queen of cities--
City of noble ramparts,
Algiers, column of Islam,
Thou art like the habitation of the dead,
The banner of France envelops thee all."[6]

[6] Hanoteau, pp. 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11.

It is, one may believe, in similar terms that these songs, lost to-day,
recount the defeat of Jugurtha, or Talfarinas, by the Romans, or that of
the Kahina by the Arabs. But that which shows clearly how rapidly these
songs, and the remembrance of what had inspired them, have been lost is the
fact that in a poem of the same kind on the same subject, composed some
fifty years ago by the Chelha of meridional Morocco, it is not a question
of France nor the Hussains, but the Christians in general, against whom the
poet endeavors to excite his compatriots.

It is so, too, with the declamatory songs of the latest period of the
Middle Ages, the dialects more or less precise, where the oldest heroic
historical poems, like the Song of Roland, had disappeared to leave the
field free for the imagination of the poet who treats the struggles between
Christians and Saracens according to his own fantasy.

Thanks to General Hanoteau, the songs relating to the principal events of
Khabyle since the French conquest have been saved from oblivion, viz., the
expedition of Marechal Bugeaud in 1867; that of General Pelissier in 1891;
the insurrection of Bon Bar'la; those of Ameravun in 1896, and the divers
episodes of the campaign of 1897 against the Aith Traten, when the
mountains were the last citadel of the Khabyle independence:

"The tribe was full of refugees,
From all sides they sought refuge
With the Aith Traten, the powerful confederation.
'Let us go,' said they, 'to a sure refuge,'
For the enemy has fallen on our heads,'
But in Arba they established their home."[7]

[7] Hanoteau, p. 124.

The unhappy war of 1870, thanks to the stupidity of the military
authorities, revived the hope of a victorious insurrection. Mograne, Bon
Mazrag, and the Sheikh Haddad aroused the Khabyles, but the desert tribes
did not respond to their appeal. Barbary was again conquered, and the
popular songs composed on that occasion reproached them for the folly of
their attempt.

Bon Mezrah proclaimed in the mountains and on the plain:

"Come on, a Holy War against the Christians,
He followed his brother until his disaster,
His noble wife was lost to him.
As to his flocks and his children,
He left them to wander in Sahara.
Bo