Four months in Algeria

Front matter

FOUR MONTHS IN ALGERIA.

E. CLAY, PRINTER, LOJIDON.

FOUR MONTHS IN ALGERIA

Contents

— Protestants and Jews — Moorish Shops — Moorish and Arab Head-dresses — Oppression of Jews — Ritual of Jews — Varied Type of Face — Singular Custom perhaps of Pagan Origin — The Aissaoua — Descendants of the Psylli— Are professed Exorcists, but really Jugglers — Serpent Eaters — Are still believed in 37

CHAPTER IV.

Ascent of the Sahel — Ruined Moorish Villas — Bouzarieh — Peninsula of Sidi Ferudje — The French Invasion, how effected — Arab Cavalry — Battle of Staoueli — Battle of Sidi Kalif — Plateau of Fontaine Chapelle — Disordered Advance of the French — Arab Communism — Valley of the Consuls — El Biar — Attack of the Fort of the Emperor — Surrender of Algiers 62

Chapter I

The communication between the two continents of Europe and Africa is at the present time as easy and as res^ular as that between Endand and Belsjium was twenty years ago. Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Satiu-days, excellent steamers belonging to the Messageries Imperiales leave Marseilles for iVlgiers. Besides these, a steamer belonging to a private Erench company leaves each port every Thursday. These latter vessels are not quite so speedy as the packetboats, as they are built to carry merchandise, and consequently they enjoy less popularity with the travelling public. In one of them, however, I embarked on the 31st of December, IS 57. The sky was clear, and the sea like a mill-pond ; a balmy breeze, such as one is favoured with on a fine early September day in England, blew gently from the

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2 VOYAGE mOM MARSEILLES.

south-west, and the barometers predicted the continuance of calm weather. Under suchi circumstances, no one wha has ever experienced sea-sickness will hesitate to choose a hdtiment de commerce just about to put to sea in preference to the prospect of a mail steamer forty-eight hours later. At one o'clock the Kahyle passed the Marseilles lighthouse, carrying twelve or fourteen deck and second cabin passengers, but only myself in the chief cabin. I was well content to accept the dulness of my solitary state in consideration of the comfort incident to being the sole candidate for a berth, although the fineness of the w^eather rendered the advantages of the position less conspicuous than might have been the case. The accommodation was in every respect quite as good as that on board the mail-boats, and the captain, an intelligent, courteous, and apparently skilful seaman, made our tete-a-tete dinners and breakfasts as pleasant as could be desired, and furnished me with several pieces of information Mdiicb I found very useful when I first landed in Africa.

While watching the receding shore of Europe with that interest which exile, although only for a few months, invariably inspires, I was surprised by a phenomenon which at the instant appeared very strange, although a few minutes' reflection dispelled all astonishment. As the hills surrounding Marseilles disappeared, they were succeeded by what seemed to

OPTICAL PHENOMENON. 3

be liigli cliffs coming down to the water's edge. We were at the time some five and thirty miles from the land, and the appearance was not unlike that of the English cliffs when one is six or seven miles out at sea. I thought at first there must be some optical delusion, but on taking the bearings carefully, and referring to the map, the mystery was explained. The cliffs " were the high Alpine summits, covered with their eternal snows, distant from the deck of the steamer more than one hundred miles. Erom my point of view, the whole space really intervening between the sea horizon and these summits had vanished away, and they themselves appeared thrown forward, as it seemed, quite near. They continued, especially two of them, growing higher and higher, slightly illuminated, half an hour after the upper edge of the sun had sunk in the sea, and it was not till five o'clock that they altogether disappeared. Had the steamer left Marseilles an hour earlier, they would no doubt have been visible at even a greater distance. At nine o'clock on new year's morning we sighted Minorca, and during the day were passing through the channel which separates that island from Majorca. While about two leagues off the former, we were met by the packet from Algiers, the first vessel we had seen since quitting the shores of France, as the ordinary course of ships proceeding up or down the Mediterranean lies to the south of the Balearic islands.

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4 ALGIERS FROM THE SEA.

At sunset we lost sight of Majorca, being then about one hundred and fifty rniles from Algiers, in the harbour of which we dropped our anchor at nine o'clock, on the 2d of January, after a prosperous voyage of forty-four hours.

The town of Algiers, on approaching it from the north, looks at a distance as if it stood on a kind of platform let down from a high range of hills behind. This apparent peninsula is the Sahel, a mountainous boss, which immediately backs the town, and the high range behind is the Northern or Lesser Atlas, as it is commonly although not very properly called. Between the Sahel and the Atlas is an extensive plain, the Metidja, the concealment of which from the eye of a spectator approaching the land causes the optical deception just noticed. I had heard a great deal of the beauty of the coup d' ceil, and was a little disappointed at not recognising at once the truth of the Arab comparison of Algiers to a diamond set in a frame of emerald. But that idea, as I afterwards found, was suggested by the distant view of the town from the east, when the dazzling white of the houses, all massed together, contrasts strikingly with the luxuriant vegetation of early spring. Neither the direction in which I had approached, nor the season of the year, allowed the production of this effect. The houses in the immediate neighbourhood of the sea are all built by the French in the style

MIXED POPULATION. 5

of architecture to which they are accustomed, with large windows opening on the street, and green Minds outside, as different as possible from the whitewashed wall, pierced with one or two loopholes, which characterises the external appearance of the Moorish dwellings. The aspect of the hills around seemed very little different from the opposite shore of the Mediterranean ; but they were studded with white specks of villages and country houses as far as the eye could reach, and, not being aware that many of these were ruins, I concluded that I was about to enter a thickly peopled and prosperous country. A number of boats, each with a barefooted Moor in it, surrounded the steamer ; and as soon as the official of the Sanitary Board, whose visits are not dispensed with in any case, had pronounced a favourable verdict, I was conveyed in one to the neighbourhood of the Porte de la Marine, and landed on the quay amid a crowd which seemed, both to eye and ear, composed of every nation under heaven. Half- naked negroes from Biskra, and swarthy Arabs from the more immediate neighbourhood, contended with figures in European costume, but of no lighter complexion, for the honour of carrying my portmanteau, and urged their respective claims in Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Provencal, and Enghsh. A single Erenchman appeared, — the commissionaire of the hotel to which I was bound. Making myself over to the

6 HOTELS OF ALGIERS.

disposal of this functionary, and freighting two Maltese with my baggage, I mounted the ascent which, no long time back, had been trodden by thousands of Christian captives ; assured the Custom-house officer at the top that I was importing no eggs, poultry, bread, fruit, or other article subject to octroi; and after a walk of about five minutes under arcades something like those of the streets in Bern, emerged upon a handsome on the opposite side of which I recognised the Hotel d'Orient. This had attracted my attention from the deck of the Kahyle by its obviously good situation and its name blazoned in letters of two feet long upon the cornice of its fagade. I found, however, that the " hotel " only commenced with the third story of the edifice, that there were no bedrooms lower than the fourth, and that on this all were occupied ; and I was obliged to content myself with a small chamber and dressing-room on the fifth floor, which, in fact, consisted of a few apartments built above tlie original roof of the house. In three or four days, however, the departure of some guests placed a good-sized room on the floor below at my disposal, and in it I found myself sufficiently comfortable to remain for two months.

The paucity of good hotel accommodation is a serious drawback to Algiers as a residence for invalids, especially where the lungs are supposed to be affected. The Hotel d'Orient is in the best situation, and the

EXTENSIVE YIEW. 7

rooms are airy and with an excellent aspect. Mine looked to tlie East, across the bay, upon Cape Matifou. Beyond this appeared the point of land behind which lay Dellys and the hills of the Great Kabylie, among which rose one or two peaks of Djerjera, the highest summits of the Northern Atlas, covered with eternal snow. In front was the harbour of Algiers, and just to the left the rock, once an island and now connected with the main by a causew^ay of stone, on which the Hghthouse stands. Immediately below I looked down on the Place Royale, an irregular shaped esplanade, of which the side towards the sea, closed only by a dwarf balustrade, serves as the rendezvous of the trading community, as well as the promenade of the fashionables of Algiers. Here a new comer finds an ample fund of amusement for the trouble of only looking out of his window. Arabs in their white bournouses, Jews in their bagging knee-breeches and blue-black turbans, Moorish women enveloped in white veils and white trowsers, leaving no part of their persons visible but the eyes and the stockingless feet, are mixed up in a dense throng with cloaked Spaniards, Zouaves, French officers, and ladies in the newest Parisian costume. A military band plays in the Place two or three days in the week, and troops are often paraded there. But these attractions are soon more than compensated by the fatigue of having to mount so high, which in

8 ACCOMMODATION TOK INVALIDS.

some cases of ailment would be impossible. But in this respect tlie Hotel de la Uegence and the Maison Garnie, over the Cafe d'ApoUon, which alone are equal to the Hotel d'Orient in situation, are no better. The Hotel de Paris is well managed and the charges reasonable ; but there is not an apartment in it from which a view of the sea can be obtained. It is, however, less lofty than the others. A new house, the Hotel de TEurope, is clean, and for a decided invalid is perhaps the most to be recommended ; but the charges are very high, and the situation inconvenient. An Enghshman of the name of Thurgar has likewise established a boarding-house about a mile out of the town. Nowhere, however, as far as I could learn, would an invalid find the comforts that await him in the towns of Southern Europe which are resorted to for the sake of their climate. The best course for such a one would be to bring with him one or two confidential servants, and to hire a furnished house in the neighbourhood. Apartments are rare, but they also are to be had occasionally in good situations. I would recommend any Enghshman in want of them to state his need to M. Lary, a jpdtissier in the Rue Bab-Azoun, whose skill in his art is only surpassed by his civility and attention to his customers, and from whom they will gain information of any rooms likely to be vacant. The porter at the Hotel de la Regence likewise keeps

CLIMATE OE ALGIERS. 9

a list of lodgings to be let, and so do some of the shopkeepers in the town ; but a good deal of caution is requisite before engaging anything, especially if the hirer has a lady in his party.

There is usually a great deal of rain at Algiers during the months of November, December, January, and February ; in the present year the two latter months followed the ordinary rule. In January there were sixteen, and in February seventeen days upon which rain fell. But of these there were very few in which it was not possible to take exercise out of doors for a considerable time. A storm generally gives some notice of its approach if the barometer is consulted. I never found the aneroid which I used — one constructed by Lerebour and Secretan of Paris — fail to give me warning, although it did once or twice raise a false alarm. It was my habit to observe it, and the dry and wet bulbs of a psychrometric thermometer by the same manufacturers, four times a day, at 8 a.m. and 2, 6, and 11 p.m. ; and I soon became enough of a weather-prophet to take long walks and rides in the neighbourhood without ever getting more than one wetting, — which after all I should have escaped had I not unfortunately had a sluggish horse, and forgotten to put on spurs on leaving home. There is very little of the drizzling wet weather to which we are accustomed in England. The rain, when it falls at all, falls in pailfuls, ploughing deep furrows

10 MILDNESS OF WINTER.

in the soft friable stone of tlie steep Lills wliicli surround Algiers, and washing away the unmetalled roads which wind up them. On a level, the immediate result is the production of a deep soft mud, in which one sinks above the ankles. But a very few hours of sun dry up the soil, and a day or two converts the mud to dust. Between the periods of storm rains, too, there is generally an interval of two or three days of quite settled weather; and during these, excursions may be made to a distance of thirty or thirty- five miles even by a valetudinarian. Before the end of February I had crossed the Metidja in four different directions, and had traversed on foot or on horseback every portion of the Sahel, — the hilly country of the Littoral^ which separates the Metidja from the sea. The temperature of the atmosphere was that of an English May or June. On most days I could sit writing or reading in my room with the window open without feeling in the least chilly, although there was no carpet, and nothing to keep my feet from the stuccoed floor but a small mat made of the halfa-grass. The greatest observed height of the thermometer in my apartment during the month of January was 62^ Fahrenheit, the lowest 54*^, and the greatest variation in any one day only 7*^. This occurred on the 5th of the month ; and on no other day did the variation amount to 5°. In February the greatest observed height was 66^, the lowest 56°, and

SOUTH WINDS THE COLDEST. 11

the maximum variation in any one day less than 3i". The most generally prevailing wind was that from the north-west, which is invariably mild and refreshing as regards its temperature, although sometimes too violent for a decided invalid. The only days which I found formidable were those in w^hich the wind blew from a southern quarter, after much moisture had been precipitated. This^ which had descended on the Sahel in the form of rain, fell on the high plateaux of the Atlas in that of snoAv, and the blast from the south passing over the latter struck most piercingly whenever an ascent of the Sahel brought one within its range. The greatest peril which an invalid has to encounter during an Algerian winter undoubtedly arises from this cause. The snow on the high plains does not melt in general till the month of March ; and while it remains, it is extremely inexpedient for him to remove from the shelter which the Sahel affords, unless he sees a good steady breeze setting from the northwards. As the hills come close down to the sea, there is on fine days a constant temptation to be imprudent in this respect ; and the better the health of the patient, the more does he repine at being confined in taking his exercise to a single road, which is in fact all that is compatible with safety under such circumstances. Indeed my own experience would lead me to prefer Oran, the chief town of the western province, to Algiers, as a domicile for the winter.

12 ADVANTAGES OF OR AN.

Much less rain falls there; and the plateaux inland are not only considerably lower than in the meridian of Algiers, biit further removed from the coast. The pedestrian can get away from the town without the exertion of climbing a steep ascent of seven or eight hundred feet ; and although the surrounding country is inferior in beauty to the immediate neighbourhood of Algiers, it possesses perhaps greater interest for the botanist and geologist, and is particularly vrell adapted for horse-exercise.

TOWN OF ALGIERS.

Chapter II

The lower part of Algiers has been almost entirely rebuilt since the French occupation ; and the introduction of European architecture has not been favourable to picturesque effect. The Place Roy ale may be considered as the centre of the modern town. Two streets, the Rue Bab-el-Oued (Water Gate) and the Rue Bab-Azoun (Gate of Grief), lead out of it, the former in a northerly the latter in a southerly direction, to the site of the gates from which they took their names. They are composed of houses four or five stories in height, built over arcades. This is the case also with the Rue de la Marine, by which all travellers arriving by sea are obliged to pass. In some few instances the Moorish buildings have been retained in this locahty, but in most cases their entire destruction was requisite in order to carry out the line of street according to the Erench notions of architectural propriety; and those which were suffered to remain have been more or less altered. The great mosque (Djemmaa Kebir) which stands in the Rue de la

14 TRACES OF EOMAN TOWN.

Marine, has in front of it a colonnade taken from another mosque which was destroyed in forming the Place Eoyale. But the direction of the street compelled the adoption of a broken line in setting it up again, and the effect is extremely painful to the eye. An incidental result of making these new streets was to lay bare the foundations of the old Roman town, Icosium, on the site of which modern Algiers is built ; and to sbow how, in ages far remote from one another, similar conditions almost always produce similar arrangements. A Eoman street led up from the port as the Rue de la Marine does at the present time, and, compelled by the obstacle offered by the hill, divided itself into two branches corresponding very nearly with the new streets, and like them terminating at the Bab-el-Oued and Bab-Azoun. This last circumstance was proved by the discovery of a Roman cemetery in eacb place; and as it is well known that the ancients never buried their dead inside the walls, we have in the facts distinct evidence of the limit beyond whicb the ancient town did not extend. The road which coincided with the Rue Bab-el-Oued led to a station called Casse Calventii, placed by the Itinerary of Antoninus thirty-two Roman miles off, and supposed by Algerian antiquaries to have occupied the site of Pouka, near Koleah. It passed from thence to Tipasa, and Julia Csesarea, the modern Cherchel. The other, following the course of the

LIMIT OF ITS SIZE. 15

Rue Bab-Azoim, led first to Riisgunia; near Cape Matifou, and from thence passed through Kabylie at no great distance from the coast, which it probably struck at all points where the nature of the shore allowed the formation of a marine town, and finally terminated at Carthage. Icosium could never have been a place of any magnitude ; for before the building of the causeway which now connects the mainland with the original Algiers, the island on which the lighthouse stands/'^ there could only be shelter for a few small vessels. What importance it possessed it probably owed to its position on the commercial road which traversed the north of Africa from Carthage to Tangier. An Arabian historian, who wrote in the eleventh century of the Christian era,t states that there were then magnificent remains, of a magnitude to suggest the belief that the place must have been the capital of an empire. He particularly specifies some porticoes and a theatre paved with mosaics representing figm-es of animals, and he mentions the wall of a large church, which, from its direction due east and west, was made use of by the Mahometans as a hellali (or means of orientation), when they performed their devotions. But besides the allowance

* m Djeza'ir Beni-Mezai'rhana. " The islands of the children of MezaiThana." In the construction of the causeway, Khaireddeen Barbarossa is said to have made use of the materials of Eusgunia. The masses of stone -^ere brought across the bay and sunk to form a breakwater against the effects of the north and north-west winds.

t n Bekri, quoted by Berbrugger, Icos'wn;, p. 10.

16 ANCIENT REMAINS EXCAVATED.

to be made for tlie exaggeration of Oriental writers, it must not be forgotten tliat the ancients, when they had the funds, set no bounds to their expenditure on public buildings. Icosium was a colony with the Latin franchise, fixed in the midst of a Berber population, and doubtless endowed with lands which had been taken from these, and which they continued to cultivate as villeins. On the destruction of Roman civilisation, they naturally recovered possession ; and it is probably their union with the Arab invaders that has given a peculiar character to the idiom spoken in Algiers and the immediate neighbourhood, — which, both in pronunciation and vocabulary, differs much from the Arabic of the country only a few miles off. The remains of the Eoman town, whatever their extent eight hundred years ago, have since that time disappeared. Excavations occasionally bring to light a mosaic pavement, a stone chair, a hand-mill, or the fragment of a statue ; and cut stones, obviously removed from their original position, are frequently seen in the foundations of Moorish buildings ; but the only monument which seems to be remaining in situ is a bas-relief over a gateway in the island, in a style indicating a very late period of art.

The greater portion of the Moorish town is contained within the triangular area, which, rising from a base formed by the streets of Bab-el-Oued and Bab-Azoun, leans upon the steep hill immediately

THE EAUXBOURG BAB-AZOUN. IJ

in face of the sea, the vertex of the triangle being formed by the Kazbah, or citadel, which stands at a height of nearly four hundred feet. The whole of this space Hes within the Moorish walls, which still remain ^ on the two upper sides of the triangle. One of them, that to the south-east, is still pierced by an ancient gateway ; but the Water Gate and the Gate of Grief no longer remain. The latter received its name from the circumstance of offenders condemned to capital punishment being executed by throwing them on iron hooks which protruded from the walls by its side; and when the French marched into Algiers, they found rotting on the top the heads of the unfortunate crews of two brigs of war, which had formed part of their blockading squadron and been driven ashore in a storm. The gate itself was then cleared away, together with the Moorish buildings in the vicinity, and beyond it a new Fauxbourg has been since built, composed entirely of European houses. In this a handsome corn-market has been erected for the use of the agricultural tribes of the neighbourhood, who bring their produce thither ; and strangers, whose time is limited, will see much in a small space by visiting it at an early hour in the morning, as well as a caravanserai which is immediately opposite. In the latter they will find a picturesque assemblage of camels, mules, and asses, laden with all kinds of produce, and natives of every variety of complexion, most

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18 MOOEISH STREETS.

of them sleeping, a few smoking, and some calling in the aid of the native smith to repair the shoes of their animals. The form of these, as well as of the implements which are used, has, no doubt, remained the same for centmies ; and it is very curious to watch the way in which the operator manages his fire so as to consume as little fuel— generally the root of the dwarf palm — as is possible in effecting his task.

Several streets rise from the level of the Rue Babel-Oued and Eue Bab-Azoun, converging more and more as they ascend the hill, until they meet in the immediate vicinity of the Kazbah. The steepness of the ascent would prevent the use of a carriage in these, even if they were wide enough to admit one ; but, in point of fact, there is not one broader than the Bows of Yarmouth, and most are even narrower. The principal one, which bears the name of the Street of the Kazbah, is cut in steps. Lateral alleys here and there connect these main lines with one another ; but the whole forms a labyrinth, out of which it is impossible for the puzzled European to find his way, except by remembering that if he mounts he will be sure in time to arrive at the citadel, and if he descends, no less certain ultimately to reach the sea. I do not believe that one person in a hundred, if conducted to the highest part of the town and then left to himself, would succeed in returning by the same

INTERIOR OE HOUSES. 19

course by which he had come. The sides of the streets are in general simply dead walls, with here and there a loop-hole above and a closed door below, the houses exhibiting no more individuality than the sheep of a flock. At the height of the first story, wooden corbels are sometimes seen supporting a second one, likewise with its dead wall, which approaches even nearer than the floor below to the opposite tenement. Sometimes, especially in the cross alleys, the houses actually meet at the top, and the street becomes a mere arch. As you toil along it for the first time, not without some feeling of uneasiness at observing yourself the only European among a crowd of strange figures, of whose language you do not understand a word, you perhaps meet a troop of asses loaded with baskets of sand, and followed by a half-naked savage, whose looks do him injustice if he would feel any scruple in felling you with the cudgel he is employing upon the wretched brutes from whose frantic rush you despair of escaping. Of course you conclude that you have taken a wrong turn, and got into a very disagreeable neighbourhood. But this is altogether an error. There is, perhaps, a door standing open in the invariable dead wall. Look in, and you will see a charming court, surrounded by an arcade of marble columns. In the middle is a fountain, or perhaps some beautiful tree, such as in England we only find in the hot-house of a millionaire.

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20 SPLENDOUR OP INTERIORS.

Passing under the arcade on a tesselated floor, you find a staircase, of whicli both the stairs and walls are covered with encaustic tiles, and which conducts to an open gallery, likewise running round the court. Prom this you may enter the chambers of the mansion, not by opening a door, but by simply withdrawing a curtain which masks the approach to each ; and in these you will see both the extent to which Oriental luxury can be carried, and the taste with which it adapts itself to the conditions of the cHmate. The floors are invariably of stucco or encaustic tiles : round the walls, which are painted in arabesques, run sofas covered with rich silk hangings and embroidered with gold. Elegantly carved tables stand here and there, covered with knick-knacks of native workmanship, such as gold or silver essence boxes, fans made of ostrich feathers, and ostrich eggs carved in devices or suspended in a network of twisted gold and silk thread. The main light comes through the door by which you have entered from the open gallery ; sometimes there is no other whatever ; but when there is it proceeds from a narrow slit culminating in an ogee arch, and filled with elaborate stone tracery, through which a single sunbeam finds its way in a fragmentary state. These windows are made like the embrasures in a fortification, and contracted on the outer face of the wall to the simple loopholes which strike the eye of a stranger. There

SPECIMENS STILL EXISTING. 21

is no glass in them. On the stuccoed floor, there are one or two small carpets, and perhaps a lion's or panther's skin with the teeth and nails gilt. In the palmy days of Algerine piracy, both the town and the neighbourhood were full of mansions furnished in this style, and in the case of the latter surrounded with dehcious gardens. But the universal ruin of the Moorish population, which followed the French conquest, has to a great extent obliterated the traces of the former magnificence. The country villas were at first wantonly destroyed by the conquerors, and the town houses subsequently stripped by their owners of everything valuable which could be carried away. In some instances the beautiful courts with their marble columns are occupied by the stores of an European shopkeeper ; in others the tenant has cut oblong holes in the outer walls and put sashes into them, and scarcely in any has there been attention paid to keeping up the ornamental repairs. Still, in a few houses, the visitor may yet gain an idea of what a Moorish interior must have been under the old regime. The house of the bishop, which before the invasion of the French was the palace of the Agha or War Minister, is, perhaps, the finest specimen in existence. On a smaller scale, but still very elegant and characteristic, is the house of the English consul, Mr. Bell. The supreme court of justice is also held in a genuine Moorish house, although modernized by covering the