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_ABOUT ALGERIA_ _ALGIERS—TLEMÇEN—CONSTANTINE—BISKRA—TIMGAD_
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THE SAME AUTHOR
LEAVES FROM A MADEIRA GARDEN
CROWN 8vo, 5_s._ NET
[Illustration: ALGIERS: DOORWAY IN THE RUE KLEBER]
_ABOUT ALGERIA_
_ALGIERS *flower* TLEMÇEN *flower* CONSTANTINE *flower* BISKRA *flower* TIMGAD *flower* *flower* *flower* *flower* BY CHARLES THOMAS-STANFORD F.S.A. *flower* WITH A MAP AND THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY F. DORRIEN THOROTON AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS_ *flower* *flower* *flower* *flower* *flower*
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_LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD_ _NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXII_
WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
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PREFACE
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The following pages are a record of impressions received from a visit Algeria in the early months of 1911. In a former volume I dared to ridicule the pretensions of those who, on the strength of a short stay in a foreign country to enlighten the public. My chickens have come home to roost.
If I must seek an excuse for hasty conclusions I may find it in the motor-car. It has revolutionized the relations of time and space, and abolished the barren interludes of travel. It has increased fourfold the traveller’s opportunities of observation. Algeria, a land of great distances and admirable roads, is especially suited to its use. And it is a country brimful of interest, historical and actual. The scholar may dig in the debris of the Roman and Byzantine dominions; the connoisseur revel in the relics of Moorish art; the politician contemplate the colonization of a conquered territory in the face of a subject population alien in race and religion; the ordinary traveller will be content to sip a little at each source. So have I sipped in these pages. Much that I have written will be trite to those who know the country. But perhaps I shall induce others to go and see for themselves. And on their gratitude I rely with confidence.
The reproduction here of some of Mr. Thoroton’s admirable drawings of Arab doorways may serve to lead the attention of travellers—and perhaps of the authorities—to these interesting features of the old town of Algiers. The destroyer is busy, but here, as elsewhere, his ruinous energy makes what he has spared more precious. There are signs that his days are numbered, of the rise of a more enlightened public opinion concerning the preservation of features of antiquarian value or natural beauty. The excellent work of the _Service des monuments historiques_ is bearing good fruit. At Timgad it has given a Roman City to the modern world; at Tlemçen it is safeguarding the treasures of Arab decorative art; the less important antiquities of Algiers and Constantine, and of a hundred less considerable places, should be its future care.
It is too much to expect that a trading and agricultural community should wax enthusiastic over such matters for their own sake. The point we have to emphasise is that there is money in them; that they have a very distinct and rising commercial value, easily destroyed, and, once lost, irrecoverable.
The guide-books to Algeria, in the English language at all events, are, in view of modern conditions of travel, hopelessly out of date. The motorist will, of course, provide himself with Messrs. Michelins’ admirable road-book. There he is furnished with precise and condensed information as to distances, surfaces, and hotels. The traveller who desires to look beyond these primary facts will find in M. Maurice Wahl’s “L’Algerie” (Cinquième Edition, Paris, 1908), a compendium of information—concise, logical, and complete, after the French manner; and he will regret that its usefulness is much diminished, in accordance with an unfortunate French fashion, by the absence of an index.
C. T. S.
BRIGHTON, _July, 1911_.
_CONTENTS_
I—ARABY’S DAUGHTER
PAGE
Europe and the Mediterranean—Algiers—The clash of 17 civilizations—Things ancient and modern—The strangers’ quarter—Arabs, Berbers, Moors, Jews, and others—A tale of a telegram
II—THE CORSAIR CITY
The old town—The Arab ménage—The Penon—Barbarossa—French 48 achievements and shortcomings—The Arab house—Christian slavery—Lord Exmouth
III—NEW ROADS AND OLD CITIES
Rome’s successors—The Road and its influence—Algerian 77 highways—The motor-car and modern travel—An aqueduct— Cherchel—Cleopatra’s daughter—Tipasa—The French as Colonists—Viticulture
IV—A GARDEN AND SOME BUILDINGS
Jardin d’Essai—A lost opportunity—Some suggestions—The 104 villas of Mustapha—A model museum—Arab art—Its origins—Its limitations—Its significance
V—SWORD AND PLOUGH
Great events and trivial causes—The Dey’s fan—France roused— 122 England as dog-in-the-manger—The French expedition and conquest—Clauzel—Abd-el-Kader—Bugeaud
VI—TLEMÇEN THE HOLY
Western Algeria—Sidi Bel Abbès—The Foreign Legion—A city of 148 learning—Its inhabitants—The Mosque of Aboul Hassan— Mansoura—Its story—Sidi Bou Medine—Oran—Spanish immigrants
VII—THE CITY OF PRECIPICES
Road and rail to the eastward—Constantine—Its remarkable 178 site—Its chequered history—French Conquest—Roman remains— Fronto—The Mairie—The road northward—The Aurès
VIII—THE ALLURING OASIS
El-Kantara—The Gateway of the Desert—Biskra—Its attractions— 201 The dancing-girls—"Hichenstown"—A garden and a vision— Railway extension—Conquering Mohammedans—Sidi Okba—The Arab’s point of view
IX—THE SAHARA
The desert in imagination and reality—Underground water— 228 Artesian wells—Mozabites—Touaregs—The camel—Recent developments—Railway projects—The Army of Africa
X—TIMGAD
The Roman frontier—Lambessa—The Empire ruined by bad 242 finance—African Emperors—The plan of Timgad—Buildings, inscriptions, and mosaics—Prosperity of Roman Africa—Local patriotism—The Roman tradition
XI—A PUBLIC LIBRARY
A romantic find—A municipal library of the third century—A 266 Roman Carnegie—Christian Africa—The Donatists—Genseric the Vandal—Justinian—Timgad and Pompeii
XII—THE ROAD THROUGH KHABYLIA
Sétif—The Chabet pass—A fishless river—A lovely coast— 285 Bougie—Khabylia—Greek types—Fort National
INDEX 305
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_ILLUSTRATIONS_
Algiers: Doorway in the Rue Kleber _Frontispiece_
TO FACE PAGE
" Carved Stone Doorway in the Native Quarter 17
" Doorway in the Rue de la Kasbah 24
" Moorish Doorway, Rue Porte Neave 35
" Marble Doorway, Rue Bruce 36
" Doorway, Rue Medea 48
" Doorway in the Rue Ben-Ali 54
" Entrance-door of the Mosque, Rue de la Marine 68
Cherchel: the Aqueduct 90
Algiers: Garden of the Hotel St. George 104
" Fountain in the Kasbeh 108
" Dragon Tree in the Garden of the Hotel 112 Continental
" Fountain, Rue de l’Intendance 118
Evening Prayer 138
Caravan of a Caid 141
Tlemçen: the Minaret of Agadir 153
The Walls of Mansoura 164
The Tower of Mansoura 169
Sidi Bou Medine: the Bronze Doors 172
Constantine 181
Zouaves 191
El Kantara 201
Old Biskra 215
Biskra: Statue of Cardinal Lavigerie 217
Sidi Okba: a Street 222
The Outskirts of the Sahara 228
An Artesian Well 232
A Native Well 234
A Caravan 238
A Street at Timgad 245
Timgad: Arch of Trajan 255
" The Public Library 271
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_ABOUT ALGERIA_
_ALGIERS—TLEMÇEN—CONSTANTINE—BISKRA—TIMGAD_
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[Illustration: ALGIERS: CARVED STONE DOORWAY IN THE NATIVE QUARTER]
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_ABOUT ALGERIA_
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_I—ARABY’S DAUGHTER_
Europe and the Mediterranean—Algiers—The clash of civilizations—Things ancient and modern—The strangers’ quarter—Arabs, Berbers, Moors, Jews, and others—A tale of a telegram.
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“E’en now the devastation is begun And half the business of destruction done.” GOLDSMITH.
Some of the ashes of the Roman Empire have been recovered. The Mediterranean is once more a European lake. The Turk indeed still holds its eastern shores; the amazing Sultanate of Morocco yet persists in the west; strong, after the manner of Barbary for centuries, in the jealousies of Europe. Yet the Turk, while maintaining his assertion of the Unity of the Godhead, which divides him from Christendom, is, nevertheless, in other ways almost to be accounted a member of the European family; and even in the vigorous days of the Empire the wild tribes of the Greater Atlas recked little of the might and majesty of Rome. These are the limitations; our concern is with the achievement, and especially with the fertile country, once Rome’s granary, now after a thousand years of neglect and abasement restored to the orderly uses of civilized man. We are to visit a land unsurpassed in the variety of its historical vicissitudes, and strewn with the stones of many empires; a land where to-day a European nation, cherishing, perhaps more than any other, Roman traditions in its law and polity, controls by force of arms and of character a vast and heterogeneous population, previously united only in its submission to the brooding blight of Islam.
“The grand object of travelling,” said Dr. Johnson, “is to see the shores of the Mediterranean; on those shores were the four great empires of the world; the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. All our religion, almost all our law, almost all our arts, almost all that sets us above savages has come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean.” The Doctor’s aspirations were doubtless confined to its northern shore. If he had indiscreetly placed himself within the jurisdiction of the Dey of Algiers or the Bey of Tunis he might have found his value appraised on a basis different from that which prevailed at The Club, and in default of ransom have been set to uncongenial tasks. We are more fortunate in our generation.
To men trained in the traditional scholarship of English schools and universities certain places of the earth are holy places. The Acropolis of Athens, the heights and harbour of Syracuse, the Roman forum; perhaps in a scarcely less degree, Constantinople seen from the Bosphorus;—these stir to life sentiments born of youthful struggles and enthusiasms, but buried beneath a load of years crowded with other interests. Such sentiments may even prevail over those which attach to more recent history and national predilections. The approach by sea from the Atlantic to the Straits of Gibraltar is an experience to move the most indifferent; to an Englishman a very moving experience. He has passed Cape St. Vincent, with its undying fame, and the Rock is ahead, with its triumphant symbolism of his country’s world-power. Across the straits lies the rocky coast between Tangiers and Ceuta, a rampart of that vast continent, the last home of mystery, which has played so great a part in the lives of the present generation of Englishmen. And the Rock itself, detached, impregnable, is rich in English memories from Blake to our own day.
Yet to him who has preserved some shreds of his classical learning, the passage from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean has a still deeper significance. It marks the separation of the old and the new worlds. At the Pillars of Hercules the old world ended; they guarded the threshold of the unknown. On the inland sea within were cradled the civilizations on which our own is mainly based—Hebrew, Hellenic, Roman. Perhaps we may wonder at their limitations, especially at the comparative inefficiency of Rome in maritime affairs. If Rome with her vast resources had owned a spark of the naval enterprise of ancient Phœnicia or modern Britain; if she had spent on the sea a tithe of the energy she exercised on land— exhibited nowhere more completely than in that Northern Africa to which we are bound—the history of the world might, indeed, have taken a different course. But it was reserved for the great awakening of the fifteenth century to probe the secrets of the mysterious Atlantic, and to throw open vast fields for conquest and colonization to the European races. And when through the gathering darkness we look back to the twin peaks, we recall the legend of the two dragons guarding the entrance to the Garden of the Hesperides, and wonder if it was invented by ancient mariners to cover their lack of enterprise.
Many Mediterranean cities present a fair prospect to him who comes by sea, especially in the pearly radiance of the Mediterranean dawn. Algiers surpasses all. The steepness of the hill-side which it fills and its own white brilliancy give to it a special distinction. Many writers, following a leader as sheep that have gone astray, have compared it to the tiers of seats rising one above another in a Greek theatre—a fanciful and baseless comparison. There is no such ordered arrangement. The straight lines of modern houses enclose a central mass of strange irregularity, so confused that from a distance it has the semblance of a heap of ruins. This is the remnant of the Arab city, a swarming ant-heap of native life, filled with strange and savage memories of the astonishing pirates who were through centuries, and even until living memory, the scourge of Christendom. The sea front has entirely lost its ancient aspect; its long line of symmetrical houses, with its Boulevard de la République, and its Boulevard Carnot, recalls Palermo or Messina. And stretching south and east along the hills which encircle the bay the city’s suburbs seem to have no end; white houses gleam amid dark foliage and splendid villas crown the heights.
The first view of the streets is something of a shock and a disappointment. We have heard of the ancient Arab city, we have seen photographs of narrow lanes with quaint Moorish houses almost meeting over the wayfarer’s head; and yet we find ourselves driving at a hand gallop through wide, modern streets, with their normal garniture of tramways and motor-cars. An occasional snow-white mosque, a public building or two of Arabesque style, suggest the Orient; in other respects the streets are those of a very prosperous and busy modern French town. It is easy to see that Algiers enjoys a municipality anxious to be in the forefront of civic progress; that M. le Maire is determined that his city shall not be ashamed to look Marseilles and Nice in the face; and that as the native and the stranger wander incuriously through the streets, earnest committees—sanitary committees, waterworks committees, lighting committees, tramway committees, committees for the regulation of everything that can be regulated—are seated in upper chambers eagerly concerting measures for their welfare. And it may even be that civilization is sufficiently advanced for a Ratepayers’ Association to be keeping a bilious eye on the proceedings of its chosen representatives, and endeavouring to solve the eternal problem—_Quis custodiet custodes?_
It will be recalled that the immortal Tartarin suffered a similar disenchantment. He had figured to himself an Oriental town of fairy mythology, holding a middle place between Constantinople and Zanzibar— "_il tombait en plein Tarascon_." But that soaring and romantic spirit refused to be bound in the chains of the commonplace, and, following humbly in his wake, let us strive to see an Arab beauty beneath the veil of our neighbour in the tram-car, and to hear in the rumble of a distant train at night the roar of ravening lions.
[Illustration: ALGIERS: DOORWAY IN THE RUE DE LA KASBAH]
The hasty and inconsiderate modernization of an ancient and historic town such as Algiers suggests serious considerations. The process of destroying what is noteworthy for age or beauty in the name of improvement would seem to be generally accepted as one of the conditions of progress. Cities and towns, it is not unnaturally held, are not museums or curiosity shops; men are massed in them to gain their livelihood, or to pursue their pleasures. The antiquaries, those who admire and study the works of the past, because they are the works of the past; the nature-lovers, who “cultivate the beautiful without extravagance”; these are an insignificant section drawn for the most part from that hard-working class which is known to politicians as the idle rich. Their protests are of no great avail. Governments, if well-meaning, are lukewarm; local authorities, eager to be in the municipal movement, are commonly apathetic as regards the claims of mere ancientry or natural comeliness. Of what the modern Italians are doing to desecrate Rome and despoil Florence it is difficult to speak with patience. And it is the work of their own fathers that they are pulling down or vulgarizing. The conditions here are quite different, and the reforming zeal of the French so far less flagrant. They have replaced by their own civilization what they regard as the barbarism of a conquered race; they wanted the city of that race to live in, and they found it in every way repugnant to their tastes and unsuited to their needs. The soldiers began the work of destruction; soldiers destroy ruthlessly in the day of battle; but the persistent waste of the horde that follows after—the engineers, the architects, the speculative builders, the railway constructors, and the great industrial companies—is infinitely more damaging in the long run.
And what are we that we should cast a stone at the French? How much have we spared of old London and its suburbs? How much of the urban beauty and rural charm of England did our rude forefathers of the nineteenth century wantonly and light-heartedly destroy? When have railway projects or proposed public works been stayed on æsthetic grounds? Do the station and bridge at Charing Cross lend dignity to our great river? And, to look further afield, to what fate have we, masters of the Nile, condemned Philae?
In this changeful North Africa succeeding conquerors have imposed their civilizations and their works upon those of the conquered in a manner which has scarcely any parallel in Europe. Carthage destroyed, Rome came in her might and built a hundred cities, conducted water, brought huge areas into cultivation, and made roads after her manner; and in due time overthrew her own ancient altars in zeal for a new faith. In the age of her decrepitude Byzantium strove to maintain the Pax Romana, to curb the Vandal usurpation and the Arian schism, and to keep the aspirations of the indigenous population within bounds. All went down in a day before a troop of Arabians who rode as conquerors from Egypt to the Atlantic. Islam followed in their wake. The civilization derived from Europe disappeared; the watercourses were broken, the desert resumed its sway, and the stones of Roman temples and basilicas went to build the mosques and villas of the visitors. For twelve centuries the creed of Mahomet held dominion; Europe was busy with its own affairs, and endured the insolent depredations and exactions of the Deys with scarcely a serious attempt to suppress them. But at length the cup was full. An English fleet struck the first blow; a few years later France took the subjugation of Algeria seriously in hand; and to-day European civilization is once more paramount in the ancient provinces of Rome.
There are hotels in the town, frequented, perhaps, more by commercial than by leisurely travellers, and the visitor will probably prefer to lodge himself at Mustapha Supérieur. Here, if he chooses a house in a good situation, and obtains a room with a southern aspect, he may feast his eyes untiringly on a scene of great beauty. At his feet lies the bay where Charles V landed his ill-fated expedition—a shallow bay in which often the waves breaking afar out roll to the land in foam. Towering above the lesser hills which front its opposite shore are the snow-clad mountains of the Djurjura range, guarding the highlands of Khabylia, and glistening as if with crystals in the strong southern light. All around, on the well-wooded heights, are countless villas, of high and low degree, almost all of dazzling white, the whiter for the sombre foliage of cypress and stone pine and olive in which they are set. Perhaps no city of the earth possesses a lovelier suburb. The Englishman will find himself quite at home. The villas and the hotels are to a great extent occupied by his compatriots; and the institutions of his country are fitly represented by an Anglican church and a nine-hole golf-course. If he should be led to climb through an aromatic wood of eucalyptus to the home of “le golf,” and be able to remove for a moment his eye from the ball, he may enjoy a most glorious prospect. The snowy Djurjura of the south-east finds a rival in the Lesser Atlas to the south-west, and between the two lies a billowy champaign of cultivated and wooded hill and plain. If his preconceived notions of Algeria, like the great Tartarin’s, are dominated by the Sahara, if of Africa he knows only the river banks of Egypt and the rolling veldt of the South, he will perhaps recognize once more that Africa is ever the continent of surprise.
To return to the town. If at first sight the aspect of the French quays, and the modern streets, shops, and boulevards, destroys pre-existing illusions, ample amends are made by the colour and variety of the crowds which frequent them, a very _colluvies gentium_. Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics jostle the faithful on equal terms; men and women sprung from very diverse stocks in Africa, Asia, and Europe, impartially and to all appearance fraternally throng the pavements and the public conveyances. The eye is dazzled by the combination of European fashions and smart French uniforms, with the outlandish aspect of Zouaves and Spahis, the white-robed dignity of the stately Arab and the rich colours of the impassive Turk. It is only after a time that one is able to separate them into classes, and to perceive that the native inhabitants fall naturally into further subdivisions.
The greater part of the inhabitants of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, known collectively to Arabs as the Maghrab, and to our forefathers as Barbary,—an island girt by sea and desert,—still represents those original peoples who preceded the Phœnicians and the Romans. They have endured and survived many conquests, for the most part accommodating themselves to the conquerors’ institutions and religions. The Arabs called them Berbers,—the origin of the name is doubtful. Being to-day Arab in all but descent,—and very mixed in that,—they are described in common parlance as Arabs.
In A.D. 647, when the Sultan Othmar decided to attempt the conquest of North Africa, it was still under the rule of the weak Byzantine Emperors, Gregorius being its governor. Othmar collected 20,000 of the élite of the Arab forces, and added to them a similar number of Egyptians. This small army performed a brilliant feat of arms. Advancing against Gregorius, who was stationed at Sbeitla (in Tunisia), the Arab leader, Abdulla Ibn Säad, offered the Christian leader terms: that he should embrace Islam and render tribute to the Sultan. These being declined, a fierce battle raged for several days. Gregorius was in command of 120,000 men, but they were probably no match for the disciplined Arabs. It is said that his daughter, a maid of incomparable beauty, fought at her father’s side, and promised her hand and a fortune to whoever should kill Abdulla. This seems to have been a somewhat ill-advised proposal, for Abdulla, hearing of it, offered the same reward to the slayer of Gregorius. After several days of desperate fighting the Christian host was utterly defeated. Gregorius fell in the final onslaught, and his daughter was bestowed on Ibn Ez-Zobeir, who had slain him.
So ended the first Arab attack on Northern Africa. It had momentous consequences. Not only did it bind to Islam for twelve hundred years the provinces which for centuries before had been Christian and an appanage of Europe, but it paved the way for the Arab invasion of Spain.
Abdulla’s raid was shortly followed by other military expeditions. Eighteen years later Sidi Okba, having established a permanent government, pursued his course through what is now Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean. In order to complete the downfall of Christianity, a special tax was imposed on Christians, a leaf out of the book of Constantine the Great, who, in order to ensure its spread through the Roman world, had ingeniously enacted that no pagan master should own a Christian slave. The tax had the effect desired, and the whole population embraced the faith and rule of Islam.