Kabylie

“ Physically many Kabyles do not present much contrast to the Arabs of Algeria. Both Kabyle and Arab are white at birth, but rapidly grow brown through exposure to air and sunshine. Both have in general brown eyes and wavy hair of coarse quality, varying from dark brown to jet black. In stature there is perhaps a little difference in favour of the Kabyle, and he appears also to be of heavier build and more muscular. Both are clearly long-headed. Some, however, of the purer type of Kabyles in Kabylia proper have fair skins, ruddy complexions and blue or grey eyes. ”

“ Active, energetic and enterprising, the Kabyle is to be found far from home—as a soldier in the French army, as a workman in the towns, as a field labourer, or as a pedlar or trader earning the means of purchasing his bit of ground in his native village. The Kabyles are Mahommedans of the Sunnite branch and the Malikite rite, looking to Morocco as the nearer centre of their religion. Some of the Kabyles retain their vernacular speech, while others have more or less completely adopted Arabic. ”

“ All was very still in the great square Afghan fort and in the Khan's garden without.
The summer sun shone brightly, and the birds, but chiefly the melodious pagoda-thrush—the king of the Indian feathered choristers—was there; and the flowers, the wondrous roses of Cabul, were exhaling their sweetest perfume. There the world, nature at least, looked gay and bright and beautiful; but here, a young life, that no human skill, prayer, or affection could detain, was ebbing away so surely as the sea ebbs from its shore, but not like the sea to return.
If Denzil died, what had she to live for? ”

“ So he came that night, without any retinue, and habited as a forester, a horn swung about his neck, into the unlighted hut of Rigon the forester, and found a woman there, though not the woman whom he had perhaps expected.
"Treachery, beau sire! Horrible treachery!" she wailed.
"I have encountered it ere this," the big man said.
"Presently comes not Blanch but Philippe, with many men to back him. And presently they will slay you. You have been trapped, beau sire. Ah, for the love of God, go! Go, while there is yet time!"
Sire Edward reflected. ”

“ THE BALLAD OF THE KING'S JEST When spring-time flushes the desert grass, Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass. Lean are the camels but fat the frails, Light are the purses but heavy the bales, As the snowbound trade of the North comes down To the market-square of Peshawur town. In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill, A kafila camped at the foot of the hill. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though the Kabyles, of all the Moslem races, treat their women with the greatest respect, neither imprisoning them in harems nor hiding them beneath veils and swaddling-clothes, they share with the mountaineers of the Caucasus the somewhat dubious distinction of selling their daughters to the highest bidder. ”

“ Arriving at Medina three months after 'Othman's death, Kabisa presented the letter to 'Ali, who broke the seal impatiently. "What meaneth this?" he cried, starting at the blank despatch;—"let the enigma be explained.” 239
Kabisa first inquired whether his life was safe. "Safe," answered 'Ali; "the person of an Ambassador is sacred. Speak on." "Know, then," proceeded Mu'awiya's envoy, "that but now I left behind me, weeping under the blood-stained shirt of 'Othman, sixty thousand warriors, bent on revenging the Caliph's death,—and revenging it on thee!" "What!" exclaimed 'Ali, aghast, "On me! ”

“ Did he succeed better when he lately again tried to raise Kabylia against us?" Mr Borrer confirms this. Marshal Bugeaud himself had said in the Chamber of Deputies, "The Kabyles are neither aggressive nor hostile; they defend themselves vigorously when intruded upon, but they do not attack." The marshal, whose whole public life has been full of contradictions, was the first to intrude upon them, although but a very few years had elapsed since he said in a pamphlet, "The Kabyles are numerous and very warlike; they have villages, and their agriculture is sedentary ”

“ He shrugged his broad shoulders. "In the end we necessarily die."
Dame Meregrett turned and passed back into the hut without faltering.
And when he had lighted the inefficient lamp which he found there,Sire Edward wheeled upon her in half-humorous vexation. "Presently come your brother and his tattling lords. To be discovered here with me at night, alone, means infamy. If Philippe chance to fall into one of his Capetian rages it means death."
"Nay, lord, it means far worse than death." ”

“ 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. ”

“ You have made him the laughing-stock of England. He does not pardon any more than I would pardon."
"And as God lives and reigns, I do not greatly blame him," said young Calverley. "This man at least was wronged. Concerning you I do not speak, because of a false dream I had once very long ago. Yet Umfraville was treated infamously. I dare concede what I could not permit another man to say and live, now that I drink a toast which I must drink alone. For I drink to the honor of the Calverleys. I have not ever lied to any person in this world, and so I may not drink with you." ”

“ He is a dandy, a creature of alternate flash and dejection, a wearer of ornaments, a man proud of his striped hood and ornamental agraffes. The Kabyle, of sturdier stuff, hands his ragged garment to his son like a tattered flag, bidding him cherish and be proud of the rents made by Roumi bayonets.
TYPE OF ALGERIAN ARAB.
It must be admitted that the Kabyles, with a thousand faults, are far from the fatalism, the abuse of force and that merging of individualism which are found with the Islamite wherever he appears. ”

“ The Kabyles are abstemious, tough and wiry; an overfat unwieldy [95] Kabyle is not to be found. Their sobriety, praise be to Mohammed, is absolute; they drink nothing stronger than coffee. Of course this does not apply to those who live in towns, where they learn to tipple, and I believe become more demoralised, if possible, than the worst class of colonists. It must in honesty be stated, that they are terribly lacking in that virtue which comes next to godliness. That they should not appreciate the luxury of soap and water is the more to be regretted, as it is an inexpensive one. ”

“ These nearer mountains are things of every day, and their changing moods are always visible, but above and beyond these come and go, for a few fleeting moments, like a vision, the great snow mountains of Kabylia. Mysterious, delicate, elusive, hardly to be distinguished from cloud masses, and yet grand and majestic in outline as any in Switzerland—a strange, unwonted sight to those who only know North Africa as it appears in Egypt. ”

“ Friday, April 23, 1880.—We went to the market Souk-el-Jemāa, the largest in the country, being held in the very heart of Kabylia, at a point central for populous tribes; from one spot, thirty villages can be counted on the adjacent hills. It was an interesting walk, and there was again cause for wonder to find gradients so steep carefully cultivated. The Kabyles
Let no spot of idle earth be found,
But cultivate the genius of the ground. ”

“ Yes, I failed, Cobber said, the bitterness of complete defeat rankling in his heart. The man your people want for revenge is my chief. I cannot deliver him. I cannot!
When Cobber first came to our planet, the Great Kama's thoughts rang in his head, who welcomed him? Who crossed the barriers between our different forms of life? Who told Cobber the tragic history of our people? ”

“ The Asiatic seclusion of women is unknown among the Kabyles. There are no harems and no veils. If, in return, the Kabyle women are subjected to more of such unfeminine employments as harvesting and turning the wheels of olive-mills, that does not lessen the assimilation to Western usage, but rather increases the resemblance between the life of the fair Africans and that of their sisters among the peasantry of Europe. Carrying water, so characteristic a female office in the East, as the artists are constantly reminding us, is none the less so among the Kabyles. ”

“ The Caliph, wondering at his absence, had caused him to be everywhere sought for. At last he was drawn forth almost smothered from the whisp of linen, and wet even to the marrow. Limping, and chattering his teeth, he appeared before his master, who inquired what was the matter, and how he came soused in so strange a pickle.
“And why did you enter this cursed lodge?” answered Bababalouk, gruffly. “Ought a monarch like you to visit with his harem the abode of a grey bearded emir who knows nothing of life? And with what gracious damsels does the place too abound! ”

“ Though the Mauresques of Algeria, the Jewesses of Tunisia, and the fair-skinned beauties of Circassia combine a voluptuous figure with an altogether exceptional beauty of complexion and features, the women of Kabylia, with their flashing teeth, their sparkling eyes, their full red lips, their lithe, slender bodies, and their haughty, insolent manners, suggest a civilisation older and more sensuous, and entirely alien to our own. ”

“ The French King and seven lords of France went from that hut trussed like chickens.
And now Sire Edward turned toward Meregrett and chafed his big hands gleefully. "At every tree-bole a tethered horse awaits us; and a ship awaits our party at Fécamp. To-morrow we sleep in England—and, Mort de Dieu! do you not think, madame, that within the Tower your brother and I may more quickly come to some agreement over Guienne?"
She had shrunk from him. "Then the trap was yours? It was you that lured my brother to this infamy!" ”

“ The Kabyles, who are a strong and courageous race, inhabit fixed dwellings, and employ themselves in agriculture as well as in cattle-breeding. They always fight on foot, armed with a yataghan and a long rifle which will carry almost as far as our wall-pieces. ”

“ It is as yet dark yonder, where the shadows quiver very oddly, as though they would rise from the floor—do they not, my girl?—and protest vain things. Nay, Rosamund, it has been done; in the moment of death men's souls have travelled farther and have been visible; it has been done, I tell you. And he would stand before me, with pleading eyes, and reproach me in a voice too faint to reach my ears—but I would see him—and his groping hands would clutch at my hands as though a dropped veil had touched me, and with the contact I would go mad! ”

“ Dan looked sideways at his sister. It was her turn.
'Because he jolly well had to,' said Una softly. 'The Barons made him.' 'Nay,' Kadmiel answered, shaking his head. 'You Christians always forget that gold does more than the sword. Our good King signed because he could not borrow more money from us bad Jews.' He curved his shoulders as he spoke. 'A King without gold is a snake with a broken back, and'—his nose sneered up and his eyebrows frowned down—'it is a good deed to break a snake's back. That was my work,' he cried, triumphantly, to Puck. ”

“ It may interest the reader to hear a rather more explicit account of this singular people, who dwell in the mountains that traverse Algeria from Tunis to Morocco—an irregular domain, whose limits it is difficult exactly to define in words. The Kabyles are, in fact, the highlanders of North Africa, and they hold themselves aloof from the Arabs and Europeans that surround them. Concerning them, we find some diversity in the statements of Mr Borrer, and of an anonymous Colonist, twelve years resident at Bougie, whose pamphlet is before us. ”

“ The abominable vices and debaucheries of the Kabyle race, the inhuman barbarities they are continually guilty of towards such as may be cast by tempest, or other misfortune, upon their rugged shores; the atrocious cruelties and refined tortures they, in common with the Arab, delight in exercising upon any such enemies as may be so unhappy as to fall alive into their hands, must render the hearts of those acquainted with this people perfectly callous as to what misfortunes may befall them or their country ”

“ It was market-day there, and the long street was so full of Kabyles dressed apparently in low-necked woollen bags, of soldiers in uniform, of bold-eyed, scantily-clad children, and of dyed sheep and goats, that the car had to pass at a walk. Nevill bought a good deal of Kabyle jewellery, necklaces and long earrings, or boxes enamelled in crude greens and reds, blues and yellows. ”

“ With us, it is by all classes felt that it is wise for a man to keep his head as cool as he can, but the Kabyles, in the ordinary way so quiet and gentle in demeanour, are an impulsive people, careless of self-control, and a mere trifle is sufficient to enflame them. ”