In nothing, perhaps, is the line more strongly drawn between the two races than in the treatment of their females. 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. But it becomes a more serious matter when the wells or streams are three or four hundred feet lower than the site of the dwelling to be supplied. In such cases donkeys come to the aid of their mistresses, at some sacrifice of the picturesque, but with great advantage to comfort.
A water-supply thus obtained must be, it is obvious, inadequate to the demands of scrupulous cleanliness. Accordingly, the desert wanderer has the advantage in this respect of the Kabyles, crowded into a village perched on the summit of a rock and traversed only by pathways cut, as it were, through solid blocks of houses. These abodes are of but one story, and generally of one room. Bipeds and quadrupeds live together, eating and sleeping on the same earthen floor. There are no chimneys and no windows. Cutaneous and ophthalmic affections are of course common, and typhus fever now and then redresses the balance in Malthusian fashion by reducing the crowd. Death is the great sanitary regulator or superintendent of hygiene. His functions in this regard are but slightly, if at all, interfered with by the authorities of the village.
The head of the municipality is an officer called an amin: we might style him the mayor. He is chosen by popular suffrage from each of the family or patriarchal groups or clans composing the community in turn. He is guided in his administration by a code of written laws bearing the name of khanoun or canon, established from time immemorial. He is checked also by a city council chosen from among the notables, and is required to consult it before taking any executive or judicial step. The secretary of the council, elected by it, bears the title of chodja. He is generally an old codger, for the double reason that clerks usually do grow old in harness, and that writing is not a universal accomplishment among the Kabyles and competition for the office is not great. He keeps the journal of the municipality, and conducts all its correspondence with other towns and with the French authorities. He enjoys a salary, paid in kind with figs, olives, etc. In this pleasant feature of his post he seems to be distinguished from his associate functionaries. We do not find that they receive any pay, unless in the indirect shape of bribes and perquisites—a mode of compensation as well understood in the East as in the West.
Moslem influence shows itself in the close association of Church and State. The mosque of each town has its treasury, fed by the fines imposed on transgressors by the municipal council and by dues from the registration of marriages, births and deaths. The sacred building itself serves another purpose still more alien to its religious character. The hustings, even among this simple and primitive people, are not scenes of unbroken tranquillity. There are always two parties in the village, as with us; but, as fortunately is not the in the United States, these parties have casehardened into hereditary factions, always ready to air their ancestral feuds at the polls. Bullets come to the aid of ballots. To use the local expression, "The speaking is done with powder." The rude fire-lock of the country, with its absurdly long barrel and wheel-lock, answers well enough at short range, and proves highly influential in bringing about a speedy decision without the assistance of returning boards and electoral commissions. The villages have rarely more than two or three thousand souls, and cover but a few acres. The dispute cannot last long, and contested elections are soon settled. The mosque is one story higher than the other buildings, having a second floor. It is also on more elevated ground. These attractions cause the sanctuary to fill up rapidly in time of trouble. The faithful who get first to church have a marked advantage over their fellow-parishioners.
A KABYLE WAKE.
The administration of the tribe comes directly under French control. It is committed to a chief who is not allowed to interfere with the local affairs of the villages composing the tribe. But pressure in the direction of centralization is gradually being employed by the French, in accordance with the political notions and genius of that nation. It needs, however, to be used with extreme caution, as warning catastrophes still occur to prove. The solemn engagement made when the Kabyles capitulated in 1857, to rigidly respect their public customs and their communal elections, will enforce itself upon the more or less sincere attention of the invaders as long as they possess the country. The stormy clanhood that insists on the luxury of at least an annual fight among neighbors is often the last hold of national independence.
THE POLLS: MODEL VOTERS.