But one tradition did I hear amongst the Berbers as to their antiquity, and this tradition seems to be general amongst their tribes, for we came across it on several occasions on our journey. It is difficult to perceive how it could have sprung up, as it seems to hint at an entirely different origin to that which history, and even other traditions of their own, has set down to them. It runs as follows. A certain maiden of the original Berber people, at the time when the race lived in a far-away country swept by strong east winds, once, in passing a strange king, had the misfortune to expose more of her person than was decent, owing to her attire having been raised by the gale. On the king laughing at the girl’s misfortune, the tribe in very shame departed by night, and wandered to the country that they now inhabit. So the story runs, and I leave it to those more versed than myself in sifting traditions and folk-lore to find the signification and value of the tale, which, it may again be said, is not only common throughout the Berbers of the trans-Atlas Sahara, but is known and repeated amongst the Riffis, and between these two districts hundreds of miles of country exist, while no communication takes place one with the other. No doubt the fact that the Berbers have been many times conquered has done not a little to account for their difference of type, for the Phœnicians, Romans, Vandals, and Arabs have each in turn invaded their country. But from whatever reason it may be, the fact remains that a more divided and subdivided race could not be found, and marriage, or even cordiality, between the tribes is unknown; while they exist, in Morocco at least, in a state of perpetual warfare with any one they can get to fight with them. Not only are their hostilities levelled against the Arabs, for whom their hatred is most deep, but whose religion they have adopted with extraordinary fervour, but also against every other tribe, and failing these, village against village, and even household against household. Mention will be found more than once in the ensuing pages of cases of this, in which it was the custom for neighbours to fire at one another from their windows and roofs whenever the opportunity presented itself. Yet in spite of this the stranger passes in safety through them, for with him they bear no quarrel.