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Judiciaires—that is to say, interpreters in French courts, where Moslem law comes into contact with French law—or else they can definitely take up the Droit Musulman as a profession.

If the student merely passes out unbrilliantly, or even fails to get his diploma, he will probably become a khodja in a Bureau Arabe or in some other French office dealing with Arabs. His duties will be to translate into Arabic all official despatches sent out to the tribes or douars, and likewise to translate into French all incoming Arab documents.

A successful candidate will, however, first of all find himself appointed to the post of adel, a kind of superior clerk in a native lawyer’s office, and from that he can rise to bash adel, or principal clerk. From the bash adels are chosen the kadis. The kadis have many functions, which in England would combine the duties of solicitor, official receiver, registrar, and judge, without the latter’s power of awarding punishment.

All native cases of jurisdiction are first of all brought before the caïds and aghas of the district. If they are crimes or cases with which he can not deal by compromise, he either sends them on to the Bureau Arabe or, if they are not criminal offenses, to the kadi. People who require arbitration can, of course, go direct to the kadi, but the nomad prefers the ruling of his caïd. The most usual cases to come before the kadi are those of inheritance, lawsuits, sales of property, and family quarrels. He also marries and divorces those who wish it.

His decision is final, and even in questions between great chiefs they must either accept the kadi’s ruling or else carry the case before the French tribunals, which is a lengthy and expensive procedure. In fact the kadi is the decisive factor in all native disputes, in