Khrumirs

Khrumirs (Krumirs), a mixed Arabo-Berber people of the Tabarka Hills stretching inland from the sea between Algeria and Tunis, have acquired a historical reputation from the fact that their (alleged) predatory expeditions served as a pretext for the French occupation of Tunisia in 1881-82. They form a confederacy of one Berber (Tademmaka.) and three Arab tribes (Selul, Meselma, and Shiaya), capable of mustering altogether about 14,000 fighting men armed with muskets. The Khrumirs are a poor, degraded people, living in wretched hovels of branches and mud, the chiefs alone having stone houses, which, however, they share with all the animals of the farmyard. Some came traditionally from the West (Morocco), and claim descent from the renowned marabout (saint) Sidi Abi-bu-Jemel. (Duveyrier.)