Places and Persons

...For the last three years most of the soldiers under my command had been Berbers...

...and yet it was evident that the villagers loved and respected him...

...The mrbet took most of Areki's savings, but Areki's leg never healed well and he is now a cripple," Keera shouted...

...The friars and sisters of our order who work in Arabian country must contend against a paramount difficulty, because the laziness and the fanaticism of the Arabs are like an unbreakable stone wall...

...For instance, we are quite unable to understand why gifted men like those whiterobed Christian priests left the comforts of their homes across the sea and elected to spend their life in our poor villages...

...But among the hard-working Berbers Mohammedianism is a habit several centuries old rather than a deeply felt, rigid creed...

...Pere, it is yours...

...The district of Kabylia alone is as wide as Belgium, and thickly inhabited...

...and the absurd conviction that the north African soldiers were all Arabs or sons of races which fully shared the views of the Arab...

...The thin voice of a child racked by pain called us from the next room...

...I am afraid that, with your system of accepting no reward for your services, you will undergo the most painful deprivations to supply the needs of the poor," I remarked...

...Next fall when the olive oil merchants come to buy the products of our grove, I will count the jars that my father will give to them and the money that he will get in return...

...The house which we entered a few minutes later was a typical dwelling of that district...

...We would ask no other reward than to see them as grateful to God as they are grateful to us...

...Healthy sunburned boys and small girls, graceful as figurines of Tanagra, played everywhere, laughing and shouting lustily at each other...

...he told me that if I would buy it for a gold piece my son's arm would mend in a short while...

...The speaker was a lanky, middle-aged Berber...

...Streams flow everywhere amid green banks studded with wildflowers and thickets of fig, pomegranate and olive trees...

...Father Honore, who was learned in medicine and surgery like most clergymen of his order, had been called to set the broken arm of a child...

...For the time being, go back to your play and may God bless you...

...Not by preaching and threatening as the mrbets used to do, but by the very example of their virtues and their charity...

...the friar greeted her...

...But we instinctively feel that 66o THE COMMONWEAL October 29, 1930 the creed that brought them among us stands for order, kindness and justice for all...

...Our Douala friends are very kind," the friar said to me...

...But the Berbers have given their whole-hearted allegiance to France because their conditions have improved greatly during the last thirty years, thanks chiefly to the activities of the White Fathers and to the waning of the maraboutic influence...

...But the friar gently declined her offer and left the house without accepting a single coin...

...Who taught our villagers the benefits of cleanliness, the art of saving and the right way to utilize the ground...

...Actually, the tirailleur battalions which constitute two-thirds of the native infantry of Algeria and Tunisia are mostly Berbers, and more than one-fourth of the population of those two provinces is Berber too...

...His words reassured and elated Keera so that she went to a great wooden coffer, lifted it with a mighty effort and proffered it to the friar...

...I was therefore transferred in a semi-political capacity to Berber Kabylia, in the interior of Algeria...

...No, thank you, Djlema...

...when I returned everything was changed...

...I am Saridj-ou-Driss and I had the honor to serve as a sergeant of the tirailleurs until I was retired from active service on account of age," he proudly announced...

...We were raised as Moslems...

...A tall, lithe woman of remarkable beauty came to meet us...

...The man of the white burnous replied to their greeting in a deep sonorous voice...

...My amazed glance fell on discs of baked earthenware covered with red and black geometrical designs like pieces of Etruscan pottery, on great amphores and oil lamps shaped like those which are dug from the ruins of the ancient Mediterranean towns...

...That very mrbet had the daring to come to me not long ago," Keera snarled...

...A three-mile ride brought me to the nearest village—a few scores of rambling houses grouped around a central square...

...The sudden passion of her Berber temper convulsed her so that the silver rings fastened to the brass diadem encircling her black tresses and the bracelets covering her arms clashed against each other and tinkled sharply...

...The friar went to him...

...My duty kept me away from my village for several years...

...But no Berber mother would entrust her daughters to a male civilian teacher...

...I can already spell the great letters of the first pages of my reader," the child announced proudly...

...That marked the end of my participation in the ill-fated expedition of Gallipoli...

...But I had never been in Kabylia before...

...Accordingly, our White Sisters have instituted courses of instruction in which the Berber girls learn not only to read and write, but everything that concerns the upkeep of a home...

...He was a White Friar, a priest of that Christian faith against which the mrbets constantly preach...

...We do not ask for anything, but we find every morning small bags of coins lying on the threshold of our monastery, and sheep and sometimes cattle tied to the trees nearby...

...There are things that are so great and kind that our mind fails to explain them...

...The merchants will not rob my father any more...

...Name of Allah...

...Any legislation inspired by an undue love of the Moslems would inevitably revive the power of the marabouts...

...The mere says that if I am diligent, I will soon be able to read...

...when he stooped to pat the tousled head of a child who ran to meet him I noticed the tonsure baring the crown of his head...

...This district has a governmental school...

...The production of grain and oats has been doubled, because our farmers have learned that the summits of the hills where it is impossible to carry water from the bottom of the valleys, may be made fertile just the same by tilling the arid ground several times a year...

...Pere, if you want some figs I will climb a tree and pick the best ones for you...

...The Berbers who are able to do so express their gratitude with those anonymous gifts...

...Sidi, you must not congratulate the pere, but our men of the Douala, because ours are the benefits," a harsh voice rumbled...

...worse, it would handicap the progressive influences which are helping their tribes so much...

...The White Fathers 1 "And that is not all," Saridj continued fervently...

...The jars where the food is stored and the purses of our men were filled, because the Beni Douala had learned to save in times of abundance and thus had freed themselves from the yoke of the usurers, who formerly lent money to them at 1,000 percent interest...

...A few moments later I had the pleasure of meeting the friar, and I took advantage of the circumstance to congratulate him on the authority he seemed to enjoy in the community...

...The narrow, crooked streets were uneven and steep, but clean...

...The sight of my uniform did not excite among them any excessive interest...

...And yet to God are due all praises, because from Him come all benefits...

...A girl about ten years old draped in a cerise tunic emerged from one of the thickets flanking the road and came toward us...

...The streets were clean...

...These were intended to serve as benches and beds but they looked strangely like stone coffins and gave to the house the appearance of a burial cave—an impression which was confirmed by the archaic supplies laying all over the floor...

...Then my attention was caught by the flat, massive slabs of hardened clay which projected from the walls...

...These courses are earnestly followed by almost all the girls of the neighboring villages...

...I almost threw a jar after him...

...The red ribbon of the Legion of Honor loomed like a tiny pomegranate flower on his saffron-colored gandourah...

...THE WHITE FATHERS IN KABYLIA By ROBERT DU CHALIEU DURING a furious melee within the Turkish redoubt of Deide-Agatch I was almost simultaneously struck by a bullet and stabbed by a bayonet thrust...

...Thinking that it was my duty to know thoroughly the Beni Douala country to which I had been assigned, I commandeered a horse a fortnight after my arrival in Tigzart and started on a tour of inspection...

...I offered to go with him and he gladly assented...

...While Saridj was speaking, his words were being translated to the bystanders by another Douala who knew the French language...

...she asked...

...The chest's bottom was covered by a deep layer of barbaric jewels and silver coins...

...I say blindly because it is against the judgment of the authorities residing among the tribes of the interior and against the wish of the leading business men and the municipal councils of important towns like Tunis, Bona, Constantine, Algiers and various others...

...On the clearing in the middle of the village a line of aged, tall tribesmen stood in front of a dilapidated mosque...

...because no fanatic Mohammedan will be bound by gratitude to people who do not share his creed...

...Her dark blue eyes shone at the sight of the friar and her lips parted in a glad smile uncovering a set of dazzling white teeth...

...I sent the fool away...

...If nothing interferes with our work I hope for a great deal in the future of the Berbers...

...Her eyes flashed rage...

...and yet, while the mrbets used to take our last measure of grain, our last coin, the White Fathers ask nothing from us...

...We have found that their advice is more enlightened, more beneficial than that which we were accustomed to buy so dearly from the mrbets...

...Although we are still Moslems, the friars have become our guides...

...one had the impression that the clumsy walls would subside like butter under the pressure of one's hand...

...A couple of months later my wounds were healed but I was still weak and unfit for field duty...

...This tendency of many anticlerical deputes is based on two erroneous assumptions: the belief that the Arabs were moved to fight against the Germans during the world war by their love of France rather than by the iron-handed discipline of their officers...

...They have not the lying capabilities of the Arabs, who do not hesitate to flatter people they detest for the sake of a favor...

...When everything was done he smiled and said that he was feeling much better...

...Keera was rich according to tribal standards...

...Do you remember that mrbet who understood the cure of the broken leg of Areki, the silversmith, a year ago...

...He brought a page of the Koran which he had blessed with a special prayer...

...We are Moslems...

...my daily practice with them had enabled me to learn their customs, their peculiar turn of mind and a smattering of a dozen Berber idioms...

...When Saridj concluded his enthusiastic testimonial, everyone of them nodded vigorously and shouted approval...

...In a short while he had set the bone, cleansed the arm with a disinfectant solution and encased it in a cast of fast-drying clay...

...Perched on one leg like huge storks, with the other knee bent and the heel against the wall, they were chatting idly as old Berbers are accustomed to do for hours at a stretch...

...They greeted me casually, then the harsh noise of their conversation sounded again, mingled with the rustling of the soft wind...

...they stubbornly saved their customs, their racial characteristics and the fashion of their ancient earthenware...

...Yes Keera, I do," the friar replied...

...We have lost faith in our rapacious mrbets...

...The slopes rising to the right and left of them are covered with alternate patches of rocky, unarable plots and stretches of fertile ground industriously tilled by the Berber farmers...

...The friar pointed to the supplies which showed how near the Kabyles were to the standards of their ancestors of 2,000 years ago, and said: "Various races one after another conquered north Africa, but her original white inhabitants, the Berbers, never mingled with any of them...

...it would not find favor with the Berbers because, though they still believe in the Prophet, they despise the evils connected with Mohammedan supremacy...

...And the Arabs, the die-hard Moslems, would inwardly sneer at those who so blindly intend to favor them...

...Quick as a bird Djlema jumped into the thicket where a group of children were waiting for her...

...The local authorities appreciate our work, but the government of Paris which overrules that of Algeria does not allow us to have a school of our own," Father Honore remarked sadly...

...Keep on following the advice of the meres...

...Walking under the fig trees shading the path that led from Keera's house to the village, our conversation fell on the attitude of the Berbers toward the Christian clergy...

...But when a bearded man draped in a white burnous emerged from an alley opening on the opposite edge of the square, they hastily took a position like that of military attention, brought their hands to their heads and bowed deeply...

...The child had paled visibly during the ordeal but, sturdy son of his enduring race, he had not uttered a single scream...

...Hardly," Father Honore replied...

...How are you, Djlema...

...I am learning to do sums too...

...Now, fifteen years later, the wonderful system built by the White Fathers is menaced, like all the progressive institutions and activities of Algeria and Tunisia, not by local opposition, but by the French parliamentary tendency which blindly favors the Arab...

...The hilly landscape resembles southern Spain more than the usual conception of north Africa...

...It had been built with clay which in drying had saved the look of its original malleability...

...In Algeria alone there are seventyfive Berber dialects...