admissible
that the Berbers had read the "Golden Ass" of Apuleius, but it is probable
that he was born at Madaure, in Algeria, and retained an episode of a
popular Berber tale which he had heard in his childhood, and placed in his
story.

The tales have also preserved the memory of very ancient customs, and in
particular those of adoption. In the tales gathered in Khabyle by General
Hanoteau,[10] T. Riviere,[1] and Moulieras,[2] also that in the story of
Mizab, the hero took upon himself a supernatural task, and succeeded
because he became the adopted son of an ogress, at whose breast he
nursed.[3] This custom is an ancient one with the Berbers, for on a _bas
relief_ at Thebes it shows us a chief of the Machouacha (the Egyptian
name of the Berbers) of the XXII Dynasty nursed and adopted by the goddess
Hathor. Arab stories of Egypt have also preserved this trait--for instance,
"The Bear of the Kitchen,"[4] and El Schater Mohammed.[5]

[10] Hanoteau, p. 266. Le chasseur.

[1] Contes Populaires de la Khabylie du Jurgura, p. 239. Paris, 1892. Le
chausseur.

[2] Legendes et contes merveilleuses de la grande Khabylie, p. 20. 2 vols.
Tunis, 1893-1898. Le fils du Sultan et le chien des Chretiens, p. 90.
Histoire de Ali et sa mere.

[3] R Basset, Nouveaux Contes Berbers, p. 18. Paris, 1897. La Pomme de
jeunesse.

[4] Spitta-bey, Contes Arabes modernes, p. 12. Ley de 1883.

[5] Arless Pasha, Contes Populaire de la vallee du Nil. Paris, 1895.

During the conquest of the Magreb by the Arabs in the seventh century A.D.,
Kahina, a Berber queen, who at a given moment drove the Mussulman invaders
away and personified national defiance, employed the same ceremony to adopt
for son the Arab Khaled Ben Yazed, who was to betray her later.

Assisted by these traits of indigenous manners, we can call to mind ogres
and pagans who represent an ancient population, or, more exactly, the
sectarians of an ancient religion like the Paganism or the Christianity
which was maintained on some points of Northern Africa, with the Berbers,
until the eleventh century A.D. Fabulous features from the Arabs have
slipped into the descriptions of the Djohala, mingled with the confused
souvenirs of mythological beings belonging to paganism before the advent of
Christianity.

It is difficult to separate the different sources of the Berber stories.
Besides those appearing to be of indigenous origin, and which have for
scene a grotto or a mountain, one