nest of white houses covered with red tiles, surmounted by a glittering
minaret and by the poplars which decorate the porch of the great mosque,
has an aspect as graceful as unique. In a vapory distance floats off
from the eye the arid and thankless country of the Beni-Abbes. On every
level spot, on every plateau, is detected a clinging white town,
encircled with a natural wreath of trees and hedges. They are all
visible one from the other, and perk up their heads apparently to signal
each other in case of sudden appeal: it is by a telegraphic system from
distance to distance that the Kabyles are collected for their
incorrigible revolutions. Two ruined towers are pointed out, called by
the Kabyles the Bull's Horns, which in 1847 poured down from their
battlements a cataract of fire on Bugeaud's _chasseurs d'Orleans_, who
climbed to take them, singing their favorite army-catch as well as they
could for want of breath:

As-tu vu la casquette, la casquette,
As-tu vu la casquette du Pere Bugeaud?

Far away, at the foot of the Azrou-n'hour, an immense peak lifting its
breadth of snow-capped red into the pure azure, the populous town of
Azrou is spread out over a platform almost inaccessible.

[Illustration: THE LATEST IMPROVED REAPER.]

What a strange landscape! And what a race, brooding over its nests in
the eagles' crags! Where on earth can be found so peculiar a people,
guarding their individuality from the hoariest antiquity, and snatching
the arts into the clefts of the mountains, to cover the languid races of
the plains with luxuries borrowed from the clouds! The jewelry and the
tissues, the bornouses and haiks, the blacksmith-work and ammunition,
which fill the markets of Morocco, Tunis and the countries toward the
desert, are scattered from off these crags, which Nature has forbidden
to man by her very strongest prohibitions.

We are now in the midst of what is known as Grand Kabylia. The coast
from Algiers eastward toward Philippeville, and the relations of some of
the towns through which we have passed, may be understood from the
following sketch:

[Illustration]

The scale of distances may be imagined from the fact that it is
eighty-seven and a half miles by sea from Algiers to Bougie. The country
known as Grand Kabylia, or Kabylia _par excellence_, is that part of
Algeria forming the great square whose corners are Dellys, Aumale, Setif
and Bougie. Though these are fictitious and not geographical l