borrowed directly or whether they came from India. One will notice, however, in the Arab tales a superior editing. The style is more ornate, the incidents better arranged. One feels that, although it deals with a language disdaining the usage of letters, it is expressed almost as well as though in a cultivated literary language. The gathering of the populations must also be taken into consideration; the citizens of Tunis, of Algiers, and even in the cities of Morocco, have a more exact idea of civilized life than the Berber of the mountains or the desert. As to the comic stories, it is still the Si Djeha who is the hero, and his adventures differ little with those preserved in Berber, and which are common to several literatures, even when the principal person bears another name.

The popular poetry consists of two great divisions, quite different as to subject. The first and best esteemed bears the name of Klam el Djedd, and treats of that which concerns the Prophet, the saints, and miracles. A specimen of this class is the complaint relative to the rupture of the Dam of St. Denis of Sig, of which the following is the commencement:

  "A great disaster was fated:³⁹
  The cavalier gave the alarm, at the moment of the break;
  The menace was realized by the Supreme Will,
  My God! Thou alone art good.
  The dam, perfidious thing,
  Precipitated his muddy Legions,
  With loud growlings.
  No bank so strong as to hold him in check.
  "He spurred to the right,
  The bridges which could not sustain his shock fell
  Under his added weight;
  His fury filled the country with fear, and he
  Crushed the barrier that would retain him."

As to the class of declamatory poems, one in particular is popular in Algiers, for it celebrates the conquest of the Maghreb in the eleventh century by the divers branches of the Beni-Hilal, from whom descend almost the whole of the Arabs who now are living in the northwest of Africa. This veritable poem is old enough, perhaps under its present form, for the historian, Ten Khaldoun, who wrote at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth, has preserved the resumé of the episode of Djazza, the heroine who abandoned her children and husband to follow her brothers to the conquest of Thrgya Hajoute. To him are attributed verses which do not lack regularity, nor a certain rhythm, and also a facility of expression, but which abound in interpolations and faults of grammar. The city people could not bear to hear them nor to read them. In our days, for their taste has changed--at least in that which touches the masses--the recital of the deeds of the Helals is much liked in the Arab cafés in Algeria and also in Tunis. Still more, these recitals have penetrated to the Berbers, and if they have not preserved the indigenous songs of the second Arab invasion, they have borrowed the traditions of their conquerors, as we can see in the episode of Ali el Hilalien and of Er-Redah.

The names of the invading chiefs have been preserved in the declamatory songs: Abou Zeid, Hassan ben Serhan, and, above all, Dyab ben Ghanum, in the mouth of whom the poet puts at the end of the epic the recital of the exploits of his race:

  "Since the day when we quitted the soil and territory of the Medjid, I have not opened my heart to joy;
  We came to the homes of Chokir and Cherif ben Hachem who pours upon thee (Djazzah) a rain of tears;
  We have marched against Ed-Dabis ben Monime and we have overrun his cities and plains.
  We went to Koufat and have bought merchandise from the tradesmen who come to us by caravan.
  We arrived at Ras el Ain in all our brave attire and we mastered all the villages and their inhabitants.
  We came to Haleb, whose territory we had overrun, borne by our swift, magnificent steeds.
  We entered the country of the Khazi Mohammed who wore a coat of mail, with long, floating ends,
  We traversed Syria, going toward Ghaza, and reached Egypt, belonging to the son of Yakoub, Yousof, and found the Turks with their swift steeds.
  We reached the land of Raqin al Hoonara, and drowned him in a deluge of blood.
  We came to the country of the Mahdi, whom we rolled on the earth and as to his nobles their blood flowed in streams.
  We came to the iron house of Boraih, and found that the Jewish was the established religion.
  We arrived at the home of the warrior, El Hashais:
  The night was dark, he fell upon us while we slept without anxiety,
  He took from us our delicate and honored young girls, beauties whose eyes were darkened with kohol.
  Abou Zeid marched against him with his sharp sword and left him lying on the ground.
  Abou So'dah Khalifah the Zemati, made an expedition against us, and pursued us with the sword from all sides.
  I killed Abou So'dah Khalifah the Zemati, and I have put you in possession of all his estates.
  They gave me three provinces and So'dah, this is the exact truth that I am telling here.
  Then came an old woman of evil augur and she threw dissension among us, and the Helals left for a distant land.
  Then Abou Ali said to me: 'Dyab, you are but a fool,'
  I marched against him under the wing of the night, and flames were lighted in the sheepfolds.
  He sent against me Hassan the Hilali, I went to meet him and said, 'Seize this wretched dog.
  These are the words of the Zoght Dyab ben Ghanem and the fire of illness was lighted in his breast."⁴⁰

The second style of modern Arabic poetry is the "Kelamel hazel." It comprises the pieces which treat of wine, women, and pleasures; and, in general, on all subjects considered light and unworthy of a serious mind. One may find an example in the piece of "Said and Hyza," and in different works of Mr. Stemme cited above. It is particularly among the nomad Arabs that this style is found, even more than the dwellers in cities, on whom rests the reproach of composing verses where the study and sometimes the singularity of expression cannot replace the inspiration, the energy, and even the delicacy of sentiment often found among the nomads:

  "The country remains a desert, the days of heat are ended, the trees of our land have borne the attack of Summer, that is my grief.
  After it was so magnificent to behold, its leaves are fallen, one by one, before my eyes.
  But I do not covet the verdure of a cypress; my sorrow has for its cause a woman, whose heart has captivated mine.
  I will describe her clearly; you will know who she is; since she has gone my heart fails me.
  Cheika of the eye constantly veiled, daughter of Mouloud, thy love has exhausted me.
  I have reached a point where I walk dizzily like one who has drunken and is drunk; still am I fasting; my heart has abandoned me.
  Thy thick hair is like the ostrich's plumes, the male ostrich, feeding in the depressions of the dunes; thy eyebrows are like two nouns [Arab letters] of a Tlemcen writing.
  Thy eyes, my beautiful, are like two gleaming gun barrels, made at Stamboul, city defiant of Christians.
  The cheek of Cherikha is like the rose and the poppy when they open under the showers.
  Thy mouth insults the emerald and the diamond; thy saliva is a remedy against the malady; without doubt it is that which has cured me⁴¹."

To finish with the modern literature of the northwest of Africa, I should mention a style of writings