ernment
no sooner secured him than it treacherously sent him to prison, first
to the castle of Pau, then to that of Amboise near Blois, where he was
kept from 1848 to 1852, when the late emperor made an early use of
his imperial power to set him at liberty. Since his freedom, at
Constantinople, Broussa and Damascus the ex-sultan has continued to
practice the rigors and holiness of the Oriental saint, proving his
catholic spirit by protecting the Christians from Turkish injustice,
and awaiting with the deep fatigue of a martyr the moment destined to
unite his soul with the souls of Washington, Bozzaris and L'Ouverture.

This noble life, which impinges a moment on our course through
Kabylia, is surely the most epical of our century, which can never
be reproached for the lack of a hero while Abd-el-Kader's name is
remembered.

[Illustration: DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT.]

The descent from the rock-perched city of Kalaa having been made in
safety, and the animals being remounted at the first plateau, our
Roumi traveler and his guides arrive in a few hours at the modern,
fortified, but altogether Kabylian stronghold of Akbou. Here a letter
from a French personage of importance gives us the acquaintance of a
Kabyle family of the highest rank.

The ancestors of Ben-Ali-Cherif, remotely descended from Mohammed
through one of his sisters, were of Kabylian race, and one of them,
settled in Chellata, near Akbou, founded there a prosperous college of
the Oriental style. Ben-Ali-Cherif, born in Chellata and residing at
Akbou, receives the tourist with a natural icy dignity which only a
czar among the sovereigns of Europe could hope to equal: those who
have but seen Arabs of inferior class can form no notion of the
distinction and lofty gravity of the chiefs of a grand house (or of a
grand tent, as they are called): the Kabyle noble is quite as superb
as the Arab.

Ben-Ali seats us at a rich table covered with viands half French and
half Oriental: a beautiful youth, his son, resembling a girl with his
blue head-drapery and slim white hands, places himself at table,
and attracts the conversation of the guest. The young man answers
in monosyllables and with his large eyes downcast, and the agha
significantly observes, "You will excuse him if he does not answer: he
is not used to talk before his father."

The host, disposing of the time of his guests, has arranged a series
of diversions. The valley of the river Sahel is full of boars,