One morning a sportsman brought in a fat young boar that he had shot in the valley beneath, we gave him ten francs for it, an extravagant price, we learned afterwards. We presented the Fathers with half the meat, and there remained as much as we could dispose of. Dominique cooked well for us, but the contempt he entertained for all things native was sometimes annoying; he professed himself unable to swallow Kabyle bread, he said it made him ill; we always therefore supplied him with French bread, from Fort National, though we never ate it ourselves.
He is a fair specimen of a colonist, and abuses the natives in unmeasured terms. How would the colons get on without les cochons d’indigènes? The former exist by first getting the Government to give them a ‘concession’ of cultivated land belonging to the ‘indigène,’ and then employing the ex-proprietor to work for them. The most flattering expression I ever heard a Frenchman use towards the Kabyles was, ‘une race capable d’être assimilée.’ He doubtless thought this praise in the highest degree; but the remark was not altogether free from French conceit, nor true, except in the sense that a good beefsteak is assimilated when swallowed by a man of large appetite and strong digestion.
Muirhead had been expecting for some days, a visit from his friend W. B. R———, who had been spending the winter in Algiers, and from H. M———, on a holiday trip from Gibraltar. On April 22, the two appeared, having come from the Fort to reconnoitre before bringing their tent. They decided to pitch alongside of us, and shortly started on their way back.
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.
The ash, plentiful about the summit, is prized by the people, not for the beauty of the trees, nor for the grateful shade they cast over the paths, but because their leaves afford forage during summer heats, when all herbage is parched. The boughs are lopped to cause a number of small branches to shoot out, and thus increase the quantity of leaves.
The fig plantations yield a most important harvest, dried figs being one of the staple foods of the country. The trees were in their most charming state, the beautiful mystery of silver-tangled stems not obscured, but enhanced by the golden sprinkling of opening leaves.
In spring, when first the crow
Imprinting, with light step, the sands below,