Africa . ossible, up to the present,to set it aside. The Arabs, here as in Marocco, to bedistinguished from the Berbers, are divided into twoclasses—the Moors dwelling in towns, and the Bedouinsleading a nomad life. It seems utterly hopeless to expectthat the latter will ever be induced to accommodate them-selves to a settled way of living. The subjoined characteristic trait will throw morelight on this point than a lengthy description. TheFrench thought the best means of inducing the Arabs to :>.; COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL. give up their roaming propensities would be to induce the
Africa . ossible, up to the present,to set it aside. The Arabs, here as in Marocco, to bedistinguished from the Berbers, are divided into twoclasses—the Moors dwelling in towns, and the Bedouinsleading a nomad life. It seems utterly hopeless to expectthat the latter will ever be induced to accommodate them-selves to a settled way of living. The subjoined characteristic trait will throw morelight on this point than a lengthy description. TheFrench thought the best means of inducing the Arabs to :>.; COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL. give up their roaming propensities would be to induce thenative chieftains to erect fixed residences, for the Arab has agreat respect for authority, and readily follows the exampleof his superiors. These, on their part, were willing enoughto allow the French to build settled abodes for them. Soon one occasion, the sheikh being asked by the officer ofengineers what he thought of a house thus constructed forhim, replied, I am enraptured. The French are in truth. A BEDOUIN ENCAMPMENT. an extraordinary people; they have done me a service forwhich I shall be everlastingly grateful. Since my househas been finished I have not lost a single sheep. I lockthem up every evening in the house, and next morningnone of them are ever missing. How, what! asked theofficer in amazement; and where then do you pass thenight yourself ? Oh, I, answered the sheikh with anair of aristocratic superiority, you understand a man likeme, a man of blood, can dwell nowhere but in a tent.(F. Hugonnet, Souvenir d\m Chef de Bureau Ardbe: Paris,1858, page 123.) PEOPLES OF ALGERIA. 57 These wandering Bedouins are the one great obstacleto the development of Algeria, and the only remedy seemsto be to drive them by force back to the desert to whichthey belong. The policy hitherto adopted of endeavouringto win them over by gentle means has completely children of the wilderness are incapable of culture inour sense of the term, consequently can never becomemember
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