A branch of that fierce and rugged Berber race which has occupied North Africa since history began, the Kabyles, despite a history of foreign conquest—Phenician, Greek, Roman, Vandal, Arab, and French—have preserved to an astonishing degree the physical characteristics of their race, its language and its customs. The Arabization of the Kabyles is limited to little beyond their conversion to Islam, for, instead of amalgamating with the Arab invaders, they retreated to their mountain strongholds, where they maintained their independence until taught by the French that undisciplined men armed with swords and flintlocks, no matter how courageous individually, cannot stand for long against repeating-rifles and field-guns. Though the Kabyles, like the Arabs, are a “white” race, centuries of exposure to sun and wind have darkened their skins to the color of a much-used saddle. As a rule, however, they have brown hair and eyes, but blue-eyed blonds are sometimes found among those of purer stock and red or tawny beards are not infrequent. While most Kabyles are able to speak Arabic, those who dwell in the remote fastnesses of the Djurjuras cling tenaciously to various local forms of the ancient Berber tongue; it is a singular fact that in spite of the thousands of years during which these people have dwelt in isolation—or, perhaps, by reason of that fact—their dialects vary but slightly from the long-extinct Hamitic language from which they are all derived. As in the case of the Mozabites, the Kabyles have no alphabet, their legends, sagas, verses, and folk-songs being handed down by word of mouth, usually by priests or by the professional story-tellers who are found in every village. Of the numerous Berber dialects spoken in Kabylia, the most widely used is the Zouave; whence the term “zouaves,” at one time applied to Kabyles who enlisted in the French army, but now used to designate four infantry regiments, wearing the tasseled cap and baggy trousers of the mountaineers, which, though stationed in Africa, are composed entirely of Europeans.