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does all the clerical work and who acts in the place of the caïd when he is absent.

The caïd’s tribe is subdivided into four or five “fractions,” each under a sheik. The sheik—about whom so much fantastic literature has been written, and who, though he may be a cultivated man, is usually so by accident—has a small command, and his authority depends on his personality. He can usually neither speak nor write French, and to the casual visitor differs in no way exteriorly from the poorest shepherd in his “fraction.” In fact, with the exception of a few aghas and caïds who are rich and who have come in contact with Europe, the Arab chief, with his silk-decked tent and his smala of glorious beauties, wielding the powers of life and death at a moment’s notice, is a thing of the past. He shambles along on a rickety horse reminding one rather of the bull-ring, and he lives most of his life under a kind of awning which he calls a tent.

Since the war, the Government insists that the chiefs it appoints shall have passed the elementary standard at the local French school, but there are many caïds of pre-war nomination who are completely illiterate and who have never lived anywhere but in a tent. Moreover, the official power of a chief is very limited. He is merely a functionary paid by the Government to assist it in its administrative duties in the south, and with this end in view he has the support of all those in authority.

Officially this is all. Unofficially there is a great deal more power wielded in the background, power used sometimes quite unscrupulously to attain a personal end. For example, the Bureau Arabe only recognizes the bash agha and his subordinates. A crime occurs among the nomads, the caïd of the tribe concerned is notified, and he sets about making his