Part 35

Perhaps I cannot do better than reproduce in this place one of those popular chaunts which so well depict the rage and the varying fortune of these bloody struggles, that generally originate in love or jealousy.

My horse is whiter than snow, Whiter than the winding-sheet of men; He will bound like a gazelle, And will bear me to the tent of thy father.

O Yamina, fools are they who foster thy pride, Greater fools they who tell me to forget thee! Would that I were the pin of thy haïk; A lock of thy black hair, The meroueud that blackens thy eyes, Or, still better, the carpet thou tramplest under foot.

I watered my horse at the fountain-head, Then lightly leaped on his back. My chabir are glued to his flanks, And I have faith in my arms as I have faith in my own heart They betrayed me for the moon of my soul, But time shall betray them also.

By Allah, O ye vultures! Why hover ye in the air? I ask of Allah to grant us one of those bloody combats, In which every one can die in health and not of disease. You will pass days and nights in gorging yourselves! Our lives and those of our horses, Do they not belong to our maidens?

Away, strangers, away! Leave the flowers of our plains To the bees of the country. Away, strangers, away!

O the generous One! Behold, then, the night In which our goums shall burn powder Close to the very douar of Yamina, While the women are yet without their girdles,

And the horses have iron fastenings on their feet, Before the aâtatouche has been placed on the backs of camels, And the horsemen have drawn on their temag. Grant that I may receive seven balls in my burnous, Seven balls in my steed, And that I may place seven in the body of my rival. The best of all loves is that which causes gnashing of teeth.

Strike out, young men, strike out! The bullets do not slay; It is fate alone that takes life. Strike out, young men, strike out!

The horse of Kaddour is dead, the horse of Kaddour is dead! Publish it through your tribes, for they will rejoice at it; But, if you are not Jews, Add that, bleeding and wounded, He was able to save his master and bear him out of the mêlée. He was not one to be false to his ancestors, Never had he been trained to flee, He knew only how to throw himself on the foe. Merouan is dead for Yamina—his days were counted!

O my heart! why art thou so bent To make the waters flow back to the mountains? Thou art the madman who giveth chace to the sun! Believe me; cease to love a woman Who will never say to thee, Yes. The seed sown in a sebkha Will never produce ears of corn.

THE KHROTEFA.

The object of the razzia called khrotefa is to carry off a flock of camels grazing at a distance of seven or eight leagues from the tribe. From a hundred and fifty to two hundred horsemen join together as "a knot" and set out on the expedition. The reconnaissance is conducted in the same manner as for the tehha, only the arrangements are made with a view to arrive at the appointed spot towards el aasseur—three or four in the afternoon—and not at the fedjeur, or dawn of day.

When the razzia has been accomplished, and four, five, or six ybal—or flocks of one hundred camels each—have been driven off, they divide into two parties. The one, consisting of the weakest horses, goes forward with the booty, while the other forms a sort of rearguard whose duty it is, if necessary, to make head against the enemy. After appointing a rendez-vous for the morrow, the parties separate; but, in order to throw out the pursuers, those who are to check the enemy follow a different path to that taken by the drivers of the flocks.

In these forays the shepherds are usually spared; nor do they, indeed, take much trouble to defend property that does not belong to them. But the noise and shouting soon give the alarm. Every one saddles his horse and gallops forward; then they halt and rally, and finally appear in force upon the ground. Here again the assailants have every chance in their favour. They are on the look-out, and ready to receive the enemy. Their horses have had time to rest, while those of the tribe that has been plundered are exhausted and blown. Musket shots are nevertheless exchanged, but night supervenes; and, as soon as the darkness has thickened so that "the eye begins to grow black," the plunderers decamp and go off at full gallop to rejoin their comrades, whom they overtake at sunrise. The pursuit lasts but a short time. The conviction that the camels cannot be recovered, and the fear of falling into an ambuscade, soon induce the plundered tribe to return to their tents.

Although the actual fighting incidental to this kind of expedition is devoid of animation and soon interrupted by nightfall, they who take part in it do not the less run considerable risk. A horseman may receive a wound sufficiently severe to disable him from continuing his march. In that case he is lost, unless he happen to be a personage of distinction, for then he is certain not to be deserted. Some strong, vigourous fellow takes charge of him, lifts him up, places him across his saddle, and carries him home dead or alive. As for slight wounds, with the Arab saddle they do not give much trouble, nor do they prevent the return to the goum. On rejoining the tribe, the spoils are divided among those who shared in the khrotefa.

THE TERBIGUE.

In a terbigue not more than fifteen to twenty horsemen make "a knot," and propose to drive off the flocks from the very middle of a douar. They send some of their party to reconnoitre the tribe, and arrive close to the tents on one of the darkest nights. An isolated douar is selected, to which they approach as near as two or three hundred paces. Three of them dismount and stop, while one goes round to the opposite side, and makes a noise to attract the attention of the dogs. The people of the tribe fancy it is a passing hyæna, or a jackal, and take no notice of it. In the meanwhile the two other robbers penetrate into the interior of the douar, loosen the fastenings of ten, fifteen, or twenty camels, according as fortune favours them, and knock their shoes together, to frighten the liberated animals and cause them to run away. They then make off as quickly as they can, rejoin their horses, and all assist in collecting the scattered camels. After that they separate into two bands, one of which conducts the captured animals, while the others, lagging a little behind, allow themselves to be pursued in a different direction. If by chance they have succeeded in letting loose the faâle, or stallion, their success is certain, for all the females strive to follow him.

Since, in these operations, the secret is generally well kept, they seldom fail, nor are accidents at all common. Should the douar be on its guard, the attacking party at once retires. They who venture upon such enterprises are usually well mounted, and speedily escape from a pursuit that is rendered almost impossible by the obscurity which effaces all traces and inspires dread of ambush. For a razzia of this sort, they do not hesitate to go thirty or forty leagues.

Sometimes incidents of a grotesque nature characterise the terbigue. When a party of horsemen does not care to leave a reserve to fight the enemy, they conceal themselves in an ambuscade seven or eight hundred steps from the douar; while the most experienced robber of the band strips himself naked, and, taking only his sword with him and tying his shoes to his head to look like enormous ears, penetrates into the douar. He carries in his hand an old saddle-bow, which he shakes in all directions, every now and striking the earth. To this dull sound he joins cries of alarm and terror: "The goum! the goum! up! up! We are betrayed!" The clamour, the jumping about, the strange aspect of the individual, and the noise of the saddle which he keeps on shaking, strike terror into the animals. Horses, sheep, and camels rush pell-mell out of the douar, and are caught by the concealed horsemen. The others rush out of their tents, snatch up their guns, and spring into the saddle; but flocks and plunderers are already far away, fleeing at full speed, and protected by the night.

THE KHRIANA, OR THEFT.

The terbigue is, in fact, a robbery, but it is at the same time almost a warlike operation—it is, at least, a razzia. The strength of the party that executes the enterprise, the importance of the wrong inflicted upon an entire division of a tribe, the high qualities of the perpetrators of the robbery, who, after all, are real warriors,—all these circumstances taken together, if they do not suffice as a justification in the eyes of scrupulous Europeans, are esteemed in the desert as extremely plausible motives. Since a few brave and reckless fellows have imperilled their lives to injure a hostile tribe, there cannot be otherwise than joy and triumph in that to which they belong.

In the khriana, however, we descend a step lower, and arrive at a mere marauding expedition, executed by professional thieves. It is no longer war, even in miniature—it is nothing more than theft. It is no longer a subject of rejoicing for a whole tribe, though still a matter for praise and congratulation among friends; always provided the robbery has not been committed on their own or on a friendly tribe—which would be a disgrace—but absolutely on an enemy. They say, "Such a one is a brave man—he robs the enemy." As may readily be imagined, all thefts are not managed in the same manner, but are adapted to the nature of the capture that is proposed to be made.

HORSE-STEALING.

This species of theft is practised towards the end of the Mussulman month. When the moon is scarcely visible, five or six men, having a proper understanding between themselves, take a supply of provisions with them in their wallets, and go forth in search of adventures. Before starting, they give alms to the poor, and intreat them to intercede with Allah for the success of their enterprise. They then swear by some well-known marabout, generally Sidi Abd-el-Kader, that, if they succeed, they will do him homage by putting aside a portion for the unfortunate. "O Sidi Abd-el-Kader," they exclaim, "if we return with joy, loaded with spoils and free from accident, we will give thee thy lance's share, if it please Allah!"

On leaving the douar the robbers travel in broad daylight, but, as they approach the tribe they propose to rob, they proceed only at night, and conceal themselves, when two or three leagues from the tents, in the bed of a river, or among the herbage, or in the mountains. As soon as the darkness has become dense, they issue from their hiding-place and try the different douars one after the other, stopping at last at that which seems the least securely guarded, and where the dogs are the least wakeful. If the robbers are six in number, four of them remain about fifty paces from the douar, silent and motionless, while the two others, the most daring and adroit, make their way into the interior. Before separating, they agree upon a pass-word; and then the two thieves go to work. If they find the dogs on the watch, they return for a third companion, whom they station a little way off, in front of the tent guarded by the vigilant dogs, and they themselves enter the douar from another quarter. They agree upon the tent they propose to rob; and while one of them, called the gaad, remains as a sentinel beside it, the other, the hammaze, pushes on to the horses. If the latter comes upon a horse or a mare, fastened only by leather thongs ropes, he unties or cuts the knot, seizes the animal by the goulada, or necklace of talismans, and leads it to the side opposite to where the dogs are held engaged by the layahh, the third accomplice who was stationed for that purpose in front of the tent. The gaad stays behind ready to shoot with a pistol, or to knock down with a stone or stick, the first man who comes out of the tent, and then to mislead the rest by flying in a direction different to that taken by his comrade with the horse. He then rejoins the layahh, and the two quickly come up with the hammaze, when all three return to their expectant companions. A second robbery is committed, if the douar, buried in sleep, has had no suspicion of what was going on; otherwise they prepare for flight. One of them, placing his folded haïk on the back of the horse so as to use it for stirrups, starts forward at a gallop, after naming a rendez-vous for the morrow or the day after. The others, to escape from the pursuit which is sure to be instituted in the morning, hide themselves during the whole of the first night. The one who mounted the horse only continues his flight if the theft has been committed in the first hours of the night; otherwise, he passes the whole of the morrow concealed in a dry and stony spot, where the animal would leave no trace.

Should the fastenings of the horse, instead of being woollen, be of iron, the operation is more difficult. The preliminary arrangements are the same, but, once fairly at work, the hammaze cautiously raises the clog up to the knee, and binds it there with his camel's rope, which he throws round the animal's neck, and leads it out very slowly. As soon as he has rejoined his comrades and is sufficiently far from the scene of his exploits, he bethinks him of giving his prize the liberty that is still wanting. He therefore removes the clog by means of a small saw, or picklock; at the worst he turns the padlock to the outside of the animal's legs and shatters it with a pistol ball, or else fills it with powder and blows it open. The explosion, however, rouses the owners of the animal, who set out in search of it, but nearly always in vain. The night is dark, and the robbers separate; though, if things come to the worst, they abandon their prize to save their lives.

Sometime the master of a tent is troubled by the barking of the dogs, and awakens his people by calling out to them, El hayi rah hena, "there is somebody here." They go out, and, finding nothing, they conclude that a hyæna, or a jackal, has occasioned the uproar, and so turn in again. The thieves then come out of their hiding-places, and perhaps proceed to some other douar that is less upon the watch.