In studying life in the desert, I have been greatly struck by its analogy to that of the Middle Ages, and by the resemblance which exists between the horseman of the Sahara and the knight of our legends, romances, and chronicles. This analogy will appear yet more real, this resemblance yet more striking, on a close observation of the accessory characteristics which I now propose to sketch with a rapid hand. By the Arab of the Sahara, I do not mean a dweller in the _kuesours_. The latter is rallied by the wandering tribes as much as the inhabitants of the Tell, and receives at their hands all sorts of derisive epithets. Grown fat through his habits of indoor and commercial life, he is called "the father of the belly," the grocer, the pepper-dealer. This rearer of fowls—the Arab of the tent possesses no fowls—this shopkeeper resembles the simple citizen of all countries and of all times. He is, at bottom, the villain, the churl of the Middle Ages. He is the Moorish citizen of Algiers—he has the same placid, apathetic, crafty physiognomy. It is of the master of the tent that I propose to speak: of him who is never more than fifteen to twenty days without changing his abode; of the genuine Nomad, of him who never enters "the tiresome Tell" but once a year, and then only to purchase grain. My horseman, my hunter, my warrior is the man with a hardy iron-nerved constitution, a complexion embrowned by the sun, limbs well proportioned, in stature rather tall than short, but making light of the advantage of height, "of that lion's skin on a cow's back," unless adroitness, activity, health, vigour and, above all, courage be combined with it. But if he values courage, he also pities rather than despises, and never insults those who "want liver." It is not their fault, he good-humouredly remarks, but the will of Allah. His abstinence cannot be exceeded, but, accommodating himself to circumstances, he never neglects an opportunity of making a good and hearty meal. His ordinary diet is simple and without much variety; but, for all that, when the necessity arises, he understands how to entertain his guests in a becoming manner. When the _ouadâa_, or peculiar festival of a tribe, or _douar_, comes round, at which his friends will be present, he would not offer them the slight implied by his absence, and though it may be at a distance of thirty or forty leagues, he will not fail to go there and fill himself with food. Besides, they know well that he is quite ready to return their hospitality, and that they have not to do with one of those stingy town traders who never offer more than a space of four square feet to sit down in, a pipe of tobacco, and a cup of coffee either without any sugar at all, or sugared only after many preliminary phrases, carefully enunciated in recommendation of coffee without sugar.