Last Winter in Algeria ... With a map of the country

Chapter I. Algiers

PAGE The approach — Oriental and European contrasts — Poses plastiques — Street life in the French quarter and native town — Advice to ladies . . . . 1

Chapter II. The Neighbourhood

Mustapha SupeVieur — Rambles round Algiers — The pirates' home — Don Quixote's captive — Geronimo, or the man with the mud mask — The summit of the Sahel Hills — Geological structure .... 19

Chapter III

A MOORISH WEDDING. The quasi-bridesmaids — An uninteresting bride — A Moorish beauty — Madame Bachel at work — Painting and gilding — Native dancing — An ugly bridegroom — The playful matron — The unveiling . CONTENTS. VIII PAGE

Chapter IV. The Earthquake Of The

2ND JANUARY. A night at Blidah— The first shock— The flight— On the " Place " — The killed and wounded — Alarming telegrams — After-shocks — A visit to the ruined villages 51

Chapter V. New Year's Day In The Country

A visit to a French farm — Agricultural difficulties in the Mitidja — An Arab guest — A Mussulman's view of English customs — The fashions in Africa — The tomb of the Christian — Its origin .... 67

Chapter VI. Across The Atlas

An excited individual — The poor Bishop — Ruined homes — Arab incendiarism — Mineral springs — A smiling colony — An incident of the war of Abd el-Kader — Arab horses — A theatre in the heart of the Atlas 82

Chapter VII. An Arab Banquet In

1HE CEDAR FOREST. A Spahi upon " woman " — The giants of the sorest — The green parlour — The " Menu " of the banquet — Blidah again — Visit to an Arab acquaintance — The condition of Mohammedan women — The town and country mouse ....... CONTENTS. IX PAGK 125 191 CHAPTER VEIL A TRIP TO GRAND KABYLIA. The natives of Algeria — Difference of race — Valuable characteristics of the Kabyle — Decadence of the Arab — The Djurjura mountains — Kabyle gardens and villages — Kabyle industry and Kabyle dirt

Chapter IX. The Colony

A Mahonnais* interior — A neat housewife — The cry of the colonists : — " Roads — Water — Good government" — The Emperor's visit — Factitious centres — Why Frenchmen are not good colonists . . . 150

Chapter XIII. An Old Roman Town

The " Akbar " of Constantine — A legend of Salah Bey — The Jews of Tougourt — Batna, the French camp— Lambessa, the town of the 3rd Legion — French sentiment — A luckless village — The Penitentiary — The soldier's couch ........ 231

Chapter XIV. An Oasis Of The Sahara

Desolation — An Arab tribe on the march — An old Roman in modern garb — First sight of the desert — 160,000 palms— The fruit of the Sahara— A French hermit — " The land where it is always afternoon " .

. Practical hints— Hotels— Villas— Climate— Clothing- Supplies — Church — Post — Carriages — Saddle-horses — Shooting — Amusements, &c. &c. — Excursions- Journey in the interior — Travelling expenses .

Chapter I. Algiers

The approach — The arrival — Oriental and European contrasts — Poses plastiques — Street life in the French quarter and native town — Advice to ladies. Yeaes ago, on a voyage to India, a triangular speck of white, like a fleck of sea-foam thrown up against the shore, was pointed out to me as Algiers. A few months back I again stood on the deck of a steamer, and saw the white speck growing larger and larger, till it took the form of a giant flight of broken marble steps, leading up to a vast green tableland. A little nearer, and the huge white staircase developed itself into walls and terraced roofs, while the plateau showed us the line of B rounded summits of the Sahel Hills, sloping down into hundreds of hidden valleys. A little closer still, inside the harbour, the old Moorish town retreated into the background, and long rows of modern quays and houses of the "Imperial" order of architecture reared their heads — the French element asserting itself.

Here, at once, was an epitome of Algeria. The beautiful country itself — the native town — the French quarter in the foreground — suggesting, somewhat fancifully perhaps, the perpetual pro blem of the assimilation of the two opposed races — the Oriental and the European — every where sharply abutting on one another, and offering that strong contrast which is the first law of picturesqueness and the principal charm of Algiers. Already, on landing in the French quarter, one perceives, by the prominence of that very contrast, that a certain outward assimilation has begun. The "Place du Gou vernement" does not look quite like a "place" in a town in France; the numerous cafes have not the same aspect as those on the boulevards of Paris or the Cannebiere of Marseilles. A large group of palms and a white-domed mosque orient- CONTRASTS. 3 alize the first, and in the second the gaily-clad Moor sits at the next table to the sombrely-clothed European, while little half-naked Arab "gamins" flit about among them selling matches.

Along the chief streets, French in their architecture, Arab in their names, Bab-Azoun and Bab el-Oued, the flowing burnous of the Arab brushes against the short skirts of the elegant Parisian lady, or the gold-laced uniform of the smart young chas seur d'Afrique. One finds, on the other hand, on ascending the steep narrow streets of the native town, that European influence has in its turn made its way amongst them : the French epicier's glazed window is close to the open stall of the Moor, the little frocked or jacketed European rolls about in the gutter with the small baggy trousered Oriental ; and a constant stream of Mal tese, Spanish, and French workpeople mingle with the native crowd. We were, perhaps, specially struck with the "intrusion" (to use the word in its original sense) of European into native life, having been accustomed, in Indian and other eastern towns, to see the two races keep much more to their own quarter.

The " couleur locale " of course suffers ; but, then, the town of Algiers is not only African, it is also French : not a mere military camp, but a colonial city. This is what travellers are too apt to forget, and seem to think eastern life, which can be better observed in a dozen other places, the great attraction of Algiers and Algeria generally ; whereas, the peculiar interest of the country lies in its being the theatre of a constant struggle between European civilisation and the once dominant, now degenerate, power of Mahommedanism — a struggle for moral, fully as much as physical ascendancy. Then again, as people see only the Oriental side of the picture, they insist on having the whole mise-en-scene of nature in keeping, and accord ingly, reasoning from particulars to generals, think that as so much is different to what they see in Europe everything must be, forgetting that the trifling distance which separates the north of Africa from the extreme south of the opposite continent, or even the space of six degrees which lies between Marseilles and Algiers, does not place them in different zones.

I have heard the strangest remarks fall from people's lips — some innocently asking where the cocoa-nut trees were, and expecting a tropical vegetation when it is an TWILIGHT ILLUSIONS. 5 ascertained fact that nearly two-thirds of the species of the Algerian flora are found in Southern Europe. Again, I have heard others boldly assert, even against the evidence of their own eyes, that there was no twilight. I can only say, that even south of the Island of Ceylon I have never known twilight cease to exist, while in Algiers its dura tion, though, of course, not what it is in England, is of some length, a considerable interval of exqui site beauty separating the setting of the sun and the appearance of the stars. To be sure, it is altogether different from English twilight — it is the twilight of a cloudless sky — a luminous atmo sphere.

The dawn, too, whose existence poetical travellers equally deny, I have repeatedly watched from my window in Algiers, for upwards of an hour, passing through every gradation of tint and tone, from leaden grey to golden yellow. Most people now-a-days know what landing in a foreign seaport is like. How one's self and be longings are fought over, first by boatmen, secondly by porters: how, finally, falling a prey to the most vociferous of the latter, one follows panting in the wake of some cherished box or bag, feeling an outcast from the respectable world, and glad to hide one's travel-stained form in an hotel. Such was our experience on landing at Algiers, with just a little dash of Oriental colouring added to the scene. Mingled with the Maltese and Spanish boat men were bare-legged Arabs, while a sprinkling of turbaned Moors, in embroidered jackets and full trousers, stood lounging on the quay, among the French officials and soldiers.

Our young com panions, however, fresh to eastern garbs, eagerly seized ou every Oriental detail. " Can that be a Bedouin Arab ?" asked one ; while, on my husband bidding the other " Follow the Moor," she stood still in naive delight, exclaiming, " He is speaking poetry." The Moor to her was still the being of imagination — the Othello of Shakespeare. Toiling up two flights of steps we found our selves in the Place du Gouvernement, on the top of a line of raised quays, and on a level with the French quarter. Originally the town sloped down to the water's edge, but a large flat space has been obtained by building up vaults and warehouses, and erecting the houses over them. The space, however, is not very wide, and the town soon begins to rise up the side of the hill, which enables one from a very short distance off in UNDER THE PALMS. 7 the harbour to see the ground plan of the whole : in shape a triangle, its base resting on the sea, its apex terminating on the Kusbah, or palace citadel, the abode of the Deys.

We spent the first night in the Hotel de la Regence, in the " Place," looking over the Palm Grove, which, we all agreed, might be very charming in the Desert, but was quite the reverse in front of an hotel or cafd, where Frenchmen, drinking absinthe and smoking indifferent cigars till past midnight, rather spoilt the illusion. We were glad to migrate next day to the Hotel d'Orient, and enjoy the fresh breeze blowing in at our windows facing the sea. Such a glorious view, too, as we had, straight across it, over the harbour — a view which must ever live in our memories. The whole curve of the bay lay before us ; its shores, studded with white Moorish villas, rising to the right in the wooded slopes of Mus tapha Superieur, then sinking into the long level line of the Mitidja plain, and sweeping round opposite us at the foot of the Atlas chain, which filled nearly the whole of the background, the remainder being open sea.

To this exquisite out line a constantly new aspect was imparted by the varying colouring of the hour. I look back on it wistfully, as it showed at dawn — a silver sheet of water, backed by purple mountain peaks, outlined against an orange-red sky ; or, again, at sunset — a violet blue sea, framed in golden green shores, in crimson and vermilion hills, in opal-tinted mountains. Here my pen lingers lovingly, though, perchance, tediously garrulous as an old woman dwelling on the features of an absent child, equally incapable of conveying an idea of the original. Whenever we revisit Algiers we shall establish ourselves in the country, but visitors can scarcely do wrong in spending at least part of then* first winter in the town. The proximity of the native quarter enables one to explore more frequently its picturesque recesses ; and everywhere in the streets of either quarter, the various costumes and peculiarities of the different races offer a constant study.

Even without leaving the hotel, looking out from its shady court, the large doorway used to serve as a frame to a series of tableaux vivants, darkly outlined against the strong light. An old Jew, crouching along in a deprecating attitude, the very impersonification of Shylock. Delicious children, almost infants, clinging to the passers-by A LIVING KALEIDOSCOPE. 9 in supplicating attitudes — like Innocents asking mercy — in reality begging for sous. Slender boys, flinging themselves into every possible attitude of grace, in their eager gambling for centimes. A tall youth or two, with perfectly modelled form, leaning against the doorpost in the exact attitude of the Faun of the Vatican. All these pictures we enjoyed oftentimes from our breakfast table, in the salle-a-manger within the court.

On stepping out into the streets, however, a much more varied scene met the eye. Few places can show such a mixture of costume and race as Algiers. At first the effect is somewhat bewilder ing, but one learns after a little while to distin guish the salient points of its many-coloured pageant — the more familiar figures of the ever abounding French soldier of the line, the Zouave, the Maltese sailor, the Spaniard with velvet sombrero, the grisette in neat white cap, the Mahonnaise, with head-dress of coloured foulard, or, the more or less fashionably dressed male and female crowd, contrasting with the high featured Arab of the Desert, his white burnous bound round his head with a camel's hair rope, the edge forming a kind of frill round his face and making him look, as a Scotch lady remarked to me, " for all the world just like an auld Scotch wife in her mutch " (cap) ; the ragged, wiry little Kabyle, from the Djurjura mountains across the bay, with bare head and leather apron ; the Mozabite, in harlequin patch work coat of many colours ; the Biskri, in striped woollen gandoura or shirt, his copper water-pot poised on one shoulder : these two latter from the far south.

Then the Moor — the citizen — in em broidered jacket, bright sash, full trousers and small turban ; the Jew, in somewhat similar garb, less brilliant in colour, and with a flat cloth cap or casque instead of a turban ; the Moorish woman, shuffling along, a shapeless bundle of white muslin ; the Jewess, in straight short skirt, fitting even tighter than that of the Parisian lady of the pre sent day, a black satin kerchief entirely concealing her hair, a piece of white muslin or net passing under the jaw like a chin-stay and coming up over the back of the head, hanging net sleeves, and bare arms ; the gigantic negress in blue haik ; the shining black, thick-lipped negro, driving his tiny overladen donkey. These are some of the figures which people the modern streets of Algiers. PRO BONO PUB LIC 0. 11 Here they are only passers-by : let us visit them in their own quarter.

In spite of French innovation — of new high houses next door to the old irregular dwellings ; in spite of almost daily demolition of open spaces intersecting the narrow lanes, fearfully suggestive of new buildings — the old town of Algiers still retains on the whole its Oriental aspect, and much of that same irresistible fas cination which pervades all eastern streets and bazaars, and tempts one to spend hours in wan dering among them. It is like constantly looking on at a drama of daily life. For the Oriental seems to indemnify himself for the strict seclu sion of his domestic existence by passing all the rest of it in public. From the early morning, when he sips his cup of coffee in the open cafe — undergoing meanwhile at the hands of the barber the operations of shaving the head, cleansing the ears, and other minutiæ generally confined to the privacy of one's own chamber — until sunset, he passes the whole of his time in the street as it were, with the exception of an hour or two in the middle of the day when he retires to his home to eat and sleep.

For he only leaves the cafe to take his place in his shop, a mere recess, sufficiently raised to bring him, while in a sitting posture, on a level with the passers-by. Here, after a preliminary pipe or two, he receives his friends, converses on the topics of the day, or dreamily stares straight before him, occasionally, and, as it were, parenthetically, attending to cus tomers. Among us Northerners a shop is a mere place to buy and sell in ; as one goes south, say to Italy or Spain, it becomes the centre of gossiping, ay, and even of flirtation; but it is only in the East that one sees it thus serve in lieu of a reception room or of a club. When news is slack, or he needs a httle variety, our Oriental goes off in turn to pay his visits, shutting up his shop mean while, regardless of possible customers.

Trade, being conducted in this gentlemanlike and degage way, is not looked on as derogatory ; and some even keep shops chiefly for the sake of society and amusement, and as a place to meet their friends in. We used to stroll a good deal about this old native town, sometimes early in the morning, at the risk of being knocked over by the troops of rubbish -laden donkeys, the scavengers of STILL LIFE. 13 the place. The attendant "sweeper" generally rings a warning bell, but the donkeys are so bent on their Work, and the streets so narrow, that one has scarcely time to take refuge in the nearest doorway. However, even at mid-day, one can wander here, fearless of the sun, which rarely penetrates the labyrinth of alleys. The steep streets, often mere staircases, are shady and even dark at times, the upper stories of the houses overhanging, supported on slanting props pro jecting from the wall beneath, or meeting over head in a narrow long archway, formed by several houses joining.

Following some of these streets, turning and twisting in every direction, one finds one's self far away from life and movement, shut in by blank white walls, scantily pierced with grated windows. All is still and silent ; only a muffled white figure glides noiselessly by, or a black demon-looking negro peeps out of a dark recess. Through a carved doorway, here and there one catches glimpses of the marble columns of a courtyard; but oftener the tiled entrance takes a baffling turn, hiding the inner mysteries of the dwelling from the eyes of the profane public. In the streets, however, where the shops are, the scene is animated enough ; buyers and passengers are pretty numerous, and there is a constant hum of voices. Unlike the grave Turk, the Moor of Algiers, perhaps in virtue of his mixed descent from almost every nation of Southern Europe, is an inveterate talker.

You may almost recognise the Koulougli, or half-blood Turk (the offspring of the Turkish invader and the native woman of Algeria), by his dignified silence. Slowly progressing, one finds abundant interest in watching the workers at the different trades, which, as usual, often herd together, like by like, in the same street. Instead of the perfected article, alone displayed on European counters, here one sees the whole process of manufacture. The em broiderer holding his work in a kind of wooden vice, and drawing the gold and silver thread or bright-coloured silk through and through; the jeweller beating out the precious metal, or fixing the ruby and emerald in their setting ; the tailor cutting out the brilliant-coloured cloth jacket; the whitesmith hammering out the pattern on flat brass dishes.

There, a little further on, in one of the numerous cafes, a man is pounding the coffee beans in a mortar — not grinding them as A CUP OF COFFEE. 15 with us — the prevalent and very just idea being that grinding destroys some of the aroma. A raised divan or shelf runs round the sides of the cafe, on which the guests sit, to whom the coffee is served as in Turkey, ready sweetened, with the grounds still in the cup ; these are allowed to fall to the bottom, and the beverage sipped carefully by degrees. Unaware of this fashion of drinking, the first time I was offered coffee in a Moorish house, my politeness made me violently stir up the whole, and eat it like pea-soup with the spoon. It was by no means a pleasant decoction. I have dwelt here on the Oriental side of the picture ; but, as I said before, it is often somewhat marred, in an artistic point of view, by French improvements — the green Persiennes of a great cafe billard scarcely harmonising with the nar row gratings of the prison-like Moorish houses.

The passing crowd, too, numbers nearly as many Europeans as " indigenes " — French soldiers, Maltese bakers, the menagere, basket-laden returning from market, or some old Provencal hag, with foulard covering her scanty grey locks. But there seems a very fair " entente cordiale " between the two races, any serious quarrels one hears of being invariably among the Europeans. The children, too, seem excellent friends; the small pale colonist playing merrily with some precocious little rascal of a Jew, a slender lan guid-eyed Moorish lad looking on, as he takes charge of some pretty " curled darling " of three or four, with henna-stained auburn hair and orange hands and feet, dressed in a tiny but complete Moorish suit. Wandering thus about the town one comes across a good many curious and rather pretty things ; 6uch as old jewelry, pottery, native ornaments, pistols, swords, daggers, pipes, etc. ; indeed, bric-a brac from all parts of Europe is to be found in the Pirate city.

The native articles, however, with the exception perhaps of rare and expensive arms, are generally very coarse in workmanship, more especially those of Kabyle manufacture, which, as some one aptly remarked, are "more curious than beautiful." The patterns of the Moorish, or rather the Arab jewelry (not the filigree tinsel of the Palais Royal, of course), are often good, and show a decided Roman origin. I have seen modern fibulæ and armlets made for Arab use almost exactly resembling those in a collection of Roman ORIENTAL ART. 17 antiquities. These, however, are better found at Constantine, where one sees them being actually made for some Arab from the south come in to sell his dates or hides. As for the embroidery iu gold and silver thread, or in coloured silk, it did not, only in one or two exceptional cases, at all take my fancy, being as inferior in colour and design to that of Delhi or Scinde as the Algerian inlaid mother-of-pearl work is to that of Bombay, or the chased silver plate to that of Cutch.

Still all are totally different from European objects of the same kind, and their Eastern-looking stamp gives them a certain attraction. They are in teresting, too, at any rate as specimens ; but it is strange that Oriental art, which has attained so elaborate a finish in Asia, should in North Africa be so coarse in workmanship and colouring. Of course in making purchases, both in the Moorish town and in the large shops, of native articles, in the French quarter, bargaining is un fortunately essential ; but I would advise ladies on such occasions to be accompanied by a gentleman. Bargaining is apt everywhere to lead to familiarity, and a European lady cannot be too careful in her behaviour to a Mahommedan. His opinion of c women, his standard of female propriety is so different from ours, that he cannot help misjudging her if she treats him as she would a European tradesman.

If ladies only knew what the seem ingly deferential Eastern, to whom they are talk ing, thinks of them, they would never, as I have often seen both English and French ladies, even in company with each other, but unattended by a gentleman, linger over their shopping or return again and again to look at some article for the purpose of getting it a few francs cheaper, or even for the more laudable one of practising Arabic, as I have heard some give as a reason. Far better for the latter object to get an introduction to a Moorish family, and spend an hour or two daily in conversing with the ladies. MOORISH VILLAS. 19

Chapter II. The Neighbourhood

Mustapha Supeneur — Bambles about Algiers — The pirates' home — Eon Quixote's captive — Geronimo, or the man with the mud mask — The summit of the Sahel Hills — Geological structure. The town of Algiers faces the east, rising up the slopes of the Sahel range, a detached chain of hills beginning a few miles to the south-east, and following the line of the sea-coast some fifty miles westward. In almost every direction within a radius of about three miles from the city, are scattered numberless white Moorish-looking houses, the greater part having been the country resi dences of the inhabitants before the Conquest. Many of these have been adapted to European use, and make very pretty, though not always convenient, dwellings. The favourite haunt, how ever, both of visitors and residents, is Mustapha Supeneur, on the south of the city.

After passing through an unfinished, rather mean, suburb the •■oad winds in a series of zigzags up the slopes of the Sahel. On each side pretty white houses peep out from the midst of groves and gardens, gay with crimson Poinsetia, or the scarlet passion flower, sweet with the scent of orange blossom and roses ; while the broad-fringed leaves of the plaintain, the blue-green spears of the aloe, and the prickly battledores of the cactus, give quite an Oriental character to the vegetation, a palm-tree here and there completing the picture. Below, nearer the sea, lies Mustapha Inf^rieur, a less healthy and less beautiful situation ; lower still, just at the turn of the bay, one looks down on the plain of the " Champ de Manœuvre." The coast line now curves eastward, the hills following the same direction after falling a little back and leaving between them and the sea a strip of rich level ground, green with market gardens and dotted with the smaller houses of colonists, among which, at some little distance off, about three miles from the town itself, one distinguishes the palm and BEAUTIFUL SCENERY. 21 plane avenues of the Jardin d'Acclimatation, while at intervals a white cloud of smoke keeps moving on close to the sea; the railway to Blidah, the only finished section of the future line to Oran, running along this strip of land.

Of the exquisite views at each turn of the Mus tapha road it is impossible to give an idea : the bay ever presenting a fresh curve, the foreground ever changing; sometimes a precipice of red rock surmounted by bright green stone pines ; then a gentle slope clothed with olives, their foliage much darker and less grey than in Europe ; or again a wild bank of prickly pear, the polished though thorny surfaces of their leaves glistening in the sunshine like a network of silver ; or a hedge of the luxuriant Palma Christi, the castor-oil plant, with its star-shaped leaves and crimson tufts of flowers. It may seem almost invidious to draw comparisons, but of all the wintering places on the shores of the Mediterranean, from Naples round to Cadiz, none have struck us as so beautiful and varied in scenery as Algiers.

The drives and rides, too, in the neighbourhood are not less lovely. Roads, excellent as French military roads always are, lead in all directions within driving distance of the town ; but more numerous still are the delightful bowery lanes, where, but for the aloe and cactus, the unfamiliar foliage of the over arching trees, or the strangeness of the wild flowers, the rider might almost fancy himself in Devonshire. As for the walks, I despair of being able to convey the faintest impression of them, and yet they are one of the chief features of Algiers. The worst inconvenience of living in the town was the distance one had to go through the streets at the beginning and end of each country walk. However, after a little inquiry we found we might perfectly well avail ourselves of the omnibuses, which run all day a few miles out on the principal roads, rejoicing in every appellation which the in genuity of the owners can devise — " A mon idee — Lion du Desert — Frigate a Vapeur — Douceur des Dames," &c. Some instinctive feeling always led us, however, to avoid those freighted with Arabs, or with Moorish ladies on their Friday trip to the cemetery.

We are very fair pedestrians and soon exhaust a neighbourhood, but the supply of rambles at Algiers lasted us during the whole of our four months' stay, and we know that we have left many a lovely spot unexplored. ALGERIAN COLOURING. 23 The variety of walks is due to the configuration of the Sahel Hills, which are intersected by count less ravines traversed by innumerable Arab paths, winding now east, now west, with a glimpse here of the blue Mediterranean — there of the well-nigh as blue Mitidja Plain — and coming out on some height above, where a white-domed marabout (or saint's tomb) gleams in the sunshine against the dark foliage of a group of caroubas or pines. The curved direction of the hills, moreover, as they follow the sinuosities of the coast, by perpetually changing the point of sight, gives constant fresh combinations of mountain, sea, and plain.