The young chief was in fact at that time in peaceful communication with the French, having made himself respected by them in the west, while they were attending to the subjugation of Constantina and founding of Philippeville in the east. Protected by the treaty of Taafna in 1837, Abd-el-Kader was at leisure to attempt the consolidation of his little empire and the fusion of the jealous tribes which composed it. The low moral condition of his Arabs, who were for the most part thieves and cowards, and the rude individuality of his Kabyles, who would respect his religious but scoff at his political claims, made the task of the leader a difficult one. To the Kabyles he confided the care of his saintly reputation, renouncing their contributions, and asking only for their prayers as a Berber and as a khouan of the order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman. For a few years his power increased, without one base measure, without any soilure on the blazon of increasing prosperity. In 1840 the sultan of Oran, at the zenith of his influence, swept the plains beneath the Atlas with his nomad court, defended by two hundred and fifty horsemen. Passing his days in reviewing his troops and in actions of splendid gallantry, he resumed the humility of the saint at evening prayers: his palace of a night received him, watched by thirty negro tent-guards; and here he sheltered his lowly head, whose attitude was perpetually bowed by the habitual weight of his cowl. The French soon became jealous, and encroached upon their treaty. The duke of Orleans, we are told, had Abd-el-Kader's seal counterfeited by a Jewish coiner at Oran, and with passports thus stamped sent scouting-parties toward the sultan's dominions, protected by the sultan's forged safe-conduct. Open conflict followed, and a succession of French razzias. In 1845, Colonels Pelissier and St. Arnaud, under Marshal Bugeaud, conducted that expedition of eternal infamy during which seven hundred of Abd-el-Kader's Arabs were suffocated in a cave-sanctuary of the Dahra. This sickening measure was put in force at a _cul-de-sac_, where a few hours' blockade would have commanded a peaceful surrender. [Illustration: KABYLE WOMEN.] "The fire was kept up throughout the night, and when the day had fully dawned the then expiring embers were kicked aside, and as soon as a sufficient time had elapsed to render the air of the silent cave breathable, some soldiers were directed to ascertain how matters were within. They were gone but a few minutes, and then came back, we are told, pale, trembling, terrified, hardly daring, it seemed, to confront the light of day. No wonder they trembled and looked pale! They had found all the Arabs dead--men, women, children, all dead!--had beheld them lying just as death had found and left them--the old man grasping his gray beard; the dead mother clasping her dead child with the steel gripe of the last struggle, when all gave way but her strong love."