The chiefs who accompany the Sultan also have tents for their wives and families at the same place, where there is a sort of female camp. That inhabited by Abd-el-Kader’s wife is woven of black camel hair.
The Sultan is said to be a most tender husband, and his conduct proves the truth of the report, for he has not a single concubine. His wife is very pretty; her tall slender figure is seen to great advantage under the graceful folds of her haick, which is girded round her middle with a red worsted cord. The Arabs usually like large fat women, but Abd-el-Kader’s taste is different. Though often absent from his wife for three or four months at a time, his attachment to her remains unchanged. Even from the banks of the Ouet Mina he frequently sent her presents of fruit, butter, honey, and other rarities. He has had one daughter by her; and though it was asserted that she was delivered of a boy on the very day on which the French entered Mascara, I do not believe it; for if Abd-el-Kader really had a son I am sure the Arabs would have told me so. During the night the thirty negroes keep watch round the tent that nothing may disturb the repose of Abd-el-Kader and his wife; and during their absence from the camp, a guard of foot soldiers supplies their place around the Sultan’s tent.
In the middle of the night a man peeped cautiously out of the Sultan’s tent, darted out, and tried to make his escape; but the sentinels who were not asleep seized him. It was Zaka, an old negro slave, and Abd-el-Kader’s cup-bearer. He had long been used to take advantage of the moments during which the Sultan left his tent to enter it and rob his treasure. The thirty negroes, either blinded by the confidence with which his high functions inspired him, or unwilling to denounce their comrade, had never stopped him, although they had frequently seen him leave the tent at undue hours, and during the absence of the Sultan. But the Arab soldiers were much less accommodating; and when Abd-el-Kader returned to the camp at sunrise they brought Zaka before him, together with several sultani (a silver coin) found on his person.
The coffee-sellers deposed, that Zaka had for a long time been in the habit of spending a great deal of money in their booths, and of treating his friends there daily. Haicks, bernouses, yataghans, and splendid pistols were found in his tent; and every one knew that his means were small and uncertain. Abd-el-Kader ordered him to be put in irons for an unlimited time; and he was brought to our tent, and placed under the guard of his friend Ben Faka. As the punishment promised to last very long, the chaous struck a nail through the bar which joins the irons, instead of securing it with a padlock.
Ben Faka was presently summoned to his duties in Abd-el-Kader’s tent; and after his departure Zaka crept to the further extremity of the tent, threw himself on the ground like a man overcome with fatigue, and pretended to sleep. Meurice watched all his movements with great attention, “The negro is trying to escape,” said he. “He is asleep,” I replied; “besides, both his feet are hampered.” “Say rather, he is pretending to sleep,” answered Meurice; “only watch his proceedings.” Zaka took down a rifle which he laid across two bales; he then pulled off his black bernouse, hung it over the gun, and crouched down behind it. I left the tent, and soon after saw him slowly cross the camp, wrapped in his white haick, and hiding his face. As soon as he had reached the limits of the camp he took to his heels, and soon disappeared among the fig trees on the mountain.
When Ben Faka returned to the tent, and found that the prisoner for whom he was personally responsible had escaped, he flew into a violent passion, and loaded us with blows and abuse, for not having prevented Zaka’s flight. A hundred horsemen mounted immediately, and rode in all directions in pursuit of him. Ben Faka was anxious to conceal the escape of Zaka from the Sultan, as he hoped that the fugitive would be retaken before the news of his flight could reach Abd-el-Kader. But the horsemen had not returned when a chaous summoned him into the presence of the Sultan. As Ben Faka was going towards the tent he met Zaka in the midst of an escort of horsemen, with his hands tied behind his back; he took possession of his prisoner, and went with him to the Sultan’s tent. Without further enquiry, the Sultan condemned Zaka to be put in irons for an indefinite time, and to receive six hundred blows a day with a stick, for three successive days; two hundred at seven in the morning, two hundred at noon, and two hundred at night; in all one thousand eight hundred blows in three days. Zaka was instantly brought before our tent, and laid flat upon his face; two of his friends held the skirts of his bernouse, while the chaous administered to him the first two hundred blows.
The important post which Zaka had filled, joined to his munificence, had gained him many friends, to whose zeal he now entirely owed his life. He could not possibly have survived the one thousand eight hundred blows well laid on, but the chaous took care not to hit very hard, and the Arabs who held the skirts of his bernouse stretched them so tight, as considerably to deaden the force of the blows. When the chaous had administered the first two hundred, Zaka was brought into our tent, where his friends busied themselves in kneading and chafing his whole body, and in warming him; and Ben Faka, who now remembered nothing but his former friendship, loaded him with attentions and gave him coffee. By degrees Zaka recovered, but he was not released from his irons, and at the time of my departure he was still stretched upon the ground, vainly expecting each day the Sultan’s order for his release.
The Sultan administers justice in a very simple and expeditious manner. The contending parties are brought to his tent, where the accuser first makes his complaint; the witnesses, if there be any, are then examined, after which the accused makes his defence. Both accusation and defence, like all Arab explanations, are long-winded and clamorous. When the pleadings are at an end, the Sultan decides singly, and without appeal. Without saying a word, he condemns the guilty to any kind of punishment by signs to the chaous. He raises his hand, and the accused is carried to prison; he holds it out horizontally, and the accused is led beyond the limits of the camp, and his head is cut off by the chaous; he bends his hand towards the earth, and the accused is dragged away and bound, laid flat upon the earth, and beaten with a stick. The Sultan usually determines the number of blows; if he omits to do so, it is left to the discretion of the chaous.
Most of the complaints and accusations are of thefts, a crime exceedingly common among the Arabs, and generally treated with great leniency, especially by Abd-el-Kader, who is neither cruel nor vindictive.