ARAB FASHION OP HUNTING THE LION. 63 



skin that was brought to the Pacha of Algiers, and these 

 robes were afterwards sent as royal presents by the Pacha to 

 the Sultan. 



After the subjugation of the country by the French, these 

 tribes came forward with their titles and exemptions received 

 under the former government, but they bore no weight with 

 the new rulers, and the bearers were treated and taxed pre- 

 cisely as the other tribes. But besides all this, when any of 

 these Arabs brought to the French authorities the skin of any 

 lion they had captured, the officers, regarding the gift only as 

 the skin of a wild beast, without any thought of what it had 

 cost the hunters or of its prescriptive value, handed out the 

 contemptible sum of fifty francs, which was allowed by the 

 state for such services, and informed the hunters that they 

 might keep their proffered skin. The Arabs, indignant at 

 being treated as mere traders in peltry, and estimating higher 

 than this the value of the blood they had shed to earn the 

 trophy, left the skin where it was lying, and without a word 

 or gesture, retired proudly to their tents to hunt no more. 



It is now only after having suffered for a long time, and as 

 a matter of personal defence, that these tribes ever attack a 

 lion. It has occurred several times within the last three or 

 four years that they have sent to Constantine for me, and 

 when they have not found me they have remained quietly 

 idle for a month or more, allowing the lion to decimate their 

 herds rather than take up arms in their own defence. 



I neither praise nor blame the course pursued by the French 

 authorities towards these two tribes, but I merely narrate for 

 the benefit of the world, these facts, to illustrate the bravery 



