TCLEMCEN.—THE GRANADA OF THE WEST.—ARAB POETS.—CHILDREN.—THE MOKBARA.—MANSOURA.—PHILO-ARABES.—TEMPTATIONS TO TCLEMCEN.
TCLEMCEN.—THE GRANADA OF THE WEST.—ARAB POETS.—CHILDREN.—THE MOKBARA.—MANSOURA.—PHILO-ARABES.—TEMPTATIONS TO TCLEMCEN.
AT Tclemcen, we found ourselves in a second and hardly less beautiful Granada—a Granada moreover peopled with those who had made it what it was, a Granada not wholly dead, but teeming with happy, picturesque Eastern life. The climate is delicious, and the whole atmosphere of the place so gracious and sweet to live in, that one is never ready to come away. We made up our minds to stay a week or ten days in this Capua of Capuas, whose climate, scenery, and every element around us, gave wings to the hours. We never knew how the time went; we only know that, like Faust, we said to the hour, “Stay, for thou art fair,” and that it escaped us like a vision. For those who wish to knowwhat Tclemcen, the “Queen of Marreb” (in Morocco), really is, and was, I refer them to the beautiful and careful papers of M. Brosselard in theRevue Africaine. If I were to say half what I want to say about Tclemcen, this little book would swell into a big one; I will, therefore, do my utmost not to be enthusiastic, since enthusiasm leads me into the rash use of so many words.
The Arabs, who are enthusiastic about great things and small, have described Tclemcen in language as brilliant as a bed of tulips. Listen, for instance, to Abd-el-Kader, who made Tclemcen his capital after the treaty of Tafna in 1837: “At sight of me,” says the great poet, “Tclemcen gave me her hand to kiss; I love her as the child loves the bosom of his mother. I raised the veil which covered her face, and my heart palpitated with joy; her cheeks glowed like flames. Tclemcen has had many masters, but she has showed indifference to all, turning from them with drooping eyelids; only upon me has she smiled, rendering me the happiest sultan in the world; she said to me, ‘Give me a kiss, my beloved; shut my lips with thy lips, for I am thine.’”
Another Arab writer thus describes Tclemcen: “Tclemcen is a city enjoying a pleasant climate, running waters, and a fertile soil. Built on the side of a mountain, it reminds one of a fair young bride reposing in beauty on her nuptial couch. The bright foliage which overshadows the white roofs is like a green coronal circling her majestic brow. The surrounding heights and the plain stretching below the town are made verdant by running streams. Tclemcen is a city that fascinates the mind and seduces the heart.” Thus wrote in the 15th century Ibn Khaldoun, the Arab Prescott, whose work no one has completed; and though the sun of Tclemcen has set, it is so beautiful as to fascinate the mind and seduce the heart still.
It was under the bright, brief dynasty of the Abd-el-Ouadites that Tclemcen was virtually the Queen of Morocco. Possessed of a large, enlightened, and wealthy population, of commercial enterprise, of a well-disciplined army, a brilliant court, munificent and cultivated rulers, Tclemcen was one of the best governed and most polished capitals in the world, as her monuments bear witness.
If you go farther back into history, you find Tclemcen was christened “Pomaria” by the Romans, on account of its orchards and fruit-gardens, but the Tclemcen of to-day is far more interesting. It is indeed the Moorish Athens. The modern city lies at the foot of green hills, its minarets standing out against the sky, its terraced houses surrounded by belts of lustrous foliage, whilst beyond stretches a plain as grandly covered with ruins as the seven hills of Toledo; only unlike the hills of Toledo, green, and sunny, and gay.
The life of the streets is intoxicating to an artist. At every corner you see children playing, as brightly dressed as little Prince Bedreddin when he went with his slave to buy tarts; the boys wearing blue and crimson vests, embroidered with yellow braid, scarlet Fez caps, and spotlessly white trousers; the girls, such dainty, dark-eyed darlings! in soft white dresses and haïks, their waists bound with broad silk scarfs of many colours, and flowers stuck coquettishly behind their little ears. Never were such children as those of Tclemcen, so pretty, so frolicsome, so utterly kittenish and captivating. You could not helpstopping to play with them; one would like to adopt half-a-dozen of them as nephews and nieces. The Negro and Jewish children are also very pretty here. The Jewesses brighten the streets as much as the children. They are handsomer here than in Algiers, and wear outside their brocades and silks haïks of soft, bright crimson cloth, which envelope them from head to foot. The Arab type is handsomer too; I should say much purer. There was a boy of fifteen at the hotel whose face I shall never forget. It was the face one should copy for a Christ in the Temple; perfectly oval, the features refined and pensive; the eyes soft, dark, and full of expression; the mouth sweet and serious. This boy acted as our guide, and as soon as we had arranged our sketch-books and shawls, would lose himself in a reverie. His face then was perfect.
We used to divide our days between the Arab village of Sidi Bou Medin and the mines of Mansooua.
The way to Sidi Bou Medin lies amid one vast cemetery called theMokbara, where the Tclemcenites have been buried for hundreds of years. AFrench guide-book has this remark upon the horrible condition of this cemetery,—“Ici s’amoncellent depuis des siècles les tombes des Tclemcéniens; le temps les a peu respectés:” but is it time alone that has so mishandled the dead?
There was hardly a spot where time (or the road-maker?) had not laid bare some skeleton, and in some places the bones lay in heaps. Some pretty little Marabouts lie scattered about these acres of grave-yard, and near one we saw a ragged Bedouin at afternoon prayer. The kneeling man, the white temple peeping amid olive-trees, the long lines of the cemetery, the yellow evening light bathing all, made a touching picture. The dry bones preached to us. We thought of the Moors driven thither from Spain, and of the sad hearts they brought into exile.
The village of Sidi Bou Medin covers a hill terrace-wise, and is overtopped by a graceful minaret. It has a gracious and sunny aspect, with its hanging gardens of myrtle, and orange, and pomegranate, its running streams, its vineyards and olive-groves, its shining white domes and minarets. Not a French element has enteredthe place; and when we had climbed the precipitous shady path and entered the court of the great Mosque, we felt as far from France as if Abd-el-Kader’s dream of a new Mahomedan dynasty at Tclemcen were realised, and the Nureddin was summoning, not Bedouins and beggars only, but turbaned princes and rulers to prayer.
Sidi Bou Medin, from whom the village is called, was a great saint, and his tomb (koubba) is considered the sight to see, it being very richly decorated with draperies of cloth and gold, ostrich’s eggs set in silver, chains and amulets of gold and beads, arabesques, mirrors in mother-of-pearl frames, lustres and lamps. To enter thiskoubba, you first descend into a little court, around which runs a graceful arcade supported on pillars of onyx; the panels are decorated with inscriptions, and hung with cages of singing birds, and the whole place is wonderfully rich and fantastic.
The Arabs heap up wealth on the shrines of their favourites with a zeal unequalled by Romanists, however fervent, and Bou Medin is the favourite saint here. There are many strange, touching, and also—for even saints havehumour—comic stories about him. He was born in Spain, and was brought up, first to arms, then to the profession of science; but, after many wanderings to Cordova, to Bagdad, to Mecca, to Constantine, came to Tclemcen, finding it, as he said, “a place in which the eternal sleep must be sweet,” where he died with these noble words on his lips,—“God alone is the Eternal Truth.”
His life, as are all the lives of Mahomedan saints, was meditative and active, miraculous and ordinary, and abounds in legends. He could read the most secret thoughts of men, in testimony of which the Arabs tell this story:—“A certain Sheikh was angry with his wife, and wishing to be separated from her, without feeling quite sure that he had reasonable grounds for doing so, went one day without saying a word to anybody to consult Sidi Bou Medin. Hardly, however, had he entered the room when the Marabout looking at him, called out sharply,—
“‘Fear God, and don’t put away your wife!’
“Of course the Sheikh was at a loss to understand how the saint came to quote the Koran soà propos, to which Sidi Bou Medin replied,—
“‘When you came in, I saw, as it were, the words of the Koran written on your person, and I guessed at once what was in your mind.’”
From the court you enter thekoubbaitself. The cenotaph, which is of richly sculptured wood, lies under a dusky dome, only lighted by small panes of coloured glass. A blessed disciple and friend of the saint lies by his side.
But it is the beauty of the mosque that those who are not devotees at Sidi Bou Medin’s shrine, care most to look at. Here you seeazulejosandartesonadosas original in design and as perfect in finish as any in Grenada, and probably of the same period. The tiles of the three primary colours, red, yellow, and blue, within, the sculptured red tiles without, the sculptured porticoes and walls, are quite of the same style, and in no degree unequal to the finest Moorish work we had seen in Spain. There are intact some of those gorgeous inscriptions, historical and religious, such as crowd the seat of the Caliph in the mosque of Cordova, and I do not remember to have seen any defacement or dilapidation anywhere. The building is a perfect specimen of Moorish art, which isalways simple where simplicity has its use, and always profuse of ornament, where ornament is in place. Take, for instance, the outer court where the Arabs perform their ablutions before prayer; there you have a marble basin, a floor offaïencein bright colours, all shut in by an airy arcade and overhead a bright blue sky. What could you add that would not spoil the purpose of the place?—a purifying place that ought to be unadorned. But within, where the devout man has the right to worship, having purified himself, flesh and spirit by the outward and visible sign as well as the inward and spiritual grace, the Mahomedan makes his temple magnificent for the one God and His Prophet. Neither wealth nor workmanship is spared, and the result is what we see, walls covered with ornamentation, most delicate both as to colour and design, pillars of jasper and onyx, arcades of lovely fret-work, the priestly seat or pulpit of cedar-wood richly sculptured—lavishness of labour and perfection of form and colour everywhere.
The ruins of Mansourah, once the rival of Tclemcen, lie about two miles off the town. It is now six centuries since this city was one vastcongeries of palaces, public buildings, gardens, baths, hospitals, and mosques. Nothing remains now but ruined walls and the minaret, though these alone are quite sufficient to show what Mansourah once was.
Photographs might help you a little to imagine the place, but, having looked at them, you must shut your eyes and colour the minaret and the walls with richest, reddest ochre, you must clothe the hills in living green, fill the space between hill and sky with soft warm skies of southern blue, and then set the whole picture floating and palpitating in golden mist.
This minaret is unlike anything else in the whole world. It is like a gigantic monolith of solid Indian gold, and is as wonderful as the Pyramids. When you come closer you see what a ruin it is now, and what a splendour it once was; it has been cleft in two like a pomegranate. The construction is of a rich reddish-coloured tile, and these tiles are arranged in panels sculptured and coloured. Some of the colour remains wonderfully bright still, but the whole building would hardly stand the shock of an earthquake,I think. Looking at the inner side, you see the traces of inclined stairs by which mounted horsemen could ride to the top, and by dint of a little patience, you are able to master the original ground-plan of the place. The exquisite columns of jasper and marble have been removed to the museums of Tclemcen, Algiers, and Paris, where are also to be seen many beautiful mosaics, enamelled tiles, shafts, and pedestals.
Whilst sitting at the foot of this minaret and looking from one scene of ruin to another, we found some fragments of coloured glass, blue, green, amber and red, which alone sufficed to show how splendid the mosque must have been. We looked at these bits of broken glass which were brilliant as jewels, and from them to the half-buried portico and the shattered minaret; and gradually the past became vivid as a dream, the dry bones were covered with flesh, the flesh palpitated with happy life, and the city of Mansourah was young and fair and gay again!
But we did not live wholly in the Tclemcen of yesterday. There is quite a little Protestant colony here, and we found ourselves taking upthreads of interests long laid aside, and here, in a remote corner of Africa, discussing all those questions dear to the well-wisher of the English Church. We talked naturally a good deal of the Arabs and discovered that we were in a nucleus of what French writers on Algerian affairs callPhilo-Arabes. One gentleman, a German, I think, but of whatever nation a most intelligent person, worked himself into quite a passion of indignant eloquence.
“I assure you, Madame,” he said, “that much as I love Tclemcen, and well as my affairs are thriving here, I do not know how to stay. The treatment of the Arabs enrages me—who am a peaceable man—fifty times a-day. You will hear wherever you go that the Arab is a sensual, unprincipled wretch, given to slaying, stealing, and all kinds of vice. You must not believe half what you hear, Madame; I have lived long enough among the Arabs to know what they are, and this is what they are,—harmless, generous, patient, hospitable, religious; they are all this and often much more. If I go from Tclemcen to Oran, do you think I want a pistol? Madame, I need neverbear the expense of going to an hotel; every Arab tent or house is open to me; at any man’s table I am welcome to a meal; his children will play with me; his own sons will tend or saddle my horse; at parting he will wring my hands and bid me come again.”
“We don’t hear such things from everyone,” we said.
“Ay, because you have doubtless had more talk with the soldier rather than the civilian, the ruler of the Arab than his fellow-man. But when a Colonel, or a Major, or aChef du Bureau Arabe, tells you how wicked the Arabs are, and how necessary it is to beat them (leur donner coups de bâton), he does not tell you all the story, Madame. He does not tell you how there are some who make their fortune by bleeding the poor Arabs, and then go back to Paris to live grandly. He does not tell you how he administers justice, and that is worth your while to hear. I am aChef du Bureau Arabe, so we will suppose, and I want something, no matter what,—a few jackal-skins for my wife’s drawing-room, a little money, sheep, horses, anything. What do Ido? The Arabs have all these things, skins, money, cattle, so I call my Sheikhs together, and tell them what I want, and they get it: what do I care how? and then people wonder that the Arabs rob in their turn! I tell you, Madame, that the Arab is unfairly treated in every way, and that those who treat him so will suffer for it hereafter. He would assimilate with us if we would only let him. To-day, for instance, I met a friend of mine, an Arab who lives in Tclemcen, and I told him that I would bring some English travellers to see his pretty Moorish house. He was as delighted as if he had been a countryman of yours. ‘I will prepare adiffa(feast),’ he said; ‘there shall be a goodcous-cous-sonto regale your friends,’ and if you go, you will find him, in every sense, a gentleman—polished, kindly, and intelligent. Our boys play together. Do you suppose those young Bedouins will not be influenced by the companionship? If I were to leave Tclemcen to-morrow, there are some Arabs I should part from as from my brothers.”
“And then,” said his young wife, treating the subject from a romantic point of view, “there issomething so poetic about everything they do! If you ask a simple question, they answer you with parables and figures of speech. It is like reading the Scriptures. Oh, Madame! my husband is right in advocating the cause of the poor Arabs! I think they would teach us Christians many a lesson of piety and resignation. If a parent loses his child he says, ‘It is the will of Allah. Allah’s will be done!’ The name of God is ever in their mouths, and I do believe in their hearts.”
We heard a great deal more about the Arabs during our stay, and, curiously enough, every one here spoke hopefully of them. I could write a long chapter of the stories that were told us by these warmPhilo-Arabes, but they carry double weight when told with flashing eyes and trembling lips. One hardly knows what to believe.
There are a good many Jews at Tclemcen, and it is consolatory to find them—as indeed you find them all over Algeria—living happily among their former enemies. The French conquest has certainly done a great deal for the Jews, who, under the Turkish rule, suffered inexpressible persecutions and hardships. Now they thrive, and thrive deservedly,without any fear that their honestly earned gains will be snatched from them, or that their derelictions will receive harsher punishment than those of their Christian neighbours.
If any one wants to renew his health, or forget his troubles, let him come to North Africa, and breathe the sweet, biblical, sunny atmosphere of Tclemcen. You will find no more tourists there than you would do in the heart of the Great Sahara; and whilst you enjoy all the charm of romantic, isolated Eastern life, none of the material comforts of modern civilization are missing.
HOSPITABLE ORAN.—CHRISTMAS DAY AT LE SIG.—THE LAST OF THE PHALANSTERIANS.—BARRAGES.—THE MALARIA.—ABD-EL-KADER’S MOSQUE.—SAÏDA.
HOSPITABLE ORAN.—CHRISTMAS DAY AT LE SIG.—THE LAST OF THE PHALANSTERIANS.—BARRAGES.—THE MALARIA.—ABD-EL-KADER’S MOSQUE.—SAÏDA.
SORRY enough were we to leave beautiful Tclemcen, and the many friendly faces that had made the place so homelike to us; but at the end of a week we were obliged to turn our faces towards Oran.
The diligence—wretched diligence!—travelled of course at night, and we set off for Oran in the evening, reaching our destination early next day, and not our destination only, but our welcome letters, newspapers, and books, luxuries of which we had been long deprived. Oran is a second and more bustling Algiers, only that Algiers is far more picturesque and Eastern. In Oran you are wholly in France—African France that is—with a burning blue sky in December, and a burning blue seareaching to the foot of the town—if it were only cool enough to walk so far!
We kept indoors almost all day during our stay in Oran, resting ourselves after the hard travel gone before, and in anticipation of the hard travel to come. But we were as gay as possible; for what with letters of introduction from friends and friends’ friends, we had visitors all day long, and invitations for every evening. Certainly hospitality flourishes on Algerian soil. It was quite delightful to be so welcomed and so regretted, and I cannot think of Oran without wishing to go there again—if life were long enough—just to shake hands and exchange an hour’s talk with the kind and pleasant people whose acquaintance I made there.
Amongst other acquaintances we found during our short stay at Oran was that of M. Leon Beynet, whose “Drames du Désert,” and other stories of African life, give one an admirable idea of the relative positions of native and colonist, Arab and Frank. M. Beynet makes the heroine of one of his stories a beautiful young Kabyle girl, who is certainly the most charming little savage that everwent unwashed. These novels are quite a feature in Algerian literature, and make you live in the wild scenes and society they portray.
Oran is a handsome city. The houses are of enormous height, and are built in blocks, so that the town is divided, so to say, into many parts. From each side of the city rise green hills and rocky heights, crowned by round white towers built by the Spaniards; and below lies the beautiful sea, so calm and blue during those December days, that we could hardly credit the bad weather written of from home. We had some pleasant walks on the hills, which abound in wild flowers, and everything else dear to the naturalist; but we were impatient to be making the best of our way Algiers-wards, and did not stop at Oran more than a few days.
Our next halting-place was Le Sig, where we spent Christmas-day. I doubt whether Le Sig would be found on any map, and I should not mention it except for an amusing error into which we were led respecting its claims upon our attention. “By all means go to Le Sig,” people had said to us. “What, not go to Le Sig! The Phalansteriancolony; the little community of Enfantinists and Fourierists!” So, as Le Sig lay on our way, we made a halt there, and saw what was to be seen.
Sig Proper is a prosperous little half French, half Spanish town, but Sig Phalansterian is a farm about a mile off; so as we reached the former at night we put up there, and found ourselves tolerably well off. The people were Spanish, and the cooking Spanish; whilst in Oran we were constantly coming upon such little clusters of Spanish families, who seemed thriving and happy.
Early next morning, we got a little Arab to show us the way toLa Colonie, as the farm of the Phalansterians is called, and after a hot and dusty walk of half an hour, reached a rather deserted-looking homestead, consisting of farm-houses and buildings surrounded by orchards and vegetable gardens. This was the Phalanstery; but, alas! where was the spirit that should have animated the place? Where were the philosophical grinders of corn, and assiduous cultivators of the beautiful? where were the hives of children happier at their work than our children at their play? Nothing remains now ofall this; and instead of devout followers of Enfantin in broad-brimmed white hats, we saw ordinary French labourers working after the ordinary way. The Phalanstery has, in fact, dwindled down till only two of the original occupants are left, and these, Monsieur and Madame B——, are a simple, old-fashioned couple, who seem to concern themselves mighty little with Fourierism, let out such of the land as they do not care to farm themselves, and send their only child, a girl of twelve, to a convent school. It seemed impossible to believe that only a few years back this isolated spot was the centre of a fervid, determinate little community, who had fled thither from the storms and passions of the world, intending to plan a perfect life.
Monsieur and Madame B—— received us kindly, and took us all round the premises, showing us the former dwellings of the Phalansterians, neat little wooden houses in rows, now turned into stables and granaries. Thejardin potageseemed very flourishing, and, indeed, so did the crops of every kind. We tasted the home-grown and home-made wine, but that was sour enough to have driven away the most ardent Fourierist going.
We had brought other letters to Le Sig, and by one of them were introduced to a charming young English lady, Madame O——, who had spent all her life in Africa, and was now settled down at Sig. Her husband was a Frenchman, and held an official post of some authority there, being entrusted with the supervision of the giganticbarrages, or waterworks, which are turning the barren plain of Le Sig into gardens of beauty and fruitfulness.
When the Emperor was at Algiers, he asked some great authority on Algerian affairs what was most needed in the colony.
“Barrages, sire,” was the answer.
“Et après cela?”
“Encore barrages,” repeated the political economist; and the Emperor gave heed to the words, as those who follow in our track from Oran to Algiers will see. These gigantic and noble works are well worth inspection, especially at Le Sig; and if future travellers have the good fortune that fell to our share, they will come away with a very clear idea of the importance and working of these monster systems of irrigation. Monsieur O—— most kindly drove us to thebarrageshimself, and toldus, in round numbers the annual cost of the works and the quantity of water dispensed; but I am afraid of quoting figures from memory, especially when they come to millions, and refer the curious reader to statistical reports.
The reservoirs are colossal. You drive through a pleasant and verdant country, part cultivated, part pasture, and then come to the entrance of a wild gorge, above which rises the colossal mass of masonry, like a sentinel guarding the vast tracts beyond. The burning African sun shone straight down upon the broad surface of the reservoir, turning the hard grey of the granite to a soft and beautiful orange colour. One might have thought the place a thousand years old. Whilst we rested here to sketch a little, a grave Arab with three little girls came up to look at us. The little girls had complexions the colour of ripe chestnuts, and were as wild and fearless as monkeys, dancing to the very edge of the stone platforms in a way that made us sick. There was no sort of coping, and we were some hundred feet above the river bed.
Next to the extraordinary and monkey-likeagility of these children, I was struck by their obedience. The father had but to knit his brow, to lift his finger, or to cry Ayesha, or Zorah, or Zaida, and these wild creatures obeyed like soldiers. Yet they did not seem one whit afraid of him, playing hide-and-seek behind the folds of his burnouse, caressing his hands, smiling up into his face.
When we had seen enough of thebarrages, we went back to the town and spent a little time with Madame O—— and her children—half French, half English children, with Saxon skins and hair, and dark brown eyes, and speaking a pretty language of their own, mixed English, Arabic, and French. The house was very large, and stood embosomed in Eastern shrubberies; the orange, the oleander, the magnolia, the palm, and the almond; Arab servants in handsome dresses were lounging about the hall, and the whole made a pretty picture to bring away from the remote country of Le Sig. Madame O—— looked as fresh as a rose, but the children were a little fragile, and she told us how much they had suffered from malaria.
“The fever is the curse of the place,” she said,“and every one falls victim to it in turn. A few months back my husband was brought to death’s door by it, and the poor children suffer frightfully. Ah! what should we do but for that blessed, blessed quinine!”
Wherever we went, we heard the same complaints. The fever—the fever—every one was ill, or had been ill, or was falling ill of the fever. We were particularly warned from exposing ourselves to the smell of freshly-ploughed soil. The earth seems to emit a sort of poison, and there is no remedy for the evil—which is felt by thousands—save planting and drainage. The only wonder is that colonisation has prospered in these districts at all; especially when you consider that there are other scourges, hardly less insupportable, such as locusts and Arab incendiaries.
From Le Sig we journeyed—always by diligence, to Mascara, a town that will always have a romantic interest as the birthplace of Abd-el-Kader.
Mascara is charming. Great chalk hills, each crowned with its little mosque or marabout, rise round the town, and, when you have climbed thesehills, you come upon broad belts of half wild, half cultivated country, flanked with settlers’ huts or Arab tents. The colouring of the place is thoroughly Eastern; you get here, as in Andalusia, long lines of wild cactus and aloe standing out against a burning blue sky, and those indescribable effects of yellow and white that are only seen where every building is whitewashed and every bit of ground is toasted and bronzed and baked by a blazing sun.
The place itself is quite French, and herein we were a little disappointed, as we had been led to expect a second Tclemcen, bright as Joseph’s many-coloured coat, with Moorish costume. The Arab population is a very shabby one, and is, for the most part, settled outside the town, in wretched huts built of cob and rubble. We went inside the mosque, now used as a granary, where Abd-el-Kader preached war against the Christians, and found it very pretty, but in sad ruin. There were formerly beautiful tiles and arabesques on the walls, not a trace of which remains. Nothing, indeed, remains, but the beautifully-proportioned domes and aisles and the ceiling of inlaid cedar-wood.
From Mascara we made an excursion to Saïda, where we smelt the real air of the Desert, and saw many wonderful things that must be described without hurry. Finding that the diligence to Saïda possessed neither coupé nor berlina, we engaged the whole vehicle to ourselves, and what a concern it was! The glass was out of the windows, the seats were rickety, the floor screeched ominously whenever we got in or out. Never was such a crazy old diligence in the world, and, as we went along, it had spasmodic attacks of creaking and cracking without any rhyme or reason, and we expected nothing more nor less than a total collapse in some wild spot or other—which, however, did not happen.
It takes a day to get from Mascara to Saïda, but not a long day. If there were only tolerable roads and saddle-horses, the journey would be trifling. As it is, you are shaken up and down in a way that turns you sick and blackens and bruises you, and, though a halt of five minutes and a breath of the sweet air of the Desert revives and heals, you get to Saïda tired enough. What added to our discomfort was a high wind that accompaniedus all the way, first making us shiver with cold, and afterwards burning us with a sirocco-like heat. We did our best to keep out the alternate cold and heat, but it was difficult work as all the windows were broken. As soon as one improvised curtain was up, another was sure to be down; and at last we solved the difficulty by covering our faces instead. I think the journey to Timbuctoo could hardly be wilder or more solitary than this. For the most part we passed through a totally uninhabited country—some parts all stone and sand; others overgrown with rosemary, wild asparagus, fennel, candied tuft, thyme, and stunted tuya and tamarisk trees. When the dust did not blow, the air was very sweet and invigorating, and sometimes the sky looked suddenly cold and blowy, and we could walk in comfort. After passing a vast and beautiful plain we stopped at a little village or post to breakfast and change horses. It was a curious half French, half Arab sort of settlement; and from the Arab douar in the village close by came lots of little half naked children to look at us. When we had breakfasted we went up to the tents to sketch, and soon had an eager groupround us,—a stately Bedouin, his wives, his mother, and their children. Every one wanted to be useful, to hold the umbrella or the palette, or fetch water; and, when nothing remained to do, they watched the artist with smiles of amazement and gratification. The grandmother was a delightful old lady. She was by no means ugly as most old Arab women are, but had quite a nice face with very bright eyes and very intelligent features. She had keen observation too, as I saw, for, without being in the least degree rude and troublesome, she looked at us so narrowly that she doubtless preserves to this day an exact remembrance of what we were, how we looked, and what we said, or what she thought we said to each other. I should like to have adopted that old lady as my grandmother and brought her to England. Her sympathy with the sketcher was quite beautiful, and, when the children giggled and tittered and came so close to her as to hinder her progress and bring forth some such expression as this—“How are we to send these troublesome little things away,”—the old lady understood at once and commanded them to be still, which they were;and as the objects of the landscape were brought out one by one, the dark-brown tents, the bright blue sky, the wavy, yellow plain, the low line of purple hills beyond—she cried aloud in ecstacy.
Whilst we were so occupied, a little urchin of five years, utterly naked, ran out of the tent close by and stood still, as much amused with us as we were with him. All laughed aloud, but the father who looked a little ashamed, and I think it was because he had been to Mascara or some other town, and knew that nakedness was not quite the thing in the great world. The women were like big children, and giggled, showing their white teeth, if you but held up a finger.
When we had done we shook hands all round, and returned to the auberge to see a pitiful sight. It was a little Arab child of fourteen months old sick of the fever; he was riding on the shoulder of his grandfather, a patriarchal-looking old man, with silky white hair and beard. I don’t think I ever saw anything more touching than his care of the little suffering thing. Its poor little face was perfectly livid, its eyes leaden, its limbs shrunken. What could we do for it?
The mistress of the auberge came out and questioned the old man in Arabic a little, then turned to us.
“Ah!” she said, “think of it—that poor baby has neither father nor mother, no one to tend it but that old man, and it has been ill of fever for months; but then we all suffer alike! Three of my five children are ill now; that is, ill every other day with shivering fits and sickness, and there is nothing to do but try quinine. But quinine is very dear, and we have to do without it.”
“Do the Arabs try it?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders expressively.
“Voyez-vous, madame, the Arabs are poorer than we. We must buy bread before quinine.”
We gave the poor old man a little money, and recollecting that I had brought a small bottle of quinine from England, fearing these marsh fevers myself, I got it out of my travelling-bag and gave it to the woman. She promised to give the poor baby a dose, but I fear he was past all help, and I looked sadly after the old man as he stalked away in his tattered burnouse, bearing his poor little burden on his shoulders.
Farther on, we stopped to see some hot springs which lie within a few leagues of Saïda. Following a small path that wound through labyrinthine thickets of tuya, palmetto, and lentisk, we came suddenly upon a scene, that with very little idealization might make as poetic a picture as one could see.
It was a party of Arab girls bathing in a small round pool. The bathers and the bathing-place were shut in by lustrous green foliage, above which showed the dark lines of the tents, the bright blue hills, and the brighter sky. A noontide shadow lay on the water, in which, like a flock of young ducks, plashed and played, and dived and ducked, a dozen wild young girls, their dark hair streaming to the waist, their faces expressive of the utmost enjoyment, their limbs glistening as they rose out of the water.
All at once they caught sight of us. There was a short succession of screams, a unanimous splashing, a glimpse of bare feet, and all was still again. They had fled the spot without even a thought of their clothes; and we unfortunate intruders were only harmless women after all!
After this we passed a tawny, monotonous region, all stone and sand, and only here and there varied by oases of cultivation. These little oases, poor patches of wheat and vegetables growing amid the intractable palmetto, were showing green and bright, despite the rudeness of the tillage; but, alas! the locusts had found them out. Both on our journey to Saïda and back we saw swarms of these creatures settling like glittering birds on the corn, or filling the air like snow-flakes. My heart sank within me as I thought of the poor Arabs and the devastation that threatened their little all.
We reached Saïda in good time that afternoon.
OPINIONS, CIVIL AND MILITARY.—A LOOK TOWARDS THE SAHARA.—WILD GEESE.—OUR SPAHIS, AND THE CARE THEY TAKE OF US.—A NORMANDY APPLE-ORCHARD IN AFRICA.—NEW YEAR’S DAY.
OPINIONS, CIVIL AND MILITARY.—A LOOK TOWARDS THE SAHARA.—WILD GEESE.—OUR SPAHIS, AND THE CARE THEY TAKE OF US.—A NORMANDY APPLE-ORCHARD IN AFRICA.—NEW YEAR’S DAY.
SOME authorities declare Saïda to be an oasis in the Little Desert, some declare it to be an oasis in the Great Desert, others declare it to be in no desert at all. For my part, I wholly side with those who are of opinion that Saïda stands on the skirts of the Sahara, the Dry Country abounding in Dates, as the old maps have it; but I will leave the matter an open question to the curious, merely describing Saïda as I found it.
We had a comfortable room in the house of our coachman—for as nobody ever goes to Saïda there are no inns—whose wife was Spanish, and as uglyand dull as he was handsome and bright. As he seemed devoted to her, however, it didn’t much matter. They carried on almost as many trades as there are weeks in the year, and were evidently making money. They catered for the officers, they kept the diligence, they owned land, they had geese and cattle, they managed the post—it would be hard to say what they did not do. And they wore good clothes, lived on really dainty food, and were of importance in the place, which must have been some consolation under exile.
Our first thought was to inquire for horses and side-saddles, our second to forward our letters to the Commandant. The first request proved fruitless. There being no ladies at Saïda, how should there be ladies’ saddles? But M. le Commandant very kindly came to us at once, and told us what to see and how to see it in this oasis, as he delighted to call Saïda. He was a merry, middle-aged gentleman from Normandy, who had seen a good deal of the Desert, and bore the responsibilities of his post—which were heavy—with great ease.
“The life here seems dull,” he said, “but after long marches in the Desert and hard fighting, Iassure you I am very contented to remain here. There isn’t a lady in the place,c’est vraiment triste ça, but there is an infinity of distractions in the way of work and pleasure. You see I represent both civil and military authority, having 40,000 Arabs under my jurisdiction, and this involves all sorts of intricacies, out of which I make my way as well as I can. I have to act as military commander, mayor, and prêfet, all in one; and these Arabs are difficult people to manage, I assure you.”
“They are miserably poor, are they not?” we asked.
“Pauvres diables!You may well say that, Madame. They are starving; that’s just the truth of it; and what with those who steal and murder because they are hungry, and those who steal and murder because they like it, the road from hence to Fig-gig—our last post in the Desert—is unsafe enough. Without a military escort it is impossible.”
“We were told at Oran,” I said, “that there were some grand waterfalls we could see in the neighbourhood of Saïda. Is the excursion practicable?”
M. le Commandant opened his eyes, and shrugged his shoulders expressively.
“Madame, no one knows in Oran what is going on at Saïda. It is not practicable. I tell you the simple truth when I say that. It is not practicable. I will tell you what you can see here. You propose to remain two days?Eh, bien!to-morrow I will send an escort of Spahis with you as far as the marabout of Sidi-ben-Baila, from whence you can look over the plateaux which commence the Desert; you will see then what sort of country it is; and if you went on as far as Géryville, our next post, and Fig-gig our last, you would see no more. The next day you would like to sketch, probably?Bien, I send my servant and a Spahi with you to the ravine, and you will find fine things to draw; and when my work is done, I will ride round and show you what else is to be seen in our little Saïda;” and, after telling us a great deal more that was interesting, the good-natured Commandant left us.
We carried out these plans, and all turned out satisfactorily. There was only one sort of vehicle to be had, a sort of wheel-barrow on four wheels,belonging to a butcher, which we gladly accepted for the drive to the marabout. Our driver, the owner of the cart, proved a most entertaining person. He was a Parisian by birth, an African by right of long residence, and as rich in mother-wit as an American.
“You don’t mean to say that you think of leaving Saïda without going to see the waterfalls?” he asked; “why, that is the only thing that is really beautiful in the place.”
We said that we had been dissuaded from the excursion on account of the unsafety of the roads; and, thereupon, the incredulity of the butcher’s face was a sight to see.
“Mon Dieu, Madame, you mustn’t listen to what the military authorities say—they always make mountains of mole-hills. I would undertake to carry you safe to Fig-gig in this trap without as much as a pistol in my belt.Voilà!”
“But you don’t attempt to convince us that the roads are safe, do you?”
“Madame, they are safe for you or for me; but I wouldn’t say as much for myself if I were an officer. This is how it is, the Arabs hate themilitary, and do them an ill turn when they can; but the Arabs,ma foi, are not the bad set of people one would have you believe. Why, I have travelled to Géryville and back, and to Fig-gig and back alone before now alone, with money in my purse too, and the Arabs treated me as if I had been a brother, made me a dish of cous-cous-sou, gave me a bed under their tents, saddled my horse for me at parting, and bade me God speed. Having been so kindly treated by the Arabs, can you wonder at my speaking so of them? For my part I don’t see a pin to choose between a good Christian and a good Mahomedan, a bad Christian and a bad Mahomedan:voilà ce que nous pensons.”
We let our butcher have his way, for his talk was too racy and fresh to be spared in a world where one has to endure so much commonplace. I should fill a chapter if I were to repeat half the stirring stories and original opinions he gave us; but as this little book is intended as a stimulant to others longing “for the palms and temples of the South,” I hope it may lead some to Saïda and the butcher’s acquaintance.
All this time we were driving through what seemed to be a stony desert, flooded with an indescribably yellow, mellow, monotonous light, above all, a pale blue sky. By-and-by, we came to a rocky height where we halted to take in every feature and aspect of a wondrous scene. Below lay a billowy waste of plain upon plain; those nearest to us broken by Arab tents, or the shining dome of a marabout; those farthest off more solitary, vaster, grander, than the surface of an ocean without a sail. Where the plains ended and the sky began was a straight, continuous line; and we looked at this line, so suggestive of distance, and mystery, and unknown existence, till we longed to accept the butcher’s offer, and,coûte que coûte, set off for Fig-gig, and the “Dry Country abounding in Dates!”
What fascinated us more than anything was the wonderful briskness, purity, and sweetness of the air. It seemed as if we never could have breathed real air before, and the experience was too delicious to describe. Softer and sweeter than the breath blown off Cornish moors when theheather is out, fresher and more invigorating than the sea-breezes one gets at Lowestoft pier on a bright September day; a whiff of this air of the Desert amply repays any hardships undertaken to obtain it. We felt as if we could never come away, as if we could never drink deeply enough of such precious, reviving, rejuvenating wine. The Commandant’s high spirits and comely looks, the butcher’s vivacity, the general look of briskness, physical and mental, among the people of Saïda, was accounted for. The sweet air of the Desert did it all. I think if I went to live at Saïda the great-grandchildren of those who read what I write about it now, might, if they journeyed thither, find me alive and hearty.
About half a mile from our point of view stood the little marabout which was to be our boundary mark, and, around it, we could see wreaths of white smoke curling from the dark brown tents, and horses and cattle feeding. Near to us were one or two wild-looking Bedouins keeping their sheep, which were marvellously transformed in the yellow light, their fleeces looking like bosses of bright, orange colour. Whilst resting thus, aserried line of wild geese slowly flew towards us, keeping a line like the German letter[image of sript L unavailable.]till out of sight.
“Now we shall have rain,” said our driver. “One wants no weather-glasses at Saïda, I assure you.”
What inventions of man does one want indeed at such a place as Saïda? Place any one of quick mental capacity anywhere out of the world, that is to say, out of the conventional, comfortable world of shops, railways, and penny newspapers, and how readily does he shift for himself. Such a man as this butcher of Saïda had as many interests in life as any of us in these days of social, literary, and political excitement; he was always solving some knotty point in Algerian political economy, or speculating how this or that natural feature of the country could be turned to account. He knew the geography, geology, and mineralogy of every rood; he could tell what birds lived in the air, what beasts haunted the wastes, what plants grew in the oases, and how the Arabs lived in the Desert. It was curious to find how much more he respectedthe Bedouin than the Spahis, and how lightly he esteemed the moral influence of the French upon the people they had conquered. “Where are our Spahis?” I asked, for we had never seen our escort all the way.
He smiled and pointed to a cluster of Arab douars at some distance.
“You can’t see a little red speck among those tents, I dare say, Madame; but my eyes are used to looking a good way off, and I can. It is one of your precious Spahis, and he’s just thinking as much of you as his wives out there whom he has gone to see. I know ’em, those Spahis; they like nothing better than to be sentas escortwith travellers, for that means that they can pay a visit to their women, who begin to cook cous-cous-sou as soon as ever they see a red cloak in the distance. When your Spahis have eaten up everything that comes in their way and seen enough of their good ladies, they’ll come home.”
And true enough, just as we were approaching Saïda, our escort came galloping up, two as wild and fine-looking men as you could see, their scarletcloaks flung over their shoulders, their dark handsome faces wrapped in white linen trimmed with camel’s hair, their brown muscular arms bare to the elbow, their legs thrust in mocassins of crimson leather richly embroidered. They rode pretty little barbs, and sat upon their high-backed saddles with quite a royal air. Nothing in the world could be more picturesque or brilliant.
Saïda, that is to say, the Saïda of yesterday,—for the present settlement is entirely French,—was heroically defended by Abd-el-Kader, and, as we drove home, we saw the ruined walls of the old town and the deserted camp of the French soldiery. Throughout the entire province of Oran, indeed, you are reminded of Abd-el-Kader, whose career has a wild, sad, Saracenic pomp about it not at all in harmony with our present civilization.
The French garrison of Saïda consists now of 800 men; and they have sixteen pieces of cannon only. We saw no more of our driver after that day. The superb air and savage plenty of such places as Saïda seem to make people magnanimous, for he went off to Géryville next day, never concerning himself about being paid for hisservices; and we were constantly receiving little presents from some one or other during our stay, ostriches’ eggs, beautifully polished stones, wild boars’ horns, &c., &c.
Saïda is a land of Goshen in the matter of game, and there is plenty of sport too. Jackals, hyenas, wild boars, abound in these rocky wildernesses; there are also panthers and gazelles, though they are found rarer. If it were not for the hunt and the chase, what would become of the officers under exile?
Next day, M. le Commandant showed us his pretty garden, planted with apple-trees by way of recalling his native Normandy, and promising to be very beautiful by-and-by, when the rich tropical flowers should be out. Then he went with us to a very savage and splendid gorge calledLa Source. Here, issuing from a tiny aperture in the rock, a stream of clear, rapid water had cleft its way through the rich red heart of the mountain, and tossed and tumbled amid oleanders and tamarisks as far as the eye could reach. The rock, piled in lofty masses on either side, made natural ramparts to the little town of Saïda which lay a mile off,forming the haunts of wild beasts and birds and Arab thieves.
“I have placed sentinels here for several nights of late,” said M. le Commandant, “for the Arabs are like the jackals and steal down at night to scavenge where they can. My Spahis will come here as soon as it is dusk, and this precaution I must take till the thief or thieves are caught.”
“And what will be done to them?”
“C’est très simple,” replied M. le Commandant coolly. “Whoever comes down that pass at night gets a bullet through his head, that’s all.” On our looking a little shocked he added, smiling, “Que voulez-vous? Il faut vous dire les choses comme elles sont.”
It seemed that the harvests had been very bad of late and that the Arabs were driven to all sorts of desperation by hunger. Was there work for those who chose to do it, we asked of the Commandant?
“In plenty, I assure you—in great plenty, Madame; but the Arabs don’t like work, and will rather starve. Give a Kabyle a field to plough or a house to build, and he’ll do it as well as aFrenchman, whilst an Arab or Bedouin, you understand, is only good for fighting and plunder.”
“That is your opinion.”
“That is my experience, Madame.”
Thanks to the kindness of the Commandant, we came away from Saïda with a pretty comprehensive idea of the perplexities and responsibilities of his high post, and of the working of the military system of government in Algeria.
Next day, the last day of the year, we returned to Mascara, and had, if anything, a more trying journey than before; the wind was colder, the sun was hotter, the clouds dustier, and every one prophesied rain.
We spent New Year’s day with some kind friends from Algiers, Monsieur D——, an army surgeon, and his wife. What a sumptuous breakfast we had! I do not mean sumptuous in the matter of dishes only, but in the matter of conversation, which was as piquant and full of flavour as the fare. Monsieur D—— and his wife were two of those happy mortals who are gifted with perpetual youth, coupled with a habit of quick and just observation. An hour’s talk with them waslike reading a very witty and very wise novel. Throughout the shifting scenes of their African life, they had naturally fallen in with all sorts of characters and conditions, and they gave us a lively picture of French society in Oran, touching on the follies, errors, and good things of it, with kindly satire.
“I will take you to see Madame la Générale,” said our hostess, “for I don’t suppose in any of your travels you have been introduced to a Moorish lady married to a French commanding officer. Now, our General’s wife is one; and, though she does not speak French quite easily, you will find her in dress and manner quite a Parisian. They have four children, such little dark, handsome, wild things, and there is not one of them so fond of sweets as mamma! Moorish ladies, you know, almost live on sugar.”
Madame la Générale had a cold, however, and could see no one, so we had to leave Mascara without personal intercourse with a Moorish lady turned Parisian. It was certainly a disappointment.
It was quite a gay day at Mascara. New Year’s day is always gay inFrance, and so warmly were we received by Monsieur and Madame D—— that we did not feel as if we could be so far from home and in a spot so remote as Mascara! French hospitality, at least as far as my experience of it goes, is as genuine and gracious hospitality as any in the world; and we were quite touched by the way in which people thought of us and for us wherever we went.
To give one instance out of many:—On the eve of our departure from Mascara, I was disturbed in my packing by a gentle rap at the door, and on opening it saw Monsieur D—— followed by an Arab servant bearing a small basket heavily laden.
“Ah, Mademoiselle!” he said, “I disturb you—but only for a little moment, and then I will wish you ‘bon voyage’ for the last time, and go. When you and Madame had left us to-day, we remembered that you praised my wife’s preserved peaches and apricots, and we thought you might like some to eat on the way.”
Then he helped his boy Hamed to unload the basket, which contained several tin cases of fruit hermetically sealed. I thanked him, said it was too bad of us to rob Madame when she had been atthe trouble of preserving the fruit herself, that we should take the cases to England, that we should never forget the kind reception we had met at Mascara, &c.
“And we shall not forget,” he said, with a hearty shake of the hand, “what pretty things you have said about French ladies in your book of Algerian travel!Adieu, au revoir, Mademoiselle; if not in Africa, in Paris; if not in Paris, in England!” and then he went.
We were to rise very early next morning, but, though we went to bed at eight o’clock, sleep was out of the question. New Year’s Day only happens once a-year, and the good people of Mascara seemed determined to make the best of it. I never heard anything like the noisiness of that little town keeping holiday. Drums beat, bands played, trumpets sounded, and mixed with the sounds of tipsy singing and laughter that continued till long past midnight; and just as things were growing quiet and we were getting drowsy, came a loud rat-tat-tat at our doors and the noise of Arab porters crying out, “La Diligence! La Diligence!”