The actual area of the country is about thirty-eight hundred square miles, and is composed of great mountains running up at some points to an altitude of six thousand feet, and deep in snow from December to March. Unlike the people of the Mzab, the Kabyle types vary considerably, and though the majority are tall, blond men, one notices many who are small and dark. They have the same spirit of independence as the Berbers of Ghardaïa, with the great difference that they are all warriors and brook no interference. There is no area in Algeria which has caused so much trouble to the French, and even now the inhabitants consider themselves superior to all other races, and only accept the foreign rule because they have to. In spite of this these people never seem to have had any sort of main state, and though the word _zouaoua_, from which is derived the appellation of the French regiment _Zouaves_, is the name given to this group of Berbers, they have always been a divided nation; and it is only since the French fully pacified them that they have ceased to be in a perpetual state of internal war. These wars usually originated as vendettas, it being admitted that a man killed required another man killed and that all disputes about land must be settled by the sword. Before this period each village was a kind of little republic of its own with the principle of government of the people by the people, that is to say that the _Djemma_, or local council, was supposed to be composed of all the men who had attained their majority. As a matter of fact this was rarely put into practise, and the government of the village lay in the hands of the heads of families, the elders and a few young men of note. These men elected an Amine, who presided over the assembly, which decided every detail concerning the daily life of the community. The Amine had, however, little real power, as his position depended on the good-will of the other members over whom he presided, and who could by a simple ballot dismiss him. It was a state of absolute socialism, and the man of good family or the richest farmer had no more authority than the poorest laborer. Moreover, to this day there is no distinction of class; there are no fine houses for the prosperous; the beggar and the rich man wear the same rags and live in the same squalor. The _Djemma_ still exists and the simple stone seat on which the worthies sit can be seen in any village. The wars or vendettas also continue, but in a somewhat more discreet manner, and though they still speak of the _Cof Oufella_, the clan of the higher levels, and the _Cof Bouadda_, the clan of those below, the French do all they can to keep order.