We find the spirit of the vendetta pervading these tales with more than Corsican bitterness and unreasoning cruelty, every man being allowed to revenge himself by taking the life or property of another. This private and personal warfare has done more than anything else to check the advance in civilization of these tribesmen. The Berbers and Kabyles are fanatical Mahometans and look upon Christians and Jews as dogs and outcasts. It is considered honorable to cheat, rob, or deceive by lies one who does not worship Allah. The tales illustrate, moreover, the degraded position of women. A wife is literally a chattel, not only to be bought, but to be sold also, and to be treated in every respect as man's inferior--a mere slave or beast of burden. Yet the tribesmen are profoundly superstitious, and hold in great dread the evil spirits who they think surround them and to whom they attribute bodily and mental ills. An idiot is one who is possessed by a wicked demon, and is to be feared accordingly. There are found current among them a vast number of fairy tales, such as equal in wildness and horror the strangest inventions of oriental imagination. Their tales of ogres and ogresses are unsoftened by any of that playfulness and bonhomie which give such undying charm to the "Thousand and One Nights." The element of the miraculous takes many original forms in their popular tales, and they have more than their share of the folk-lore legends and traditions such as Herodotus loved to collect. It was said of old that something new was always coming out of Africa, and certainly the contribution which the Berbers and Kabyles have made to the fund of wonder-stories in the world may be looked upon as new, in more than one sense. It is new, not only because it is novel and unexpected, but because it is fresh, original and highly interesting. The fables of these tribes are very abundant and very curious. The great hero of the animal fable in Europe has always been the fox, whose cunning, greed, and duplicity are immortalized in the finest fable the world's literature possesses. The fables of northwest Africa employ the jackal instead of Reynard, whose place the sycophant of the lion not inaptly fills. There are a number of men among the Kabyles and other Berber tribes who make a profession of reciting poems, tales, and proverbs, and travel from one village or encampment to another in search of an audience. They know the national traditions, the heroic legends, and warlike adventures that pertain to each community, and are honored and welcomed wherever they go. It was from these men that the various narratives contained in this collection were obtained, and the translation of them has engaged the talents and labors of some of the world's foremost oriental scholars. [Illustration (Facsimile Signature): Epiphanius Wilson] CONTENTS MOORISH BALLADS