Lippincotts Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 | Page 6

While they were thus currying me they almost drowned
me by throwing warm water upon me with large silver vessels, which
were in the basin under a cock fastened in the wall. When this was over
they raised me up, putting my head under the cock, by which means the
water flowed all over my body; and, as if this was not sufficient, my
attendants continued plying their vessels. Then, having dried me with
very fine napkins, they each of them very respectfully kissed my hand.
I considered this as a sign that my torment was over, and was going to
dress myself, when one of the negroes, grimly smiling, stopped me till
the other returned with a kind of earth, which they began to rub all over
my body without consulting my inclination. I was as much surprised to
see it take off all the hair as I was pained in the operation; for this earth
is so quick in its effect that it burns the skin if left upon the body. This
being finished, I went through a second ablution, after which one of
them seized me behind by the shoulders, and setting his two knees
against the lower part of my back, made my bones crack, so that for a
time I thought they were entirely dislocated. Nor was this all, for after
whirling me about like a top to the right and left, he delivered me to his
comrade, who used me in the same manner: and then, to my no small
satisfaction, opened the closet door."
[Illustration: HAMMO-EL-ZOUAOUI.]

This is the true Moorish bath. Meantime, the M'zabite or negro, as he
dislocates your legs, cracks your spinal column or dances over you on
his knees, drones forth a kind of native psalmody, which, melting into
the steamy atmosphere of the place, seems to be the litany of happiness
and of the pure in heart. Clean in body and soul as you never were
before, skinned, depilated, dissected, you emerge for a new life of ideal
perfection, feeling as if you were suddenly relieved of your body.
[Illustration: "BALEK!"]
[Illustration: A STREET IN CONSTANTINA.]
There is held every Friday at Constantina a grand assembly of the
fire-eating marabouts, the fanatics who have given so much trouble to
their French rulers. Every revolution among the Kabyles is a religious
movement, set in motion by the wild enthusiasm of the "saints." The
religious orders of Kabylia, all of them differing in various degrees
from Turkish Mohammedanism, are of some half dozen varieties,
adapted to minds of various cultivation. Some, as that of
Sidi-Yusef-Hansali, are mild in their rites and of a purely didactic or
religious nature. This latter sect originated in Constantina, comprises
two thousand brothers or khouans, and was in 1865 under the authority
of Hammo-el-Zouaoui, a direct descendant of Yusef-Hansali. An hour
passed in the college of this order, where the whole formula of worship
consists in saying a hundred times "God forgive!" then, a hundred other
times, "Allah ill' Allah: Mohammed ressoul Allah!" may be
monotonous, but it is not revolutionary. From this tautological
brotherhood, through various degrees of emotional activity, you arrive
at the wild doings of the fire-eaters, or followers of
Mohammed-ben-Aissa. This Aissa was a native of Meknes in Morocco,
where he died full of years and piety three hundred years ago. His
legend states that being originally very poor, he attempted to support
his family in the truly Oriental manner, not by working for them, but by
spending his whole time at the mosque in prayer for their miraculous
sustenance. His inertia and his faith were acceptable to Mohammed,
who appeared to Aissa's wife with baskets of food, and to Aissa with
the order to found a sect. The allegory expressed by the disgusting

actions of the order would seem to be that anything is nourishment to
the true believer. They therefore exhibit themselves as eating red-hot
iron, scorpions and prickly cactus. Various travelers, some of them cool
hands and accurate observers, have seen these khouans at their horrible
feasts without being able to explain the imposture. A British soldier, an
experienced Indian officer, happened to be in Kabylia just before the
breaking out of the great Sepoy rebellion in India, and was introduced
to one of the fire-eating orgies by Major Deval at Tizi-ouzou, where
our journey into Kabylia is to terminate. With his own eyes he saw a
khouan, excited by half an hour's chanting and beating the tom-tom,
drive a sword four inches deep into his chest by hitting it with a tile.
The man marched around and exhibited it to the congregation as it
quivered in his naked body. Another seared his face and hands with a
large red-hot iron, holding it finally with his mouth without other
support.