addressed them at the door of his tent, and these rude mountaineers
found themselves face to face with that saintly sallow visage,
those long gazelle eyes and the prophetic countenance framed in its
apostolic beard. Raising his arms in the attitude of Raphael's Paul at
Lystra, he said simply, "I am the thorn which Allah has placed in the
eye of the Franks. And if you will help me I will send them weeping
into the sea."

But when it came to a demand for supplies, the Kabyles, says Daumas,
utterly refused.

"You have come as a pilgrim," said their amins, "and we have fed you
with kouskoussu. If you were to come as a chief, wishing to lay his
authority on us, instead of white kouskoussu we should treat you to
black kouskoussu" (gunpowder).

Abd-el-Kader, without losing the serenity of the marabout, argued with
the Kabyles, and succeeded in obtaining their reverence and adhesion;
but when he mounted his horse to go the amins significantly told him
to come among them always as a simple pilgrim, demanding hospitality
and white kouskoussu.

[Illustration: KABYLE MEN.]

At Thizzi-Ouzzou he met the tribe of Ameraouas, who promised to submit
to his authority as soon as the fractions surrounding that centre
should do so. The Sons of Aicha received him with honor and games of
horsemanship. At the camp of Ben Salem the chiefs of several tribes
came to render homage to the noble marabout, descendant of Berber
ancestry and of the Prophet. From thence he sought tribes still more