To appreciate their remarkable character it should be borne in mind that the Tuaregs are a southern race of Berbers, whose military history goes back through many centuries. Indeed, Berber armies twice invaded Europe: in the time of Hannibal, and when the Moors invaded Spain in 710 A.D. Since those early days of history they have ever been a warlike people, and in the unrest of the Riffs to-day, more than half of whom are Berbers, we have an example of the psychology of recurrent forces of a dominant characteristic of the race. This background is a great aid toward grasping and understanding the restless, drifting, veiled nomads of the Sahara to-day, who have to fend for themselves in an insecure wilderness that is sometimes aptly pronounced, “The Land of Dread,” and “The Land of the Sword.” By the very fact of their ancestral inheritance, the Tuaregs are able clansmen in an appropriate sphere; and the wild fastnesses that make up their environment encourage every trait of feudal fitness to develop rather than recede. So that, when these circumstances are embraced and weighed in the scale of reasoning, it is not altogether surprising to find that they are, beyond all else, past-masters in cunning war-craft; and that there is no Tuareg, over the age of childhood, who is not fully versed in every detail of a subject that is their primary education. Consequently, whatever the conditions under which they are met, the Tuaregs are, in foremost characteristic, a people skilled and able in war, and every man a disciplined soldier when need arises. And though it is a fact that feuds and raids are on a whole growing less violent and numerous in the Sahara to-day, owing to the military activities of the French Administrations of Algiers and the Sudan, and the increasing poverty of the interior, the hereditary quality of the soldier in the Tuaregs is so ineradicable that one is always aware of their true character and inclinations, no matter in what circumstance or environment they are encountered. [Illustration: THE VEIL] Here is a pen-picture of a far-famed raider of the interior: “He is a little old man; old in years, but young in activities and spirit. He has not the long, raking swing of the tireless footpad nor the graceful ease of bearing that belongs to the average man of his race. He walks with a short, perky step peculiarly his own. “All his life has been spent in a camel-saddle, and only there can it be said that he is perfect and complete. Contrary to the standards of drama, his features are neither cruel nor repulsive. His Tuareg veil is worn low, and an open countenance and clear eyes of attractive largeness expand in a delightful smile when he greets you—if you are his friend.