to the wild beast nor the tooth of time are the
Kabyle vases in clay. The amphorae in common use by the women for carrying
water are generally of graceful forms, comparing well in design with many
of the archaic vases of Greece and the Levant. The patterns vary somewhat
with the locality, but there is a resemblance which speaks of a common
origin and taste. Those of the Beni-Raten all come to a blunt point at the
bottom, and will not stand unsupported. The jar is made to rest upon the
girdle of the bearer, while she supports it upon her back by one or both of
the handles. Among the tribes nearer the Djurjura the jar has a broader and
hollowed bottom, fitted to rest upon the head of the woman. It must
therefore be less elongated and more rotund to admit of her reaching the
handles for the purpose of balancing it. These jars weigh, filled with
water, sixty pounds. In carrying one of them a Kabyle woman, it may easily
be supposed, is not in a condition to study lightness of step or grace of
carriage. Yet this heavy task, to which she begins to accustom herself at
the age of twelve, does not appear to injure her figure or health. Such a
result is more often due to violent and exceptional strains than to
habitual exertion even greater in extent. The muscles are not less
susceptible of education than the mind. Whatever brings out the full power
of either without suddenly overtasking is healthy and beneficial.

It has been remarked that the most usual size of the Kabyle water-jar is as
nearly as possible identical with the amphora kept for a standard measure
in the Capitol at Rome. This coincidence may well be due rather to a
correspondence in the average strength of the carriers than to a common
system of authorized measures. In decoration the Kabyle vases approach the
Arabic more than the Roman style. But the feeling, both in form and
coloring, is decidedly more artistic than in the similar ware of Northern
Europe.

Very ancient influences are manifest, too, in the work of the Kabyle
silversmiths. Their diadems, ear-drops, bracelets and anklets remind one
of the forms unearthed at Hissarlik and in Cyprus. In outline and chasing
the rectangular, mathematical and monumental rules at the expense of the
flowing and floriated. A certain pre-Phidian stiffness of handling seems to
hamper the workman, as though twenty-three hundred years had been lost for
him.

[Illustration: THE BOUDOIR AND KITCHEN.]

That there should be so mu