Lippincotts Magazine

Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26,?by Various

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May, 1873, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873
Author: Various
Release Date: October 20, 2007 [EBook #23095]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE
OF
POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
MAY, 1873.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by J. B. LIPPENCOTT & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article.

THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.
THIRD PAPER.
[Illustration: THE AMIN OF KALAA.]
Emerging from these gloomy caflons, and passing the Beni-Mansour, the village of Thasaerth (where razors and guns are made), Arzou (full of blacksmiths), and some other towns, we enter the Beni-Aidel, where numerous white villages, wreathed with ash trees, lie crouched like nests of eggs on the summits of the primary mountains, with the magnificent peaks of Atlas cut in sapphire upon the sky above them. At the back part of an amphitheatre of rocky summits, Hamet, the guide, points out a little city perched on a precipice, which is certainly the most remarkable site, outside of opera-scenery, that we have ever seen. It is Kalaa, a town of three thousand inhabitants, divided into four quarters, which contrive, in that confined situation, to be perpetually disputing with each other, although a battle would disperse the whole of the tax-payers over the edges. Although apparently inaccessible but by balloon, Kalaa may be approached in passing by Bogni. It is hard to give an idea of the difficulties in climbing up from Bogni to the city, where the hardiest traveler feels vertigo in picking his way over a path often but a yard wide, with perpendiculars on either hand. Finally, after many strange feelings in your head and along your spinal marrow, you thank Heaven that you are safe in Kalaa.
[Illustration: COURTYARD IN KALAA.]
[Illustration: KALAA.]
[Illustration: OURIDA, THE LITTLE ROSE.]
The inhabitants of Kalaa pass for rich, the women promenade without veils and covered with jewels, and the city is clean, which is rare in Kabylia. There are four amins (or sheikhs) in Kalaa, to one of whom we bear a letter of introduction. The anaya never fails, and we are received with cordiality, mixed with stateliness, by an imposing old man in a white bornouse. "Enta amin?" asks the Roumi. He answers by a sign of the head, and reads our missive with care. Immediately we are made at home, but conversation languishes. He knows nothing but the pure Kabyle tongue, and cannot speak the mixed language of the coasts, called Sabir, which is the pigeon-French of Algiers and Philippeville.
"Enta sabir el arbi?"--"Knowest thou Arabic?" asks our host.
"Makach"--"No," we reply. "Enta sabir el Ingles?"--"Canst thou speak English?"
"Makach"--"Nay," answers the beautiful old sage, after which conversation naturally languishes.
But the next morning, after the richest and most assiduous entertainment, we see the little daughter of the amin playing in the court, attended by a negress. The child-language is much the same in all nations, and in five minutes, in this land of the Barbarians, on this terrible rock, we are pleasing the infant with wiles learnt to please little English-speaking rogues across the Atlantic.
The amin's daughter, a child of six years, forms with her slave a perfect contrast. She is rosy and white, her mouth is laughing, her peeping eyes are laughing too. What strikes us particularly is the European air that she has, with her square chin, broad forehead, robust neck and sturdy body. A glance at her father by daylight reveals the same familiar type. Take away his Arab vestments, and he would almost pass for a brother of Heinrich Heine. His child might play among the towers of the Rhine or on the banks of the Moselle, and not seem to be outside her native country. We have here, in a strong presentment, the types which seem to connect some particular tribes of the Kabyles with the Vandal invaders, who, becoming too much enervated in a tropical climate to preserve their warlike fame or to care for retiring, amalgamated with the natives. The inhabitants on the slopes of the Djordjora, reasonably supposed to have descended from the warriors of Genseric, build houses which amaze the traveler by their utter unlikeness to Moorish edifices and their resemblance to European structures. They make bornouses which sell all over Algeria, Morocco, Tunis and Tripoli, and have factories like