214 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER they reply — " Our irezz aodem akus wa deritett (we do not break the bowl from which we eat)."

When he has to do with Christians, infidels, or, as he calls them, Kaffirs, the Tuareg is perhaps not quite so jealous of his promises and of keeping faith exactly ; but this is really chiefly the fault of the marabouts, who tell them that they are not bound where infidels are concerned, and quote passages taken, or said to be taken, from the Koran to prove it.

Then, again, there is something spirited and noble about pillaging, for it often means to expose oneself to danger, and real courage is needed for that. It is not so very long since our ancestors went to do much the same thing in Sicily and in Palestine, and there was not much more excuse for them than for the Tuaregs.

Thieving and petty larceny are very different from pillaging, and of them the Tuareg has perhaps a greater horror than we Europeans.

A careful study of Tuareg society will reveal a very strong resemblance between it and that of Europe in the Middle Ages. Truth to tell, except that he has no strong isolated castles, a Tuareg surrounded by his tribe, or a fraction of that tribe, engaged in one long struggle to defend himself, or absorbed in attacking some chief, brutal and violent, but chivalrous, respecting the honour of women, and curbing his wild passions where they are concerned, his reverence for them inspiring his most courageous efforts, pillaging the traders who will not submit to the prescribed tribute, but protecting those who have paid their toll, has a soul not so very different, after all, from that of the Castellan de Coucy of the twelfth century, or of the heroes he celebrates in his poems.

As was the population in Europe in mediaeval times, the Tuaregs are divided into two very distinct classes, the