f Aicha received him with honor and games of
horsemanship. At the camp of Ben Salem the chiefs of several tribes
came to render homage to the noble marabout, descendant of Berber
ancestry and of the Prophet. From thence he sought tribes still more
wild, discarding his horse and appearing among the villagers as a
simple foot-pilgrim. The natives approached him in throngs, each
family bearing a great dish of rancid kouskoussu. Laying the platters
before his tent and planting their clubs in them, all vociferated,
"Eat! thou art our guest;" and the chieftain was constrained to taste
of each. Finally, near Bougie he happened to receive a courier sent by
the French commandant. The Kabyles immediately believed him to be in
treasonable communication with the enemy, and he was forced to retire.

The young chief was in fact at that time in peaceful communication
with the French, having made himself respected by them in the west,
while they were attending to the subjugation of Constantina and
founding of Philippeville in the east. Protected by the treaty
of Taafna in 1837, Abd-el-Kader was at leisure to attempt the
consolidation of his little empire and the fusion of the jealous
tribes which composed it. The low moral condition of his Arabs, who
were for the most part thieves and cowards, and the rude individuality
of his Kabyles, who would respect his religious but scoff at his
political claims, made the task of the leader a difficult one. To the
Kabyles he confided the care of his saintly reputation, renouncing
their contributions, and asking only for their prayers as a Berber
and as a khouan of the order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman. For a few years his
power increased, without one base measure, without any soilure on the
blazon of increasing prosperity. In 1840 the sultan of Oran, at the
zenith of his influence, swept the plains beneath the Atlas with his
nomad court, defended by two hundred and fifty horsemen. Passing his
days in reviewing his troops and in actions of splendid gallantry, he
resumed the humility of the saint at evening prayers: his palace of a
night received him, watched by thirty negro tent-guards; and here he
sheltered his lowly head, whose attitude was perpetually bowed by
the habitual weight of his cowl. The French soon became jealous, and
encroached upon their treaty. The duke of Orleans, we are told, had
Abd-el-Kader's seal counterfeited by a Jewish coiner at Oran, and
with passports thus stamped sent scouting-p