A writer who sets out to study a foreign country such as Algeria is faced with two difficulties: the first, the natural suspicion of the Mohammedan population; the second, the little information obtainable from the French inhabitants of the country.

It has been possible to overcome the first difficulty by making the Arab realize that there was no intention to interfere with his interior life or to obtain information in order to denounce family secrets. The second difficulty has remained. This is due to two factors. The first is the ignorance of the majority of Frenchmen, whether they be business men or colonists, of the customs and peculiarities of any area not neighboring that in which they actually dwell; the second is the French administrator’s apparent lack of information on anything beyond that which is not already to be found in the official handbooks.

When occasionally one meets some one with a deeper knowledge of the matters which should interest him, it is hard, as a foreigner, to obtain any valuable data. The Frenchman finds it difficult to realize that any one can wish to peer into the inner workings of a foreign country without some ulterior motive. If it is not deliberate spying for a jealous government, it is to steal a march on some business enterprise!

Comprehensive books on Algeria of to-day are few, and usually contradict one another, according to the point of view of the writers.

The only solution, therefore, to the problem of writing this book has been for the author to settle in the country, living the life of its people, and gleaning what information was possible as a business man in the city of Algiers, as a sheep-breeder on the Sahara, and as a traveler across the great plains and mountains of this sunny land.

The title of the book has perhaps a pretentious sound, suggesting that Algeria is some unexplored country into which the writer has penetrated, bringing back with him revelations of unknown mysteries never yet set before the public. But though this is not the case, it is hoped that the reader, be he a tourist or scholar, will find in these pages information which is new and interesting—Algeria from Within in opposition to the Algeria from “without” as set down by travelers who have passed a few winter months in the country and who, returning home, have compiled an inaccurate volume based on first impressions and on legends served up very hot by the hard-worked guides.

These legends will have to be dispelled at the cost of disillusioning veteran visitors who pass winter after winter in the overheated hotels of Mustapha Supérieur. But, against this, the book will endeavor to explain shortly and accurately what this French colony really is, what its people are doing and thinking, wherein lies its future.

There have been no aspirations to make of it a comprehensive guide-book or survey of the country’s long history, neither has any attempt been made to criticize the French rule, or to compare it with the administration of other colonies. True facts have been set down as seen by one who has lived many years in the country, constantly studying all about him without confining himself to one area nor to one class of people. Living not only in the big cities, but also in the cultivated plains, in the desolation of the desert, and mixing with the French administrators, with business men, with the colonists, and visiting the Arabs in such intimacy that it is possible to tell of their daily life as it is really lived.

Algeria is situated some fifteen hundred miles due south of London, and is accessible via Paris and Marseilles in fifty hours, or by sea from Southhampton in four days. The country is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, on the east by Tunisia, and on the west by Morocco. Its southern boundary is difficult to define, as, though in reality Algeria extends right across the desert to Senegal, Algeria proper does not go farther than the northerly tracts of the Sahara.

Moreover, although considered as a French colony, the country is divided into three departments or counties, having the same status as if in France. From east to west they are Constantine, Alger, Oranie, and there is a further area lying south of these departments known as the Territoires du Sud.

The actual area of the country, again, is uncertain, owing to the great tracts of desert, but, roughly speaking, it can be said that the cultivated and inhabited areas comprising the three departments cover an area of 222,000 square miles—a little smaller than France. Including the Sahara, the country must be reckoned at 1,071,000 square miles.

By natural configuration the land is divided into four distinct belts: the low hills which border the coast protecting the rich cereal and vine lands from the sea winds; the Little Atlas or Mountains of the Tell, which include the lofty peaks of the Kabyle country; the Sersou, forming a kind of broad valley between the hills and the Hauts Plateaux which, as the name implies, is a high tableland, some two thousand feet above sea-level and rolling down to the desert three hundred miles south of the coast; and the Sahara, stretching away to Senegal.

The desert can, again, be divided into different areas. Its northern belts, covered with a kind of scrub, thyme and mint, afford ample nourishment to the flocks of sheep and goats all the winter, while camels can always find plenty to eat there. Beyond this pasture-land, is the rock and the sand desert, the former greatly exceeding the latter in area. It is a desolate and cruel-looking country, except where the oases spring up and form centers unexpectedly rich not only in palms, but also in all kinds of fruit-trees.

Generally speaking, therefore, Algeria is a hilly country, and the Sahara is far from flat; the whole land is very fertile wherever there is water, but subject to great extremes of climate. What surprises the traveler most, after a tour through any of the three departments and down to the desert, is first of all the astonishing variety of scenery through which he passes, and second, the amount of natural products of the land.

The roads along the coast give a wonderful impression of marine scenery—deep red cliffs and a sapphire sea.

To the east of Algiers, forests of cork-trees border the road, olive-yards cover the slopes of the hills, while every now and then one sees extensive tobacco plantations.

Turning inland, the traveler will pass through more forests, then, climbing into the Kabyle Mountains, he will come to the fig-trees clothing the steep hills, till up and up he climbs to a level of some five thousand feet above the sea. Towering mountains are about him, deep in snow for four months of the year and quite unexpectedly cold in this sunny Africa.

Following the coast in a westerly direction, he will traverse miles of all kinds of vegetables, grown by the local farmers for export to France and England. The new potatoes, the salads and tomatoes, associated with exorbitant prices in Paris in winter, will be seen ripening under this southern sun.

If the journey is continued farther west into the confines of Oranie a few cotton plantations will be seen, then the vast plains of cereals—the ancient granary of the Roman Empire—which now that the old system of irrigation has disappeared are sadly dependent on the rainfall.

Turning inland from Algiers, the hills bordering the coast are left behind and the vine-clad plain of the Mitidja is entered. For two hours the car will pass swiftly through vineyard after vineyard, while here and there rich orange-groves will relieve the monotony of the interminable lines of vines. The wine produced in this area is much richer and of higher alcoholic degree than that of France, and in a normal year not only suffices for all the wants of the country, but is exported in large quantities to the mother country, where it is used to cut the Burgundies and Bordeaux, and in some cases to be sold as French vin ordinaire.

Moving still in a southerly direction, the country becomes mountainous as the Atlas range is entered. The slopes are covered with mountain-oak, pine-trees, and now and then cork, but, though this is supposed to be one of the forest-lands of Algeria, the traveler needs to be notified of the fact. There is, however, one very fine cedar forest above Teniet el Haad, but it is rarely visited as it is off the beaten track. The hills are full of tailless monkeys—the Barbary ape—which come down to the roadside, where there are inhabitants and prospects of food.

Beyond the Atlas range, here known as the Tell, where cattle and horses are raised, the country slopes down on to the wide pastures of the Sersou; it is now very flat and desertic in appearance. Soon the tufts of alfa grass are noticed growing in tall bunches right away as far as the eye can reach, and farther, for hundreds of miles to east and west extend these tracts of paper-making grass. Many of the concessions are owned by British concerns, which, having picked the raw material, despatch it to the Lancashire papermills to be manufactured.

Leaving the alfa, the country again becomes mountainous and wooded as the Hauts Plateaux are reached. The trees do not, however, last long, as soon the downward grade is begun, with the rich pasture-lands which run right away into the desert. This is the land of sheep-breeding, and as one travels along one sees countless flocks of sheep and goats.

The beginning of the Sahara is clearly defined by the sudden disappearance of the low, barren hills which have marked the descent from the Hauts Plateaux. The reappearance, too, of the palm-tree, which has not been seen since Algiers, reminds one that one is in the land of the oases, while away, away, stretches the desert, till its grayness merges in the sky like some eternally calm sea.

The pasture continues for a few hundred miles and then gradually disappears, giving place to stones and rocks, desolate and merciless, until in turn these give way to rolling sands, and again to barren wastes of pebbles, broken only by the welcome water-point or the green oasis offering relief to weary wanderers.

In a few words, this is the scenery of Algeria, and after a week’s journeying the traveler is really amazed at the thought that all he has seen is in one country, so varied has been his impression.

Algiers, with its sub-tropical gardens and modern improvements, the sea coast, the broad plains of cereals, the rich vineyards, the orange-groves and olive-yards, the forests of cork and pine, the wild mountains, the silent expanses of alfa, the nomads on the pastures, and the limitless Sahara!

Further, if one remains a year in the country one will realize the difficulties with which the settler is faced owing to the extremes of climate. Generally speaking, it rains too much north of the Sersou during the months of November, December, and January. It never rains too much in the south. The summer and spring are too dry, and, whereas in the winter there is frost as far south as the edge of the Sahara, the summer heat is everywhere excessive. The heat is especially unpleasant in Algiers and along the coast on account of the damp; at midday in the plains it is intolerable, and when the sirocco blows from the desert, life is wretched all over the smitten area.

Irrigation is in its childhood; artificial pasturage is unknown, with the result that a good or a bad year depends entirely on the caprices of the weather. Generally speaking, one can say that in a period of seven years there are two very good years, four average years, and one bad year.

When the year is good it is beyond all imagination, and it is, in fact, said that the two very good years should pay for any losses in the remaining five!

A land of light and shade, of everlasting contrasts, a land which, like a lovely woman, charms one by its unexpectedness, by its tenderness and sudden harshness, by all its capricious moods. A land of the future, but a land also of the past—and this, perforce, brings us to the next chapter.

The original inhabitants of Algeria were Berbers. The present native inhabitant of Algeria is the Berber, and yet ask any one who the natives are and they will reply “Arabs”; some of the more intelligent will perhaps say “Arabs with a sprinkling of Berbers.”

But this is wrong. When history first threw light on North Africa the Berbers were there, and they have not yet departed. It is true that many invasions and upheavals have passed through Algeria during the past three thousand years, but, though they have left their trace, it is only the Arabs who have really left their mark on the original inhabitants.

The first important landmark in the history of North Africa is the foundation of Carthage about the year 840 B. C. The Phœnicians had already settled on the Tunisian coast for some three hundred years previous to this, but their importance dates from the foundation of their great city, which was to have such an influence on the history of the civilized world for six hundred years.

Since this book, however, is not a history of the country, it will be sufficient to mention the outstanding historical features during those long years during which war and invasion centered round the North African shores. The Carthaginian domination flourished in all its splendor until the year 264 B. C. Up to this period those hardy merchant mariners were masters of the whole of the Mediterranean; they had explored the Atlantic coast as far as Sierra Leone; one expedition had sailed right round the African continent; and they had made it clear to Rome that they would brook no interference. Carthaginian naval power was supreme, and she counted on that alone to ensure her sovereignty of the Mediterranean. In the latter half, therefore, of that century she had defied Rome, and in a few years came into armed conflict with the future masters of the world.

This armed conflict, which was to last for over eighty years, and which was to produce those names famous to every public schoolboy who does not despise classical education—Hanno, Hamilcar, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, Scipio, Fabius Maximus—ended in 146 B. C. with the destruction of Carthage and the foundation of a Roman province consisting of modern Tunisia and part of Tripoli. One hundred years later Numidia, Algeria of to-day, was annexed, and for the next four hundred years the march of empire continued. At first the Romans were not a little embarrassed with their new acquisitions, all the more so on account of the hostile attitude of the Numidian kings at Cirta (modern Constantine). Strifes and minor wars continued for some time. Rome aided first one side and then another, but, finally realizing the futility of her rôle, a strong expedition was despatched and finally succeeded in defeating the Numidian king Jugurtha. It was not, however, until the year 46 B. C. that Cæsar finally routed Juba on the Tunisian coast and in that defeat destroyed the kingdom of Numidia.

The son of Juba, who had been taken to Italy and educated as a Roman, was married to the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and was eventually placed on the throne of Numidia, where he ruled in splendor until the year 19 B. C. During his reign the empire had spread and extended over North Africa from the Tunisian coast to the Atlantic, and its military posts guarded the entries of the Sahara. The traces of once-glorious Rome remain in various states of ruin to this day, and will be dealt with in further chapters. It would take too long to enter into details of the administration of the country under the Imperial eagle and of the birth and growth of Christianity in North Africa. The Roman Empire had spread, and it was not until the beginning of its fall that the rule in North Africa tottered.

Ever since the beginning of the fifth century A. D. Roman possessions in Europe were being flooded by the advance of the Vandals. In 428 the terrible Genesric crossed to Africa from Spain, with an army of ninety thousand men, and landed at Ceuta. Like all new invaders, he was welcomed as a savior, and his success was instantaneous. He swept the Roman armies before him, he built a fleet and became the terror of the Mediterranean, and in 455 took Rome.

How far these conquests would have continued it is difficult to say had not Genesric died. With his death his followers, who had drifted into an easy-going state, no longer held together, but became the prey of jealous strifes among chiefs. Their fall was rapid. The Roman Government, now transferred to Constantinople, was awaiting the opportunity to avenge its defeat. A little more than a hundred years after the landing of the Vandals in Africa, Belisarius sailed from Constantinople with six hundred ships, and three months later landed in Tripoli.

The Byzantine invasion had begun, and in three months Belisarius was able to announce to the Emperor Justinian that North Africa was again part of the Roman Empire.

But the Byzantine rule did not last long. The country was rent by wars and revolts; the people were worn out with changes of government; and, though there remain great forts and mightily walled cities as a record of this rule, they are evidence in themselves of the turbulent times which shook the country. When, therefore, the first Arab invasion poured in, there was nothing to quell it, and for one last time Imperial Rome struggled for a moment, staggered and fell.

The first Arab invasion of the seventh century was more a series of raids than anything else. Mohammed had appeared and died, but his teaching had remained, and had inspired those bands of wild nomads to organize themselves. Persia, Syria, Egypt had fallen before the advance, and soon they began moving farther west. The most important of these raids was that led by Sidi Okba, who traversed the whole of Algeria and Morocco, and who, no doubt, would have gone on had he not been arrested by the Atlantic.

He was killed during his return journey by the Berber army under Koceila, and he is buried near Biskra, where his memory is venerated.

Hassan followed him, and finally drove the last Byzantines out of North Africa. Needless to say, the chief object of the invaders had been to convert the people to the new faith, and little by little the Berbers became Mohammedans. It did not take long for them to create dissension in these beliefs, but they remained generally under the law of the Prophet, respecting the principles even more rigidly than their conquerors.

However, the most important point of this conversion is that it created an Arab-Berber alliance for the further march of Mohammedanism into Europe. It is said that it was a Berber named Tarik who first crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and it was after him that the rock took its name, Djebel el Tarik—the Mountain of Tarik.

The Arabs and Berbers pressed on through Spain until they were defeated by Charles Martel at Poitiers in 732 and retired into the peninsula. The remains of their grandeur can be seen in the glorious palaces and mosques at Seville, Cordova and Granada. But the Berbers, being of an independent nature, did not readily accept the laws and regulations of the allies. In the tenth century there were a number of insurrections in Algeria, and the Fatimides, or followers of the descendant of Fathma, the daughter of the prophet, succeeded for a period in dominating the country. Unfortunately for them their chief tried to go too far in his independence, and in the twelfth century the Sultan at Cairo launched a punitive expedition composed of the five tribes known as the Hilals.

Unlike the expeditions of the seventh century, these invaders came in hordes, bringing with them their flocks and their belongings, and sweeping mercilessly across the country, leaving devastation behind. Arabs and Berbers united to oppose them, but to no avail. Their armies poured over the land like a cloud of locusts. The little that was left of Roman civilization was destroyed, the cultivation disappeared, and North Africa was the desert of over a thousand years before.

From this period until the end of the fifteenth century North Africa was given over to pillage. With the exception of the cities of Tunis, Tlemçen and Fez, anarchy seems to have reigned everywhere, and there are no records or history of the period. The Arab had shown his worth; the Arab as an administrator had no qualification; he has not yet proved the contrary.

At first it was the Spaniards who took the place as rulers of North Africa. They had gradually driven the Mohammedans out of southern Spain, and during the first ten years of the sixteenth century had occupied the seaports from Oran right down to Bougie, including Algiers. But these conquests did not really interest them as their eyes were turned to the Indies. Moreover, in the meanwhile the brothers Barbarossa were scouring the Mediterranean, and when they were asked to rid Algeria of the Spaniards it did not take them long to do it. But once the deed was accomplished, the Turks refused to leave, and in 1546 took possession of Algiers.

For the next three hundred years the White City became the stronghold of the pirates of the Mediterranean. At first their fleet was nominally a national navy, fighting against Charles Quint, but little by little all form of legitimate warfare disappeared and open piracy became the sole occupation of these wild seamen. Their ships became independent rovers of the sea; built lighter and more handily than the average cargo- or war-vessel of other nations, they fell upon their prey regardless of its flag, captured it, and brought it back to Algiers. Here the cargo was divided: a quarter to the state, and the rest to the owner and crew of the vessel. The sailors or passengers on board the prize were employed as slaves, those who knew trades, to build and beautify the palaces of their masters, the more common to work in the quarries or to row in the galleys. If they were men of importance, they were held to ransom. Among other prisoners who spent a not too pleasant sojourn in Algeria were Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, and the French poet Regnard.

It was not long, however, before the powers in Europe began to occupy themselves with these acts of open brigandage. In 1541, Charles Quint led an expedition, but partly by reason of adverse weather, and partly by the strength of the Turkish lair, he was entirely defeated, and just escaped with a small portion of his forces.

The squadron sent by Cromwell under Blake in 1655 fared better. Part of the Turkish Fleet was destroyed at Tunis, and the release of the British prisoners was obtained. Louis XIV sent two fleets in 1682 and 1688, under Duquesne and d’Estrès respectively, but, though their bombardments did a good deal of damage to the fortifications, and temporarily hampered the pirates’ activity, the effect did not last long.

About the same time Sir Thomas Allen, and a little later Sir Edward Spragg, inflicted minor defeats on the Turkish fleets, but on the whole little harm was done; and though Lord Exmouth won a decisive victory in 1816 and seriously battered the fortifications, he was unable to land, and it remained for the French in 1830 finally to shake and destroy a rule which had dominated the Mediterranean for three centuries. With their entry on to the scene, the period of anarchy begun by the Vandals finally disappeared, and the task almost completed by the Romans started again on almost as barren a soil as that faced by the great colonists of the Mediterranean a hundred years before Christ.

It will be easily understood that this undisputed mastery of the Mediterranean basin had given the Turks of Algeria a very great impression of their importance, and had left them with little respect for the European powers. Consideration, therefore, for representatives of those powers was on the same scale, and when one day the French Consul, Deval, paid an official visit to the Dey Hussein to protest about the non-payment of a debt to a French subject, Hussein summarily sent him about his business with a flick over the face with his fan.

This took place in 1827, but it was not until 1830 that the French really decided to have done with the insolence of the dey. An army of thirty-five thousand men was organized under General Bourmont, one of Napoleon’s officers, escorted by a fleet of three hundred ships. Curiously enough the success of the expedition was greatly facilitated by the lack of vigilance of British guards some twenty years before.

In 1808 Napoleon had practically decided to conquer Algeria and Colonel Boutin had been sent on a secret mission to Algiers with orders to reconnoiter the land. During his return journey the ship on which he was traveling was captured by a British man-of-war and the Colonel was imprisoned at Malta.

He, however, succeeded in escaping, and, returning to France, laid his report before the Emperor, who had by that time decided that Egypt was a more interesting goal.

Boutin’s plans were therefore put aside, but when the expedition of 1830 was being prepared they came to light again and were exclusively used in drawing up all the details of the attack.

Wisely avoiding the mistakes of their predecessors who had attempted to take the stronghold itself, the fleet bearing the army sailed to the west of Algiers, and in June, 1830, landed without opposition in the sheltered bay of Sidi Ferruch. The cause of this easy landing has never been clearly established, but it is supposed that Hussein either believed that this invasion would share the same fate as all others, and that by allowing the army to land his victory would be more complete, or else that he did not anticipate an attack from that quarter.

However, the fact remains that the whole of the French army landed without difficulty, and that a few days later they were marching on Algiers. They met the first elements of the Turkish army at Staoueli. The battle was fierce, but the French artillery caused havoc among the ranks of the Moslem troops, which were driven out of their position. The French headquarters were established on the site of the future Trappist monastery, which is now a great wine-cellar.

The advance on Algiers was continued, but there were no roads, and the hills of the Sahel were covered with thick scrub. On June twenty-ninth, however, the army arrived before Algiers. The attack on the fortress where Charles Quint had for a brief moment pitched his tent was immediately commenced. For a time the Turks held out, but, realizing the futility of their task, they set fire to the powder-magazine and blew up the great pile, emblem of their long rule. The French, meeting no longer with any opposition, pushed on, and on July fifth made their triumphal entry into Algiers.

The immediate result of this victory was for the King of France, Charles X, to lose his head. He believed that he was now in a position to exercise absolute power, and he expressed himself by publishing his famous Ordonnances. The consequence was revolution. Charles X was deposed, and Louis Philippe, the son of Philippe Egalité, mounted the throne. General Bourmont was relieved of his post as Commander-in-Chief, giving way to General Clauzel.

As can be imagined, this did not tend to help matters across the Mediterranean. The capture of Algiers had taken barely a month—the subduing of the Arabs was to drag on for over thirty years.

In the first place, the new Government in Paris was very diffident about pushing forward the conquest of the country. At first only the coast was occupied. This was interpreted by the natives of the interior as fear, and it was with little difficulty that the young Emir, Abd-el-Kader, raised the population to a holy war. Until the year 1847 this struggle continued with varying success, and it was not until Bugeaud, an old warrior of the First Empire, took charge of the operations that the unruly chief began to lose ground. The capture of his smala in 1843 at Taguine in the Sersou was the beginning of the end. Four years later he surrendered and was exiled, and he finally died at Damascus. His memory is venerated by all the Arabs of the country.

Once the emir was out of the way, Bugeaud began to penetrate the interior by colonization. His famous motto, “Ense et aratro,” was to prove a veritable success, and little by little the country began transforming itself. In the meanwhile he did not neglect the conquest of the territory still unsubdued. In 1852 the Oasis of Laghouat was captured after tedious fighting, and with it the penetration of the Sahara began.

The last strongholds of the Berbers in the Kabyle Mountains fell in 1857. The country seemed turning toward peace. But in 1864 a fierce revolt burst forth in southern Oranie; the French punitive column was massacred, and the rebellion spread all over the department. It took five years to quell it completely.

Hardly was this over than the Franco-Prussian War broke out and Algeria again became a center of agitation. The Kabyles for a short space threatened the peace of the whole country, capturing numbers of French centers and massacring the inhabitants. The French were obliged to send troops back from France at a very awkward moment, but they succeeded in quelling the insurrection. In 1879 the Berbers of the Aurès made an attempt to rise, but were rapidly repressed; the same lot awaited the insurgents of southern Oranie in 1881. I can not pass this point in the history of the conquest without mentioning a name great in the annals of Algeria though sadly forgotten by many historians.

I refer to Cardinal Lavigerie, priest and administrator, founder of the order of the Pères Blancs who did more by his foresight and calm judgment to bring the Arabs under French rule than any governor during these turbulent times. His political activities were only eclipsed by his evangelical work, and his influence in North Africa has ever remained.

Those who are interested in this subject will find some excellent reading in Le Cardinal Lavigerie et Son Action Politique by J. Tournin. This book not only deals with the Cardinal’s long administration in North Africa but also throws much light on all those intrigues which finally led to the disestablishment of the Church in France.

Since then little has occurred to disturb the peace of Algeria, and, in spite of a certain amount of unrest during the Great War, there has been no definite rebellion.

The French conquest took long, but, when one looks at the stupendous difficulties which had to be overcome, one is surprised it was completed so rapidly. Everything was against it: an unstable government, which was overthrown at the outset of the campaign by an equally unstable rule, which itself disappeared a few years later to give place to the adventures of the Second Empire; statesmen who had no definite policy as regards North Africa, and generals who never had sufficient troops nor a free enough hand really to take up the conquest of the country seriously.

Opposing them was an enemy, composed of born fighters, knowing the country as well as their horses, amazingly mobile, capable of concentrating to fight a battle and dispersing again like the sand, and inspired with the spirit of religious war. The country was overgrown with thick brush; there were no roads, great mountains to cross, and, once in the interior, no means of feeding or watering the army, with no towns from which food or cattle could be requisitioned, no wells or springs and a climate of great extremes.

When one traverses the great plains of the Sersou and the Hauts Plateaux leaning back in a comfortable car, or when trekking across the Sahara to some known water-point among a friendly people, one often wonders how it was possible for that small French column in this unknown country to press on after an elusive enemy with lines of communication of such immense length. There is no heroic record of their achievements, and, apart from certain names known to French school-children, no one appears to have been honored or exalted as responsible for this series of campaigns.

Let any trained soldier consider the taking of Laghouat, three hundred miles south of Algiers, in a desert, unpopulated and waterless, and he will wonder how it was done. The conquest of Algeria by the French is one of the greatest pages of military history.

North Africa has been very aptly described as a melting-pot of the Mediterranean races, and, though all trace of invaders such as the Vandals and the Byzantines have vanished, the other peoples who came and conquered and were in turn defeated have left their mark on the inhabitants of to-day.

The Phœnician, the Roman, the Arab, the Spaniard, the Turk, can be seen in all parts of North Africa, and, though it requires perhaps a little study and experience to place one’s hand on the actual features of the past conquests, they are most striking when one is shown them. The original race of the country is, however, the Berber, and, in spite of these invasions which have devastated, reinstated, and again devastated his country, he has remained in a good many districts as pure as the Celts.

Roughly speaking, it can be said that to-day the pure Berbers are found in all the highest mountains, such as the Aurès above Biskra, the Kabyle country, and that portion of the Tellian Atlas known as the Ouarsenis, strongholds to which they returned during the various invasions, and where they remained unassailable while the tide of war ebbed and flowed beneath them. The people of the Mzab and the Touaregs of the Hoggar are also pure Berbers: in the case of the former because they were determined to remain pure and exiled themselves in the merciless desert, and in the latter because they were too far away to be touched by invasion. In other parts of Algeria intermarriage naturally took place during the various dominations, but, though Roman and Turkish traces remain, these are eclipsed by those of the Arabs.

Roughly speaking, therefore, it can be said that the groups of pure Berbers are located in the high mountains, in the Mzab and in the Hoggar; that the Berber influence is predominant among the people who inhabit the country immediately south of Algiers, as far as the southern slopes of the Atlas, the department of Constantine, and an arm of the southern territories running from Biskra down to Ouargla and the great belt of desert running right across the Sahara from the Atlantic to Tripoli on a latitude just south of El Golea.

The whole of the rest of the country—that is, the department of Oran, the whole of the southern tracts of the department of Alger, and the rest of the southern territories other than the belt named above— is decidedly Arab. The Berber is there, but the influence is almost entirely that of the nomad invader.

If you ask an intelligent native what his nationality is, he will reply that he is an Arab who has been slightly Berberized or else he will say that he is a noble Arab—that is to say, a claimant to direct descent from Mohammed. While on this subject it is interesting to note what the conception of nobility is among these people. Outwardly, before the European, it is the title of bash agha or agha or caïd, but in reality this does not count with the people any more than Lord-Lieutenant of a county in England. To them it is merely a title imposed by the French, which they must respect just as they must respect the Colonel or the Administrateur. Aristocracy to them is the descent from the Prophet, or as one wise old gentleman once said: