Note 15 — DEUXIÈME ÉPISODE

40 17 Arabes ... M'zabites: the aborigines of Algeria, three quarters of the population even now, are the Berber race, including the Kabyles (19 14) in the north, the Mzabites, purest Berbers of all, in the south, and the marauding Tuaregs (11 6) in the Sahara. The Mzabites, the heretical Puritans of Algerian Mohammedanism, are seen everywhere as honest petty traders and workers in street industries. The Arab conquest about 700 A.D. made Arabic the dominant language of all North Africa to this day--an important fact to remember--and introduced the Arabs as a permanent population along the north edge of the Sahara. The conquest by Turkish pirates about 1500 A.D., with subordination to the Sultan of Turkey till 1669, brought in very few Turks; the pirates were a mixture of various Mohammedan nations with renegades from the Christian nations. The "Moors" of to-day in Algeria are their descendants; the ancient Moors were Berbers. During the centuries of pirate rule, and earlier, negroes were brought in as slaves; Mohammedan custom favored setting them free in a few years if they became Mohammedans. The overthrow of the pirates by the French in 1830, and the French conquest during the next thirty years, caused most of the few Turks to leave the country, and started an influx of Europeans from the Mediterranean countries; Daudet notices especially the Minorcans (Mahonnais from the city of Port Mahon).