90

Beads, 78

Beehives, 223

Belayed, 103, 113, 115, 130, 139

Bel Hacine family, 210, 212, 213

Belkadi ben Hamou, 37, 81

Belkassem, 69

Bellows, 83

Ben Chenouf family, 128

Beni Ferah, 18, 35, 90

Gardens, 42

Hospitality, 49

Irrigation, 43

Meals, 49

School, 48

Wedding, 51
Beni Suig, 63
Berber house, 104
Berber furniture, 105
Berber pottery-making, 41
Berber women, status of, 40, 222
Berbers, physical characteristics,

16, 40
Bertrand, Hotel, 18
Bey of Constantine, 128, 214
Biskra, 13, 14, 15, 17, 199, 200
" Black Village," see El Kantara
Block-houses, 108
Boar hunt, 100
Boars, 97, 99, 239, 240
" Bordj," 62
Boubish, 104
Bou Hafs ben Chenouf, 128, 129,

138, 160, 168
Bou Hamar, 175

Mosque, 177

Sheikh, 176
Bou Saada, 58
Boundary dispute, 57
Bouzina, 90, 112
Bouzina river, 64, 65
Bracelets, 78
Branis, 118

Feast, 123

Official reception, 119
Bricks, mud and straw, 20
Brooches, 77, 83

Cafes, 22

Caliphs of Baghdad, 128

243

244 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Canvas boota, 234

" Capital of the Auree," 66

Carpet making, 60

Carriage road, 231

Cats, 33, 107

Cautery, 193

Cave-dwellings, 93

Cemetery, 64

Chains, silver, 83

Champion shot, a, 57

Charms, 110, 113, 145, 146,

217
Chebla, 215, 221, 222

Gardens, 223

Roof platform, 222
Chelia, 14
Chickens, 33
Childbirth, 220
Child bride, 53
Chir, 97
Churn, 32
Cloaks, 101

Clothing for travellers, 233
Cobblers, 68
Coiffure, 76
Collars, silver, 78
Collo, 239

Commune Mixte, 174
Constantine, 13
Coral, 80, 81
Corn-mill, 68
Cupping, 193

Danseuse, 51

Date-picking, 24

Decorative art, 154

de Slane, 108

Distilling, 195

Divination, 149

Divorce, 46

Djebel Bouss, 92

Djebel Cherchar, ridge of, 15, 79,

199, 206, 225
Djebel Zellatou, 159
Djellal, 215, 225, 226, 227

" Bordj," 226
Djemora, oasis, 55, 90, 118

Carpet making, 60

Raul's house, 59

Native bathing, 59

Rest-house, 62
Dog's tooth, 80, 82

Droh, 125

Drugs —

distributing, 182

native, 195
Dyeing, 165, 166

Earrings, 79
Ear syringing, 183
Education, 220
El Bekri, 108, 209
ElKantara, 17, 118

" Black Village " of, 19, 20

the bridge, 22

the cafe, 22

houses, 31

" Red Village," 21

Roman masonry at, 20

" White Village " of, 19, 20

women, 29, 30
El Outaya, 118
Epidemics, 198
" Evil eye," 80, 81, 145
Eye lotions, 183

Family life, 34, 219

" Fantasia," 121, 122

Farewell lunch, 168

Feast of the Spring, 85, 86, 87, 88

Feeble-minded saint, 72

"Feshtal," 237

Festivals, 26

Filigree work, 83

" Five in thine eye," 81

"Fives," 80

Flint-lock musket, 132

Flowers, 225

Forests, 99, 114

Foretelling the future, 148, 149

" Foum es Sahara," 17

Fox, 239

French orderly, 35

Fromentin, 17

Furniture, 32

Gabds, Gulf of, 13

Games, 88

" Gandoura," 74

Gardens, 20

Gate of the Orient, European

settlement of, 18
Gazella Cuvieri, 238
Gazella Dorcas, 238

INDEX

245

Gazelle, 97, 238
General practitioners, 195
German prisoners, 228
Ghoufi, 155, 156
Girls' dress, 76
Goats, 25

Gold ornaments, 80
" Goum," 97
"Goumier," 119, 120
Granary, 130, 131
"Guelaa," 130, 131, 132
Gunshot wounds, 190

" Haiks," 102

Hand charm, 145

Hand-loom, 32, 103

" Hand of Fathma," 80

Haouamed, tribe, 58

Harvest feast, 163

Head pendant, 79

Heavy jewellery, 87

Holy men, 108

Horse-breeding, 208

Horsemanship, 122

House, Shawia, 104

Houses, Arab, structure of, 31

Hyena, 239

Ichemoul, 99, 159
Influenza, 63
Intermarriage, 60
Irregular horse, 121
Irrigation, 43
Itinerant musicians, 23

Jackalls, 25, 239
Jenoun, 145, 146, 198
Jinn, 56, 81, 145

Kabyle pedlars, 144
Kahena, chief tainess, 15
Kerchiefs, 76
Khanga Sidi Nadji, 15, 206, 209

Fort, 213

Kaid, 209, 210

library, 213

mosque, 211

teacher, 212
Kheirane, 215, 224, 225
Khenchela, 14, 15, 128, 231
Knee-cap, fracture of, 191, 192
Knitted legging, 165

" Koora," 88

Koran, 147

" Kouba," 26

" Kuskus," 27, 49, 50

Lambese, camp of, 15, 65, 172, 177

Lavigerie, Cardinal, 174

Legion of Honour, 129

Leopard, 239

Liana, 208, 209

" Lightning Conductor," charm, 82

" Living River," 24

Locks, 105

Loder's gazelle, 239

Loom, 103

Love philtre, 47-8

Maafa, 18, 92, 93, 94

canon, 92

railway halt, 94
Magic, 46, 73, 145, 152

ensuring a harvest, 161

magical duel, 150

substances used, 151
Mahmel mountain, 14, 64, 112, 113
Malbot, Dr., 187
Maps, 235
Marabout —

charm, 113

family, 134

habits, 110

hereditary, 109

influence of, 112

magical healing, 110

married, 110

morality, 111

political advice, 110

second sight, 110

settling disputes, 111

trees, 156
Marabouts, 26, 71, 104, 107, 108,

109, 110, 114, 133, 224
Marriage, early, 219
Mausoleum, 26, 212
Meals, 49
Mechounech, 116, 117, 126, 127

Kaid, 128
"Mechwi," 123, 124, 135, 169, 223
" Mehari," 120
Menaa, 63, 65

bath house, 67

" bordj," 69

246 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

Menaa (continued) —

corn-mill, 68

founder, 66

houses, 67

Kaid, 66, 67

leather work, 68

marabout, 71

rest-house, 62

routes, 90

silverwork, 73, 74 et seq.

zawia, 71, 72
Mercury mine, 98
Metlili, 17
Mirror, 78
Mohammed, 147
Mohammed Boubish, Ahmed ben,

110
Mohammed the Little, 221-2
Mons Aurasius, 14
" Morabet," 108
Mosque doorkeeper, 27
" Mother of the night," 147
Moufflon, 237

" Mouth of the Desert," 118
" Muezzin," 28
Necklets, 78
Negroid type, 125
Nine-course dinner, 123
Nouader, 97, 98

Olive oil, 217, 218
Operation, an, 187
Ouldja, 215, 217, 218, 219, 221

Kaid, 210, 215
Ouled Abdi dancers, 100, 101
Ouled Abdi tribe, 100
Ouled Daoud tribe, 173
Ouled Mansour, 136, 138. 139,
153

cliff houses, 140

fatal accident, 144

Ouelaa, 141

headman, 138, 139

leather worker, 145

Bcribe, 145

women, 142

wood carving, 154
Ouled Nail dancing girls, 80
Ouled Ziane, 56, 60, 63, 118, 125

migrations, 92
Outlaws, 120
" Ovis Lervia," 237

Owl's eyes, 197

Oxford, Pitt-Rivers Museum, 186

Paper money, 85
Patient, recovery of a, 190
Pedlars, 144
Philtres, 47, 149
Pitt-Rivers Museum, 186
Plough, 162
Ploughing rites, 162
Pneumonia, 223
Porcupine's foot, 80, 82, 197
Praying for rain, 45
Pride of lineage, 129
Professional women, 47

" Queen of the Zibans," 200

Raids for corn, 131

Rassira, 116, 117, 129, 130, 169

canon, 116, 159

gorge, 136, 157

Kaid, 128

upper basin, 159

valley, 117, 144, 153
Rats, 106
Reaping, 163

" Red Cheeked mountain," 135
Red glass, 81

Red Village, see El Kantara
Religious discussions, 176
" Rhim," 239
Rhouara, 127
" Ribat," 108
Rifle, 240
Rings, 78
Roast lamb, 123
Roman —

descent, 91

inscription, 171

masonry, 20

ruins, 177

" seggia," 133
Roof-rooms, 33
Roofs, 33
" Rosebud," 87, 88

Sandals, 69
Scales, 164
Scorpions, 32, 217
Scribes, 148
Seasons, 233

INDEX

247

" Seggia," 43, 207

Roman, 133
Setons, 193
" Shadoof," 207
Shawls, 76, 101
Sheep, 25
Shepherds, 25
Shikari, 239
Shoes, 76

Shooting from the saddle, 58
Shooting licence, 240
Shooting-match, a, 57
Si Abdelhamed, 215
Si Ali Bey, 128
Si Amar, 239
Sidi Belkheir, 98
Sidi Lakhdar, 109, 133, 134
Sidi Okba, 201, 202
Sidi Okba ben Nafi—

Arab invader of Africa, 15, 202

mosque, 202
Sidi Yahia, 92, 94

Silver —

brooches, 75

casting, 83

chains, 84
Silversmith, 82
Sixth legion, 171, 177
Sling, 25
Slippers, 68
Snow, 114
Sorceresses, 148
" Sorceress of the Moon," 47
Sorcery, 149
Source of medical knowledge,

196
Spanish cards, 23
Splints, 193
Sun-dial, 168

Superstitions, 145, 152, 223
Surgeon's fees, 194
Surgeons, native, 180, 185
Surgical instruments, 186
Sus Scrofa, 239

Taberdga, 215, 228, 229

administrator, 228, 230

Kaid, 230
Taghit Sidi Belkheir, 97
Taghout, 172

houses, 173

Tagoust, 90, 91, 92, 112

Kaid, 91
Talismans, 78
Tattoo marks, 70
Tawarek Berbers, 120
Tebessa, 239
Tebouia Hamed, 216
Teeth, extraction of, 194
Teniet el Abed, 100

weaving, 101
Tents, 234
Terebinth tree, 156
Threshing, 163
Tifelfel, 137, 156, 160

" guelaa," 160, 165

houses, 165

sheikh, 160
Tighanimine, 159

gorge, 168, 169

Roman inscription, 171

traversed by French troops,
170
Tijdad, 104, 106, 110
Tilatou, gorge of, 18
Timgad, 13, 177
Tkout, 166, 167

Assistant Administrator, 166
Touggourt, 125
Trepanning, 180, 186
Tunisian architects, 212

Vendetta, 164
Verneau, Dr., 187

War profiteering, 42

Washing clothes, 29, 234

Water-clock, 44, 167

Water-wheel, 68

Weaving, 103

Wed Abdi, 16, 55, 64, 65, 90, 96,

112
Wed el Abiod, 16, 97, 116, 155, 159,

168, 174
Wed el Arab, 16, 206, 216, 221
Wed el Kantara, 21
Wed Guechtan, 16, 206
Wed Rhir, 125
Wed Taga, 175
Wedding, 219

Wedding ceremony, 51 ct seq.
White Fathers, 174
" White Hamlet," 91

248 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA

" White Village," see El Kantara
Wild herbs, 195
Wire drawing, 83
" Wise women," 149
Women —

Arab, status of, 34

unrestrained, 101
Women's dress, 74
Wool, 102

carding, 102

spinning, 102

Wool (continued) —
weaving, 101

Yamina, 70

Zab Chergui, 127, 201, 208
Zawia, 71, 86, 108, 224
Zellatou, 169
Zeribet el Wed, 201

Kaid, 203, 208

Khalifa, 208

Printed in Great Britain by
t'NWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE QRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON

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