With regard to the Jews living amongst the Berbers a similar practice exists to the _mzareg_, only in their case it is known as _debeha_, or sacrifice. This name has been applied from the fact that the system first arose from Jews seeking the protection of the Berbers by sacrificing an ox or a sheep to them: nowadays the native Jews no longer need to perform this, the patronage of the Berbers being hereditary, the vassalage descending in both families from father to son. Any injury suffered by the Jew is revenged by the protecting Berber as though it had been committed to a member of his own family. In this manner the Israelites are able to live in tolerable security from murder and theft; in fact, they are the only people who do, as the Berber is never happy unless he has some one to kill, or is running a risk of being shot himself from behind some stone. As may be expected, the Berbers do not allow their influence to be used for nothing; but so poor are the Jews, and also the entire country in which this state of things exists, that it is little or nothing that the “lord” can screw out of his vassal. In the same way the tribe of Aït Atta, one of the most powerful of the Berber tribes of the Sahara, recently added a large district to the south of Mesgita, on the Wad Draa, to their already extensive territory. However, the inhabitants—Haratin—could not be enrolled as are the Jews, as they are Moslems; and though exactly the same principle is carried on, the term implied is _neïba_—agents or representatives. They, as in the other case, are protected by their conquerors from attack from elsewhere, in return for which they pay an annual tribute.