Pre-eminent among their distinctive differences from the ordinary Arab is the esteem in which they hold women. Women are chieftainesses among them, and above all the women are the repositories of the lost lore of magic. It is to them that the tribesmen turn for the carrying out of the mystic harvest ceremonies, the charming of unfruitful fields, and the lighting of the magic Beltane fires. Fire plays no inconsiderable part in their rituals, and is only called by its Arabic name el-aafeats (the comforter) when used for domestic purposes. The sacrificial and ceremonial fires are always spoken of either in the Shilluh or Schluch tongue--the true Berber language or referred to as B’lnisac, a term whose philology is unknown, but which apparently contains the age-old Bel or Baal motive. This fire cult, coupled with a still more mystical inner creed symbolized by serpent worship, may be noted by the student explorer among the Berber folk. Riffis, Mashed Hojja Tuareks of the Sahara, certain Kabyles of Tripoli, and other tribes all belong to the same strange race, and there are reasons for believing that the Berbers are identical with the mystical Fairies--the Good People--so called from a propitiatory irony because they were so amazingly bad. Berbers alone of savage folk raid and kill at night. They are essentially a people of the dark, and he who sifts the mass of terrible folklore about the earliest fairies in Britain will find a parallel between these terrible unholy barbarians given to sorcery, necromancy and unholy rites, the stealing of children for sacrificial purposes, and other glossed horrors attributed to the Good People--and the Berber races of to-day. The practices continue. In 1909 I was travelling in the Gharb country of Morocco, where there is a large Berber element. The French occupation of the Shawiah and the meteoric rise of Sultan Mulai Hafid had left the country unsettled and dangerous. Beyond a war correspondent or two and a handful of German engineers--or spies, employed by the firm of Marmesman--there were no Europeans in the country outside of the coast towns. For the capital and Manahesh the big cities of the South were closed, and a Christian’s life was nowhere worth a moment’s purchase among the fanatics. I am but an indifferent Arabic scholar, but a certain knowledge of classical Hebrew served one well, for there are many debased Jews in Morocco. For the rest, as the high-class Moors are a fair race and often blue-eyed, travelling in native clothes and well bronzed by the sun I suffered no molestation and could rely on the fidelity of my four body-servants. Some five days’ ride northwest of the argan forests of the coast belt, I was well within Berber territory. This was mostly stony hill lands, for Morocco is simply rock deserts and hills, interspersed with lightly watered fertile valleys and occasional oases of poplar-sheltered walls.