There was one man in Mascara, Sidi Muhijeddin, who by his ancient lineage, his valour and his piety was indicated as the supreme commander. To him the united tribes addressed themselves, praying him to raise his standard as their leader. He, being then in his seventieth year, pleaded old age, which would unfit him for the struggle. But he added that his third son, a youth of twenty-five, would be the most fitting man for the supreme command. This was Abd el Kader, who, young as he was, had already earned a reputation for learning, sound judgment and piety, and to his hands the tribes entrusted their cause. They could not have chosen better, though the ultimate issue was hardly doubtful. Abd el Kader was born in 1807 and was educated by his father, whose position at the head of a priestly family of princely rank was of the highest. In very early life the young man had been forced to take refuge in Egypt from the jealousy of the Dey of Algiers, and this led to his undertaking the pilgrimage to Mecca which gave him the prestige of the holy title of Hadji. He was but a youngster when, on his return to his father’s house, he was called upon to face the gigantic task of organizing the wild children of the desert. It must have needed no small measure of tact and firmness to compose the jealousies of the rival chiefs over whom he had to play the king; but he had a strong grip, and he succeeded so well that for fifteen years he led his undisciplined hordes against army after army, General after General, that the French Government sent out in the vain attempt to sweep them off the face of the earth. At first Abd el Kader had but some four hundred horsemen under his command, but by degrees his patriotism, his chivalrous valour, and the religious fervour of the Hadji, brought recruits in hundreds to his standard and he was soon at the head of a mighty army. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost; his first great reverse was in 1837, when he was defeated by Marshal Bugeaud (whose fame, so long as there is a bugler left in France, will be trumpeted in “La Casquette du Père Bugeaud”) at the river Taafra; but nobody knew better than Bugeaud himself that this was no decisive defeat and so he concluded a treaty with the Arab chief which Vallée, the Governor-General of Algiers, promptly took occasion to violate in a specially insulting manner. Once more Abd el Kader drew his sword and the result was continuous warfare and harassing of the French which lasted for another ten years, until at last in 1847 Abd el Kader, whose power had been much weakened and who was in Morocco, where the Sultan turned against him, surrendered to General Lamoricière, and there was comparative peace in the land, though Pélissier and St. Arnaud were never allowed to be idle.[30]