[Illustration: COURTYARD IN KALAA.]

[Illustration: KALAA.]

[Illustration: OURIDA, THE LITTLE ROSE.]

The inhabitants of Kalaa pass for rich, the women promenade without
veils and covered with jewels, and the city is clean, which is rare in
Kabylia. There are four amins (or sheikhs) in Kalaa, to one of whom we
bear a letter of introduction. The _anaya_ never fails, and we are
received with cordiality, mixed with stateliness, by an imposing old man
in a white bornouse. "_Enta amin?_" asks the Roumi. He answers by a
sign of the head, and reads our missive with care. Immediately we are
made at home, but conversation languishes. He knows nothing but the pure
Kabyle tongue, and cannot speak the mixed language of the coasts, called
Sabir, which is the pigeon-French of Algiers and Philippeville.

"_Enta sabir el arbi?_"--"Knowest thou Arabic?" asks our host.

"_Makach_"--"No," we reply. "_Enta sabir el Ingles?_"--"Canst thou speak
English?"

"_Makach_"--"Nay," answers the beautiful old sage, after which
conversation naturally languishes.

But the next morning, after the richest and most assiduous
entertainment, we see the little daughter of the amin playing in the
court, attended by a negress. The child-language is much the same in all
nations, and in five minutes, in this land of the Barbarians, on this
terrible rock, we are pleasing the infant with wiles learnt to please
little English-speaking rogues across the Atlantic.

The amin's daughter, a child of six years, forms with her slave a
perfect contrast. She is rosy and white, her mouth is laughing, her
peeping eyes are laughing too. What strikes us particularly is the
European air that she has, with her square chin, broad forehead, robust
neck and sturdy body. A glance at her father by daylight reveals the
same familiar type. Take away his Arab vestments, and he would almost
pass for a brother of Heinrich Heine. His child might play among the
towers of the Rhine or on the banks of the Moselle, and not seem to be
outside her native country. We have here, in a strong presentment, the
types which seem to connect some particular tribes of the Kabyles with
the Vandal invaders, who, becoming too much enervated in a tropical
climate to preserve their warlike fame or to care for retiring,
amalgamated with the natives. The inhabitants on the slopes of the
Djordjora, reasonably supposed to have descended from the warriors of
Genseric, build houses which amaze the travele