Edgar Barclay

“ If honey flowed like a river, if women were to be found like locusts, if there were no masters, men would be cloyed with marriage. New mistresses would come and go.
When a woman is cross-grained, reckon that her lord does not please her. She does nothing becomingly. Her tongue is always ready to attack. Her husband will be covered with confusion, like a house that has a vicious dog.
Let him who marries take a woman of good birth, a girl noble and chaste. A bad marriage is like the setting of the sun, darkness follows quickly upon it. ”

“ A quarter of a mile off is Taourirt el Hadjadj, somewhat smaller. Near Taourirt Mimoun, on a southern arm, is the fifth village, Agouni Hameth; a little below is the sixth, Thisgirth by name.
The nests of the Kabyles, like those of the eagles, are built on high in healthy mountain air. They are thus exposed fully to all the vicissitudes of the circling seasons. They first receive the white mantle that winter spreads, they first feel the gusty puffs of coming sirocco, and are earliest enveloped in the chill mist that the north wind sweeps from the Mediterranean. ”

“ From the open bit of ground between the villages of Ouarzin and Taourirt the view of the Jurjura is magnificent. With the early [14] morning sun behind, the rocks throw great blue shadows, and are superb in colour, their formation is limestone, moulded in the grandest forms, the loftiest peak is 7,542 feet. The village of Taourirt is a trifle above the level of Fort National. Owing to the absence of glacial action, the general character and form of the highest mountains recurs in a curious way throughout the country—more or less obliterated, however, by the action of water. ”

“ Watch those girls as they trip down the mountain path; at every step [xiv] their movements are governed by the accidents of the ground. What a path it is! Fit emblem of half-civilised institutions. Year after year, year after year, it receives the impress of many feet, yet all the rude asperities of nature remain.
Kabylia has I think another interest, purely fanciful. On seeing the villages with tiled roofs set on the tops of the mountains, surrounded by fig-trees; and corn ripening among the fine olives; one is irresistibly reminded of Italy. ”

“ A party of girls had placed some clothes on smooth rocks, in the run of the brook, and, barefooted, were merrily dancing upon them; others were flopping about a crimson dress, previous to wringing it, while more clothes [5] lay drying in the sun on the grassy slope. Above them, offering shade for a noontide repast, rose an elegant ash, with a great vine mazily tangled up with and depending from its branches. The eastern end of the mountain was not so verdant as the country we had already passed, the ground being naturally more barren ”

“ The bridegroom had gone to fetch his bride, and I waited with many others beside a stream that passed at the foot of the village, for his return. Suddenly we heard the sound of pipes, and saw the marriage procession streaming from the summit of a neighbouring hill, and then lose itself among the trees; a few minutes later it issued from an avenue near us, and ascended a slope towards the bridegroom’s house. First came the pipers, then the bride muffled up in a veil, riding a mule led by her lover. ”

“ It was the custom both in Greece and in Italy, when the marriage procession halted before the bridegroom’s house, to salute it with a shower of sweetmeats. This recalls the ruder shower of earth that I saw in Kabylia, and which I took to symbolise a volley of stones. The custom still survives in Italy; for I have often seen sweetmeats thrown among the crowd when a newly-married couple have issued from church; great is the delight and eager the scrambling of small boys on such occasions. ”

“ When Muirhead returned, I beat an orderly retreat, to ‘déjeuner.’ He too had had his trials, being quite baffled by the strong wind, which swept over the crest where Uncle Zaïd’s kouba stands.
When painting under my umbrella, I found the cattle of Kabylia even more timid than the fair sex. The cows are small but nimble, the unusual appearance of a European is sufficient to scare them, and the umbrella added was altogether too much for their nerves; they would canter off gaily, to the consternation of the herdsmen, shortly reappearing in order to eye me warily. ”

“ The men’s dress consists of a woollen tunic, confined at the waist with a belt, and a burnous; on the head is a close-fitting skull-cap, much like those worn by monks; added to this, in the summer time, is a plaited grass hat, very high in the crown, and with a huge brim, which falls into picturesque lines when the hat is old and battered; sandals complete the costume, though men often go barefoot as well as bare-headed. They crop the hair short, for Kabyles are not so careful about shaving as the Arabs. ”

“ Besides supplying ourselves with meat and necessaries, I bought a woman’s dress of singular design, splashed in a curious way with patches of red; I also got pieces of cowhide, which were made up next day into sandals, which are called ercassen. The women usually do not attend the markets; a few however can sometimes be seen in a knot by themselves with pottery for sale.
As we returned the Jurjura were almost obscured in mist, a sure sign of approaching sirocco; the paths were crowded with peasants on their way home, in good humour, well satisfied with their day’s bargaining. ”

“ All the business of the country is done at the markets, where there is a lively competition and everything is open and discussable. Husbands, when at work, have the satisfaction of knowing that their wives cannot squander their money in riotous shopping; at any rate, they like their system of doing things, and mean to stick by it. Though the markets be distant, they like the walk to them, the company, the talk by the way, the concourse of many tribesmen, the news from distant quarters, the eager bargaining, the comparing of notes, the greetings of friends, the disputes with enemies. ”

“ In a spring morning; when they are half veiled by rising mists which by-and-by will be gently driven in flocks of clouds across the azure meads of heaven.
During the calm mellow afternoon; when the contented land basks in sunshine at their feet, and their summits are capped with fantastic battlements of cloud.
During the ominous lull preceding a sirocco, the air thick and yellow, when they become mysterious and ghostly, hooded with pallid white. ”

“ At Souk-el-Jemāa, we saw a flock of thirty or forty, sitting on the refuse of the slaughtered animals, whilst the market was still crowded, and we approached within twenty paces without disturbing their repast. There must be a great number in the high mountains, for some are usually in sight. When painting, I have heard a rushing noise overhead, have looked up, and seen one of these great birds sweeping swiftly along without moving a feather. ”

“ We now found ourselves upon a grassy space, where shepherds pasturing their flocks were sitting under [23] the shade of ilexes. Before us rose a steep ascent, crowded with a mass of lichened tombstones, of a beautiful warm grey; and growing among them were ilexes, corks, and figs trained into leafy canopies above the graves, and pomegranates crimson with budding leaves. The hill was crowned by Thililit. Skirting the cemetery was a path among rocks, up and down which charming groups of women and girls, with pitchers on their heads, passed to and fro from the fountain ”

“ As leaves flutter before the gale, so do they vibrate to the music; they shake, they shiver and tremble, they extend quivering arms, wave veils, which they sometimes cast over their heads thrown backwards like Bacchantes, and their minds seem lost in the ‘abandon’ and frenzy of the dance, while the other women looking on, encourage by their high piercing trilling cries, which add to the noise of the pipes and drums. ”

“ A bewildering number of interesting groups kept passing; women and girls bearing pitchers, classical-looking herdsmen, driving sheep and goats, little kids, calves, and heifers; and husbandmen would go by with mules and donkeys, on their way to till the land, or to hew and collect firewood.
Soon the path was blocked with people declaring that I was in everybody’s way, and that I could not remain there painting; for the women said (so I gathered from a man who spoke a few words of French) that they were afraid to pass, being especially alarmed at my umbrella. ”

“ The dress of the men consists of a tunic and burnous.
The artistic merit of this loose and extremely simple dress, is not in the actual clothes, but in the manner of wearing them, which is varied. From the arrangements of folds into which these garments fall being ever changing, the artistic sense of the observer is always kept alive. A man thus simply dressed, may by some chance movement fling his cloak about his person, so that its masses and folds assume a dignity and interest worthy of permanence in sculpture. ”

“ E commenced fresh studies in a rocky ravine beneath Thililit, where trees nodded over the steep path. These sketches were never finished to our satisfaction, we were harassed by the sun, and continual calls to make way for brushwood-bearing peasants, timid cows, sheep, goats and kids. Much as I delight in goats and kids, they are truly provoking when they roll down stones upon one’s picture, or skip into the palette. ”

“ In the midst of all this dispute and fuss, the mules stand patiently, but they have a trick of striking out their legs, as if it were only just as much as they could do to support their burdens; more luggage is heaped on their backs, their expression of countenance grows more wistful and dejected; but when everything is adjusted they prick up their ears and start jauntily. ”

“ This throwing of earth, this mock opposition and good-natured [83] scourging, appeared to be a symbolised relic of marriage by capture, and was a living explanation of the ancient Roman custom of carrying the bride over the threshold of her lover’s house.
In the evening on such occasions the pipers and drummers are called in, and the women dance, two at a time, facing each other; nor does a couple desist until, panting and exhausted, they step aside to make room for another. ”

“ Few people have ever seen one.’ ‘So certain is every one that no further fighting can possibly occur, and that any attempt to find the Kroumirs is abandoned, that I leave for Tunis to-morrow, marvelling much at a campaign that has had no beginning, no middle, no ending, and that has taken 40,000 troops away from their homes to invade the country of an enemy who has been invisible.’ The Kroumirs (if they really exist) are Berbers, and there is no reason to believe that they are worse people than those I have described living amongst. ”

“ Gestures can be studied when the people are excited, but only then. I should describe the ordinary manners of the Kabyles as [xi] gentle and calm; but at times, when their passions are aroused, they are as vehement as the storms that break the serenity of their climate. They are not as a rule a fussy gesticulating people; on the contrary, at the entrance to a village, a rustic row can always be found chatting peacefully, and sitting very still. ”

“ Speak to the colonists, you will find that they abuse their homes and their circumstances; they one and all wish that they were somewhere else, perhaps the only point on which the natives are ready to agree with them. ‘Peut-être—oui, peut-être, le pays est joli, mais vu du loin,’ is the nearest approach to praise that I have been able to extract from a colonist in such a village.
In England men adapt their lives to the requirements and the accumulated conveniences of civilisation ”

“ The overflow is conducted into a basin where the women wash clothes, and then runs gurgling down the mountain-side. In an embowered nook, where there are neat terraced beds of vegetables, little gutters are arranged, so that at the end of the day the overflow can be conducted there; when the bed nearest the fountain has been saturated, the water is blocked off from the [40] first trench with a spadeful of earth, runs on to refresh the next, and so on till all the garden has drunk its fill; when the rivulet, having done its work, regains its liberty. ”

“ I dined one evening at the house of Salim, the jeweller of the village of Aït l’Arba. He showed me beautiful pieces of old jewellery that he keeps as patterns; and took me to his workshop, where four or five men were busy. Most of the ornaments which he makes for natives as well as for officers at the Fort, are of small value; but he is quite capable of making as handsome pieces as of old, if people will give the money. A jeweller of Taourirt Mimoun also showed me large Tafizimen beautifully worked. ”

“ The Aïth Ménguellath market is called Souk-el-Jemāa, Friday’s market. The native name for Fort National is l’Arba, or the fourth day, a market being held there every Wednesday. Before French rule, the duty of the Amine in [12] times of peace was to maintain the tribal laws, in times of war he commanded the fighting men, but only to carry out some plan previously determined on by the Jemāa. When schemes of war on an extensive scale had to be executed, the Amines of a tribe chose a President, who commanded the united tribal force. ”

“ Men are always to be found at these places, chatting, smoking, sleeping, or may be stitching; for the men do all the tailoring, even to sewing together lengths of cotton stuff, to make dresses for their wives; the women weave but do not use the needle. These covered resting-places may be considered as the centres of village politics, for every village is divided into different parties, each anxious to elect the Amine or chief, who has power to inflict fines up to a certain amount.
The word Jamâ, the Arabic for mosque, means simply the place of assembly. ”

“ In walking through these villages, attention is chiefly occupied in looking out for dogs, which are apt to come dashing out of the houses, barking in a most vicious manner, looking very much as if they would relish a piece out of one’s leg. Taourirt boasts of a Jamâ or Mosque. Its tower crowns the highest point of the mountain, and forms an effective feature in the landscape, though it is a modest structure both in size and style; moreover, the building is greatly out of repair and falling to pieces, being little used, for the Kabyles are not a mosque-going people ”