Berbice

“ North Berwick, however, is the golfer’s Mecca on this side of the Firth; and bathers, artists, and other seekers after the pleasures of the sea-shore succumb to its attractions in increasing numbers every season. The sands and the links, the sea lapping upon the beach, or chafing round Craigleith and the other rocky islets and points, exercise a potent spell. But North Berwick’s great lion, and a conspicuous landmark over sea and country for a score of miles around, is the natural pyramid of the “Law.” ”

“ The Berbers, says he, are of a dark red-brown complexion, “which, if the mother is a slave from Abyssinia, becomes a light brown in the children; and if from the Negro countries, extremely dark. Their features are not at all those of the Negro, the face being oval, the nose often perfectly Grecian, and the cheek bones not prominent. The upper lip, however, is somewhat thicker than is considered beautiful among northern 58nations, though it is still far from the Negro lip. Their hair is bushy and strong, but not woolly.” ”

“ Young Berber, however, seemed hardly to have heard her; he stood there, the "Gargoyle" look still in his eyes, gazing past his mistress into some surrounding mystery of air element. It was to her, watching him, as if those brooding, dilated pupils might behold, besides infinitesimal mystery of chemical atoms, other mysteries—colorless pools of air where swam, like sea anemones, radiant forms of released spirit; invisible life-trees trembling with luminous fruit of occult being!
When Berber turned this look, naked as a sword, back to Evelyn Strang, she involuntarily shivered. ”

“ At present the proportion of Berbers is estimated at about two-thirds of the whole population, and especially in the highland districts, remote from the town and seaboard, they form the almost exclusive element At the same time this general expression, Berber, applied collectively to all the inhabitants not of distinctly Semitic or Negro descent, by no means implies a community of origin. ”

“ Richard Warner—afterwards the author of a work on the Waverley Novels—describes the lower half of the river between Berwick and Kelso: 'The country around Berwick, though swelling into hills and sinking into vales, has neither beauty nor variety, the one being uniform and lumpish, the other wide and unwooded. A naked surface everywhere presents itself, unadorned with those indispensable features in agreeable landscape, lofty trees and spreading shrubs. ”

“ The Berbers, short, squat figures, high cheekbones, small eyes, square frames, great walkers, only becoming horsemen by necessity, as when the Arabs have forced them to the desert; as fond of mountains as the Arabs are of plains; in general agriculturists, whereas the Arab in his true sphere prefers a pastoral life; the Berbers, little known outside their mountains, look rather Scottish in appearance, that is, Scotch as ordinary mortals see that race, and not as seen through “kailyard” spectacles. ”

“ A mounted troop of wild Berbers from the hills, with their long, brass-bound guns slung across their backs, and gaudy handkerchiefs about their heads, will ride through the bazaars, ragged of dress and no less ragged in the harness of their horses. "Balak!" Very swiftly way is made for them. ”

“ Heartily cursing the inhumanity of their masters, I returned sorrowfully to our own camp under the date-trees. The Berbers keep a great number of dogs to watch their flocks, and they are so accustomed not to suffer the approach of any stranger whatsoever to the habitations of which they are left in charge, that the fear of being devoured by them serves as a wholesome restraint upon the depredations of those robbers by whom the country is so much infested. The Berbers themselves dare not approach without caution the camps of their own tribe to which they are strangers ”

“ It is there that the Berber type, though it is still everywhere what we ourselves are, has maintained itself least mixed with the foreigner: it is even, perhaps, allied in these hills with a people older than we or the Berber can be. ”

“ A favourite way of annoying the Berberis is to repeat the saying, "we have eaten the clean, we have eaten the unclean,"-meaning, that they are by no means cunning in the difference between right and wrong, pure and impure. ”

“ Berbers, whose one desire as to clothing seems to be absolute freedom of limb. The haik, or toga-like garment of the Arabs, is used amongst the better-class Berbers, but merely as a luxury. Their typical costume consists of the chamira, or long loose shirt reaching from the neck to below the knees, and the haidus [65] above, the open hooded cloak called by the Arabs s’lham. This in the case of the mountaineers takes the form of the black goat’s-hair article, and in that of the Berbers of the plains of a thick but finely woven garment of white wool. ”

“ Every Sunday she bore an osier basket to the village of Tiefenbach, and the good people there filled it with cooked potatoes, loaves of bread, and sometimes, on holidays, with cakes and other remnants of their festivities. Then the poor creature would make her way back to the cave, breathless, laughing, chattering, rejoicing.
But Tall Berbel was ever careful not to drink at the cold spring. She was bony, fleshless as a bat, and had lost an eye; her nose was flat, her ears large, and her single orb sparkled like a coal; she lived upon the fruits of her sister's sallies. ”

“ The Berbers live in Lower Nubia, and are a wild, fine-looking race. The men wear but little clothing; they all carry a small dagger, which is bound with a red leather bracelet round the left arm, above the elbow. ”

“ Berberis.—Few Berberises are of much account for greenhouse decoration, the best being the orange-flowered B. Darwinii and the rich yellow B. stenophylla. They will not flower well if forced hard, but in a cool house, with very little heat, they are very charming. A successful grower of shrubs under glass writes: "I knew of some bushes of B. stenophylla that had been treated in this way for five years, and little trouble was taken with them, yet they were so beautiful as to be much admired every year. After flowering, the weakly growths were cut out and the pots plunged in the open ground. ”

“ But always, in such a case, there are to be found one or two bold spirits, or one or two so heedless of what is passing around them that they rush into danger unawares. Such there were at Berwick-on-Tweed, and to them the hunted soul spoke as he fled past, the hell-hounds slavering at his heels. "Until my body is burnt," he cried, "you folk of Berwick shall have no peace!" ”

“ Some Berbers as we passed spread a pagne beside the road, that a few dates might be thrown to them: this fruit is scarce and dear in this part of the country; and some of them brought us water in exchange. About three o’clock we arrived at L-Guim, a small Moorish village, where some cultivation is visible and some forage may be obtained, but the general aspect of the country is sterile and dry; not a single tree is to be seen. I supped upon some pieces of barley bread, baked a second time, and which I steeped in a little water. ”

“ With what emotion, with what sympathy she had described to him her interview with Lord Bosworth; there had been such complete comprehension of his attitude, such keen distress that Madame Sampiero had repulsed him!
[pg 325] But, deep in Berwick's heart, something told him that Barbara's attitude to him and to their joint future was changing, and that she was in very truth on the eve of surrender. Nature, so he assured himself to-night had triumphed over convention, and, as a still voice also whispered, proved stronger than conscience. ”

“ Remarks on Genera and Species. As only one genus of Berberideae has yet been met with in India, it affords no room for remark, I may however observe, that, I think there is a new species of Berberis on the Pulney mountains, referable to the section Mahonea, with pinnated leaves. I speak doubtfully, because J did not find flowers or fruit, and judge from habit alone: the Pulney plant being a diffuse shrub, with long, somewhat scandent branches, and the Neilgherry one an erect, sparingly branched tree. ”

“ Of the hundred or more known species of Berberis, about twenty (forming the subgenus Mahonia) have compound leaves of from three to many leaflets all plainly articulated at the base (Figs. 6 and 7) , just as is also the case with certain species of the genera Citrus and Vitis, to which the orange and the grape respectively belong. Moreover, throughout the Berberidaceæ we find almost all the species to possess leaves which are obviously compound, the chief exception being those eighty species (forming the subgenus Euberberis) which in their leaves agree essentially with Berberis vulgaris. ”

“ All these peoples are thought to belong to one great human type, which we may call Berber, and of which numerous representatives still exist. Anterior to all Asiatic migration, and from the time of the stone age, this race seems to have occupied the south of Gaul and Spain, the Canary Isles, and Northern Africa. At the present day the most important epigonic groups of the Berber race are the Kabyles and the Touaregs of the Sahara. ”

“ But alas! that mood had quickly changed; and the interview with Boringdon had reawakened the violent primeval instinct which had slumbered,—only slumbered,—during the illness of Barbara. The knowledge that another man loved her, with an ordinary, natural love by no means free from that element of physical attraction which Berwick himself had been striving, not unsuccessfully, to control in his own heart, had had a curious effect upon him. ”

“ The men’s hair is cut short but their beards are allowed to grow. In some districts there are peculiar customs, such as the wearing of small silver nose-rings, seen in El-Jofra. The Berbers’ weapons are those of the Arab: the long straight sword, the slightly curved and highly ornamented dagger, and the long gun. Berbers are not great town-builders. Their villages, however, are often of substantial appearance: with houses of untrimmed stones, occasionally with two storeys, built on hills, and invariably defended by a bank, a stone wall or a hedge. ”

“ The Berbers of the mountains seldom wear turbans or anything but a string tied round their foreheads. Generally they have a linen shirt to-day, but often wear the tunic as Leo Africanus says, and now and then one sees them with the twisted leg bandages like Pifferari. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These Berber peoples seem to be allied to the ancient Egyptians. The whole of North Africa and Southern Europe may have even been peopled from one ethnical source in prehistoric times, the populations, like the animal and vegetable species, thus radiating from a common centre. The oases and upland valleys in the Sahara have also been occupied by the Berbers, some of whose tribes, designated by the name of "Moors," dwell even south of the desert along the right bank of the Senegal. ”

“ Again and again Berwick, walking and smoking outside, stopped and looked critically at the little scene. It is seldom that a man can so look consideringly at a woman, save perhaps at a place of public amusement, or in a church.
[pg 109] At last, slightly ashamed of himself, he turned round for the last time, and plunged into the moonlit darkness lying the other side of the house. In his room was a graceful sketch of Mrs. Richard Rebell, Barbara's lovely mother. He felt certain that the daughter would greatly value it. How surely his instinct had guided him he himself hardly knew. ”

“ Germains. It was a curious solitary pavilion, bought by his father as a very young man, and dear to Berwick and his sister as having been the scene,—the speaker's accents became more deeply tender,—of their parents' honeymoon. Within a drive of this enchanting spot was the little town of Poissy, where the mail train could be made to stop and where, the day after to-morrow, he would be waiting—
Barbara sat listening. She had raised her head and was staring straight before her. Berwick looked at her with entreating eyes—"It is close to Paris! Besides, they know you will be moving about." ”

“ The Abbey was still asleep, no sound came from the servants' quarters at present, nor the clink of a pail-handle from the stables. If they were waking in the village yonder, they were welcoming the new day in silence. Barbara's footfall on the stone flags of the terrace rang strangely loud in the morning air, and she went slowly, pausing to look across the woods and down into the stream. Hidden men might still be watching, or someone, whose night had been as wakeful as her own, might see her from one of the windows. ”

“ Berwick's tone was very imperious. "I myself am going back to Chillingworth to-night. I offered long ago to leave here to-day, for they have every attic full. I have of course arranged for an extra carriage, so you will be put to no inconvenience,"—but his bright blue eyes, now full of strange fire, fell before his sister's challenging glance, and the altered accent with which she observed, "Oh! of course if you and Mrs. Rebell have arranged to go back together——"
Berwick's hand closed on his sister's arm and held it for a moment in a tight, to her a painful, grip. ”