Folkloi'e of the Algerian Hills and Desert. 171
after further enquiries in the field, to publish our results in full.
In the meantime I can attempt no more than to place before students of the manners and customs of primitive folk some of the raw material we collected, in the hope that this may prove of interest to them in their comparative studies. As was the case in our wanderings before the War, so during our subsequent journeys in the hills we made it a rule to be accompanied by no servants other than a native mounted orderly, whose services the French authorities have always kindly placed at our disposal, for " hangers on " to the European, engaged as servants in a tourist centre, are liable to cause unpleasantness with the simpler folk whose customs we wished to observe. Further, we always lived actually in the villages we visited, residing in the house of the Sheykh or a Marabout or other pro- minent personage, or, where none such existed, hiring a little stone-built Shawiya hut wherein to live and work. In this way we enjoyed better facilities for observing native life than would have come our way had we encamped outside the villages, and we have formed a large circle of acquaintances. This circle includes most ot the influential Marabouts, or hereditary saints of the Aures and its vicinity, as well as a number of scribes [Tolba ; singular, taleb) who practise the magic art and — owing to the presence of my wife — some women w^ho live, in the guise of sorceresses, upon the credulity of their neighbours. Had I been alone I could not have hoped to gain the confidence of the women Avho, being Moslems, would naturally avoid the male stranger : as it was I did not lack opportunities of observing many of their customs.
From these writers of charms and general practitioners of the magic art we gleaned some information as to the nature and habits of the Jenun (in the singular, Jinn) whose supposed existence plays so important a part in Algerian superstition, and whose main characteristics the following
