These men have great fortunes in wine, in cereals and tobacco, and their children have in many cases never seen France; but, generally speaking, the Frenchman is not a colonist, and it is very, very rare to see him away in the Sahara sheep-breeding or alfa-collecting. He has, however, done one rather contradictory thing in imposing his language on practically the whole country. With the exception of the nomads who wander about the Sahara, it is rare to come to any center and not find a French-speaking population. The Arabs among themselves of course speak their own language; it is a strange dialect based on pure Arabic, but peculiar to North Africa. Moreover, it differs in accent according to regions. For instance, the language of the south is much deeper and more guttural than that of Algiers, and the talk in Constantine and Oran, again, has many words and intonations not found in other centers. I think that the correct name for this dialect should be Arabo-Berber. There is, of course, also the pure Berber spoken by the people of the Kabyle and Aurès Mountains, of the Mzab and the Hoggar; and, though Berbers are often found who can not speak anything else, it is almost a general rule to find them bilinguists, while the majority talk French too. It is interesting to note that when the Sultan of Zanzibar came to North Africa the only people with whom he could speak fluently were the Berbers of the Mzab. The Jews speak both Arab and French fluently; their Arab is often purer than that of the actual natives. A great number speak Hebrew among themselves. However, to progress comfortably through the country, French is essential, and Arabo-Berber is a great help and inspires confidence among the people. Grammatically, it is a simple language, but the pronunciation is difficult and the number of words which mean the same thing requires one to have command over a large vocabulary. It is a language that can be learned only with a teacher. These, therefore, are the peoples and the tongues of North Africa, and, armed with this knowledge, we can now penetrate further into the system of administration. CHAPTER VI FRENCH ADMINISTRATION OF ALGERIA 1. _Civilian_ The administration of any country to a foreigner is always rather incomprehensible, but the manner in which Algeria is administered by the French is more than a surprise. It is not our duty to criticize the method of government of this country, and let it be said at once that, strange as the method may seem, the results are admirable.