The Calm Intrepidity With Which This Unfortunate Shilluh Stood To Meet His Fate, Could Not Be Witnessed Without The Highest

Admiration; and however much we must detest the blood-thirstiness of his executioners, we must still acknowledge, that there is

Something closely allied to nobleness of sentiment in the inflexible perseverance, with which they pursued the murderer of their friend to punishment.

Like the Arabs, the Berrebbers are divided into numerous petty tribes or clans, each tribe or family distinguishing itself by the name of its patriarch or founder. The authority of the chiefs is usually founded upon their descent from some sanctified ancestor; or upon the peculiar eminence of the individual himself in Mahommedan zeal, or some other religious qualification.

With the exception already noticed, that the Berrebbers of the north are of a more robust and stouter make than the Shilluh, a strong family-likeness runs through all their tribes. Their customs, dispositions, and national character, are nearly the same; they are all equally tenacious of their independence, which their local positions enable them to assume, and are all animated with the same inveterate and hereditary hatred against their common enemy, the Arab. They invariably reside in houses or hovels built of stone and timber, which are generally situated on some commanding eminence, and are fortified and loop-holed for self-defence. Their usual mode of warfare is, to surprise their enemy, rather than overcome him by an open attack; they are reckoned the best marksmen, and possess the best fire-arms in Barbary, which render them a very destructive enemy wherever the country affords shelter and concealment; but although they are always an over-match for the Arabs, when attacked on their own rugged territory, they are obliged on the other hand, to relinquish the plains to the Arab cavalry, against which the Berrebbers are unable to stand on open ground.

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