In all these years of miserable guerilla warfare, in which such well-known commanders as Bugeaud, Pelissier, Canrobert, St. Arnaud, MacMahon, and many more, learned their first demoralizing lessons in warfare, the only people who excite our interest and admiration are the Arab tribes. That they were unwise in resisting the inevitable is indisputable; but it is no less certain that they resisted with splendid valour and indomitable perseverance. Again and again they defeated the superior forces of France in the open field, wrested strong cities from the enemy, and even threatened to extinguish the authority of the alien in Algiers for ever. For all which the invaders had only to thank themselves. Had General Clausel, the first military governor of Algiers, been a wise man, the people might have accepted, by degrees, the sovereignty of France. But the violence of his measures, and his ignorance of the very word "conciliation," raised up such strenuous opposition, engendered such terrible reprisals, and set the two parties so hopelessly against each other, that nothing less than a prolonged struggle could be expected. The hero of this sanguinary conflict was 'Abd-el-Kādir, a man who united in his person and character all the virtues of the old Arabs with many of the best results of civilization. Descended from a saintly family, himself learned and devout, a Hāj or Meccan pilgrim; frank, generous, hospitable; and withal a splendid horseman, redoubtable in battle, and fired with the patriotic enthusiasm which belongs to a born leader of men, 'Abd-el-Kādir became the recognized chief of the Arab insurgents. The Dey of Algiers had foreseen danger in the youth, who was forced to fly to Egypt in fear of his life. When he returned, a young man of twenty-four, he found his country in the hands of the French, and his people driven to desperation. His former fame and his father's name were talismans to draw the impetuous tribes towards him; and he soon had so large a following that the French deemed it prudent for the moment to recognize him (1834) as Emīr of Maskara, his native place, of which he had already been chosen king by general acclamation. Here he prepared for the coming struggle; and when the French discovered a pretext for attacking him in 1835, they were utterly routed on the river Maska. The fortunes of war vacillated in the following year, till in May, 1837, 'Abd-el-Kādir triumphantly defeated a French army in the plain of the Metija. A fresh expedition of twenty thousand met with no better success, for Arabs and Berbers are hard to trap, and 'Abd-el-Kādir, whose strategy evoked the admiration of the Duke of Wellington, was for a time able to baffle all the marshals of France. The whole country, save a few fortified posts, was now under his sway, and the French at last perceived that they had to deal with a pressing danger. They sent out eighty thousand men under Marshal Bugeaud, and the success of this officer's method of sweeping the