y. This being finished, I
went through a second ablution, after which one of them seized me behind
by the shoulders, and setting his two knees against the lower part of my
back, made my bones crack, so that for a time I thought they were
entirely dislocated. Nor was this all, for after whirling me about like
a top to the right and left, he delivered me to his comrade, who used me
in the same manner: and then, to my no small satisfaction, opened the
closet door."

[Illustration: HAMMO-EL-ZOUAOUI.]

This is the true Moorish bath. Meantime, the M'zabite or negro, as he
dislocates your legs, cracks your spinal column or dances over you on
his knees, drones forth a kind of native psalmody, which, melting into
the steamy atmosphere of the place, seems to be the litany of happiness
and of the pure in heart. Clean in body and soul as you never were
before, skinned, depilated, dissected, you emerge for a new life of
ideal perfection, feeling as if you were suddenly relieved of your body.

[Illustration: "BALEK!"]

[Illustration: A STREET IN CONSTANTINA.]

There is held every Friday at Constantina a grand assembly of the
fire-eating marabouts, the fanatics who have given so much trouble to
their French rulers. Every revolution among the Kabyles is a religious
movement, set in motion by the wild enthusiasm of the "saints." The
religious orders of Kabylia, all of them differing in various degrees
from Turkish Mohammedanism, are of some half dozen varieties, adapted to
minds of various cultivation. Some, as that of Sidi-Yusef-Hansali, are
mild in their rites and of a purely didactic or religious nature. This
latter sect originated in Constantina, comprises two thousand brothers
or khouans, and was in 1865 under the authority of Hammo-el-Zouaoui, a
direct descendant of Yusef-Hansali. An hour passed in the college of
this order, where the whole formula of worship consists in saying a
hundred times "God forgive!" then, a hundred other times, "Allah ill'
Allah: Mohammed ressoul Allah!" may be monotonous, but it is not
revolutionary. From this tautological brotherhood, through various
degrees of emotional activity, you arrive at the wild doings of the
fire-eaters, or followers of Mohammed-ben-Aissa. This Aissa was a native
of Meknes in Morocco, where he died full of years and piety three
hundred years ago. His legend states that being originally very poor, he
attempted to support his family in the truly Oriental manner, not by
work