ABSTRACT
The chaouches are boiling over again. No doubt they are both correct in exchanging the epithet of thief. Scarcely has the grumbling of these two terrible fellows died away, when the blacks are at it amongst themselves. He who has two wives gets hold of his blunderbuss, and threatens to blow himself to pieces. Nobody interferes; there is little public spirit in a caravan: so he consents to an explanation, saying sententiously, My little wife is mad. The fact is, his two helpmates, one young and one old, are vastly too much for him, as they would be for most men. He moves along in a perpetual family tornado. The mother of the young one, a sort of derwish negress, is a tremendous old intriguer, and stirs up at least one feud a day. Quarrelling is meat and drink to her. All this part of Northern Africa may be compared to an archipelago.
