ing for them, but by spending his whole time at the mosque in prayer
for their miraculous sustenance. His inertia and his faith were
acceptable to Mohammed, who appeared to Aissa's wife with baskets of
food, and to Aissa with the order to found a sect. The allegory
expressed by the disgusting actions of the order would seem to be that
anything is nourishment to the true believer. They therefore exhibit
themselves as eating red-hot iron, scorpions and prickly cactus. Various
travelers, some of them cool hands and accurate observers, have seen
these khouans at their horrible feasts without being able to explain
the imposture. A British soldier, an experienced Indian officer,
happened to be in Kabylia just before the breaking out of the great
Sepoy rebellion in India, and was introduced to one of the fire-eating
orgies by Major Deval at Tizi-ouzou, where our journey into Kabylia is
to terminate. With his own eyes he saw a khouan, excited by half an
hour's chanting and beating the tom-tom, drive a sword four inches deep
into his chest by hitting it with a tile. The man marched around and
exhibited it to the congregation as it quivered in his naked body.
Another seared his face and hands with a large red-hot iron, holding it
finally with his mouth without other support. Another chewed up an
entire leaf of a cactus with its dangerous spikes, which sting one's
hands severely and remain rankling in the flesh. Another filled his
mouth with live coals from a brazier, and walked around blowing out
sparks. Another swallowed a living scorpion, a small snake, broken glass
and nails. The spectator was in the midst of these enthusiasts, being
touched by them in their antics, yet he could detect no foul play,
except that he imagined the sword in the first-named experiment to have
been driven into an old wound or between the skin and the flesh. It was
to counteract the influence of the fire-eating marabouts that the French
government sent over Robert Houdin, the ingenious mechanician, but
though he eclipsed their wonders by tricks of electricity and sleight,
he has left but a lame explanation of the "juggleries" of the Algerine
saints.

[Illustration: THE GREAT MOSQUE, CONSTANTINA.]

The worst attribute of these khouans is, that after having excited the
ignorant Kabyles to many a losing war by their magnetism, they remain
themselves behind the curtain, safe and sarcastic.

In the Moorish quarter of Constantina, where the streets are ab