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. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.

Contents

THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.
OUR HOME IN THE TYROL
WILMINGTON AND ITS INDUSTRIES.
MARIE FAMETTE AND HER LOVERS.
SALMON FISHING IN CANADA.
A PRINCESS OF THULE.
AT ODDS.
PHILADELPHIA ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.
BERRYTOWN.
OVERDUE.
QUEEN VICTORIA AS A MILLIONAIRE.
CRICKET IN AMERICA
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.

THIRD PAPER.

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.

KALAA.

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.

COURTYARD IN KALAA.

"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.

OURIDA, THE LITTLE ROSE.

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