PRINCETON, N. J. Purchased by the Hammill Missionary Fund. Division Section • 5 69. Number WALKS IN ALGIERS AND ITS SURROUNDINGS By L. g. s^:guin AUTHOR'oF " THE COUNTRY OF THE PASSION-PLAV," ETC. A NEW EDITION WITH TWO MAPS AND SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS IL 0 n t) 0 11 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1 888 ' ' I speak of Africa, and golden joys." 2 Henry IV, v. 3. Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbary. WHOSE LOVING COMPANIONSHIP HAS MA1;F. M/VNY DARK DAYS BRIGHT THESE REMINISCENCES OF A SUNNY WINTER ENJOYED TOGETHER. PREFACE. MANY books have been written about Algeria, but none, so far as I know, in the English language which profess to be handbooks for the use of the traveller to Algiers and its neighbourhood, with the exception of Murray's "Guide ;" and this, embracing as it does a very large area, has naturally not a great deal of space to devote to one city, or even one province. To this work, to M. Piesse's excellent " Itineraire," to a particularly well-arranged French guide by M. Edouard Dalles, and to the various authors whose works are quoted in the course of the following pages, I am indebted for much valuable information. That I have exhaustively treated all the matters of interest with which Algiers abounds I do not profess. For the antiquarian, for the archaeologist, for the historian, for the naturalist, the artist, and the mere lover of the pic- turesque, it has endless treasures yet unrecorded ; but I can, in sincerity, only wish for others as much real plea- sure as I have myself derived from walks in and about Algiers. THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. ALGIERS AS A WINTER RESIDENCE .... I II. ON THE ROAD TO ALGIERS l6 III. ARRIVAL AT ALGIERS. — DULL AND USEFUL INFORMA- TION 33 IV. THE NATIVE INHABITANTS OF ALGIERS . . -49 V. HISTORICAL NOTICE OF ALGIERS 70 VI. CHRISTIAN SLAVERY IN ALGIERS 89 VII. THE FRENCH IN ALGIERS II3 VIII. ABD-EL-KADER I32 IX. AFTER ABD-EL-KADER. — THE KABYLE WAR. — THE EM- PIRE.—THE INSURRECTION OF 187I . . . . I54 X. THE FRENCH TOWN. — THE MARKETS. — THE MOSQUE DE LA PECHERIE. — THE GRAND MOSQUE . . -174 XI. THE ARAB TOWN 193 XII. THE MUSEUM. — THE HARBOUR.^ — THE FORTIFICATIONS. — THE GATES 2I4 XIII. JARDIN MARENGO. — FORT DES VINGT-QUATRE HEURES. — GERONIMO THE MARTYR. — ZAOUIA OF ABD-ER- RAHMAN 229 XIV. THE JEWISH QUARTER, — THE SYNAGOGUE. — THE CATHE- DRAL.— THE GOVERNOR'S PALACE. — THE ARCH- BISHOP'S PALACE. — THE BIBLIOTHfeQUE. — THE COURTS OF LAW 246 XV. AISSAOUI FETES. — WEDDINGS. — A NEGRO DANCE . 259 XVI. L'AGHA. — FONTAINE-BLEUE. — MUSTAPHA INFERIEUR. — THE ARAB CEMETERY. — THE JARDIN D'ESSAI . . 274 XVII. MUSTAPHA SUPERIEUR. — THE COLONNE VOIROL, AND WALKS FROM THENCE 293 xii CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE XVIII. BIRMANDREIS. — THE VALLEY OF THE FEMME SAUVAGE. — FROM BIRMANDREIS TO FONTAINE-BLEUE BY THE ARAB PATH. — BIRKHADEM AND TIXERAfN. — KOUBBA. — THE OSTRICH FARM 306 XIX. FORT DE L'eMPEREUR. — BOU-ZAREA. — FRAIS-VALLON.— BIRTRARIA 32 1 XX. ST. EUGENE 336 XXI. POINTE PESCADE. — CAPE CAXINE. — THE LIGHTHOUSE. — THE BONE-CAVE. — GUYOTVILLE. — THE DOLMENS. — SIDI FERRUCH. — STAOUELI. — THE TRAPPIST MONASTERY. — CHfiRAGAS 35 1 XXII. MAISON CARR6e. — RUSGANIA. — BOU-FARIK . . . 369 XXIII. BLIDAH 387 XXIV. LES GORGES DE LA CHIFFA. — MEDEAH. — BOKHARI. — BOGHAR 405 XXV. ON THE WAY TO THE DESERT. — BOKHARI TO EL- AGHOUAT 425 XXVI. KOLEAH. — MARENGO. — TIPASA. — TOilBEAU DE LA CHRfiTIENNE. — CHERCHEL 438 XXVII. MILIANAH. — HAMMAM RIRA. — TENIET- EL-HAD. — THE CEDAR-FOREST 460 XXVIII. KABVLIA. — FORT NATIONAL — THE PORTES-DE-FER .^75 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Algiers , . Pl«n of Algiers Arab .... Moorish Woman Water-carrier Mosque de la Pecherie Arab Strf.et Kasba .... Mosque Sidi Abd-er-Rahman Interior, Archbishop's Palace Palm Grove at Jardin d'Essai Oasis of Ste. Marie Fountain of Birkhadem Bois-Sacre, Blidah . Gorges de la Chiffa Cedars of Teniet . Kabyle Woman Environs of Algiers Frontispiece At beginning of Volume 51 55 65 183 198 207 242 252 286 2&7 311 398 408 472 487 At end of Volume I CHAPTER I. ALGIERS AS A WINTER RESIDENCE. " All the world is cheered by the sun." Richard III. i. 2. HE cry is still — they go. JL " Have you then a climate so detestable that in your land no one can venture to remain during the months of winter?" asks the ingenuous Frenchman, who knows so little of the world beyond his own immediate surroundings. Truth as well as patriotism leads us loudly to proclaim that this is not so ; that, in spite of the multitudes who quit it, the mother-country is not at any time altogether desolate and deserted— that a few remain behind. Yet it is cer- tain, that year after year, vast and ever-increasing numbers of Englishmen and Englishwomen are to be found, at the first blast of chill October, or the first clinging mist of drear November, turning their backs upon their native land ; making the best of their way southward, in search either of health or pleasure; content to sacrifice, for the sake of the sunny skies they hope to find, the traditional but somewhat doubtful comforts of an EngHsh winter. They pass like a wave over Southern Europe, this migra- tory horde, possessing themselves of express trains by right B 2 WALKS IN ALGIERS. of conquest, filling to overflowing the palatial hotels that look upon the Pyrenees, estabhshing English laws and customs on the Riviera, and crowding the quaint old Italian cities. For the time has long gone by, when a residence at Boulogne, a winter at Tours, or, at most, a few months' stay at Mont- pellier, was considered all that could possibly be desired for our invalids or valetudinarians. Either climates have changed in our days, or modem ideas have made desires less easy to satisfy — at least it would seem, that for sun- shine in wmter we have to go farther afield than did our fathers ; nor are we altogether sure that Europe itself can satisfy all our demands. Of Italy, for our invalids especially, we are not qui*e certain. We have heard of bitter weather at Rome, of snow even at Naples ; we may possibly have felt the " tramontana " at Florence, and have had some experience of marble-floored bedchambers and rooms without fire- places. Scoff as we may at the notion of English comforts, we do not care to feel the need of them. Coal-fires that scorch the face while the marrow freezes, may be matter of reproach to us among foreigners, yet we may surely find a fair retort in wood-fires that refuse to give forth any heat at all, and rooms whose terrible dimensions a score of English furnaces would scarcely suffice to warm. Against the win- ter climate of the Riviera we certainly cannot find much to say, but it is possible that we may think Cannes dull, pronounce Nice conventional, find Mentone melancholy, and San Remo confined. Considerations such as these drive us still farther south- ward in our " flight with the swallows," and land us in a new scene of life and manners on the edge of another con- SITUATION OF ALGIERS. 3 tinent. Shall we find in Algiers all that we have pictured to ourselves as desirable for a winter residence ? First, as regards climate, the most important of all con- siderations for those whose chief object is a " search after sunshine." Algiers is situated in almost the same latitude as Cadiz and Malaga, that is to say, about a thousand miles due south of Paris, and four hundred miles south of Marseilles. It is natural, then, to expect a warmer climate and a more tropical vegetation than are obtained on the northern shores of the Mediterranean, although, indeed, degrees of latitude and longitude seem to have very little effect upon the actual temperature of a place, unless other circumstances are favourable. For example, within a day or two's journey from Algiers, on the slopes of the Atlas, a climate more severe than any English winter is to be found. Algiers, however, is specially favoured by her position. The conformation of this part of Northern Africa is very peculiar, consisting of alternate mountain ranges and wide plains in lines parallel with the coast. From the sea-shore itself, rises a wooded range of hills, varying from 500 to 1,300 feet in height, called the Sahel. On the seaward slope of this range lie the town and suburbs of Algiers. Beyond the Sahel is the vast and curiously flat plain of the Metidja; behind this the lesser Atlas, capped with snow through some months of the year ; again desert-like plains, and then the Atlas, keeping guard over the great Sahara. Algiers then, with the sea in face of her, and the mountains at her back, has the advantage of both so far as her climate is concerned. The cold drying north winds, 4 WALKS IN ALGIERS. which are so great a scourge of Southern France, are converted by their journey over four hundred miles of sunny sea into a cool refreshing breeze. On the other hand, the burning desert wind, the Sirocco, when it reaches Algiers, which is not often, is cooled and tamed by its transit over the icy summits of the Atlas. In spite of this, during the summer months, it is still trying enough both to animal and vegetable life, but in winter it is rarely felt, and then only in a very limited degree. The winter climate of Algiers is moderate. Dr. A. Mitchell, of Edinburgh, who wrote some interesting papers on the subject in the British and Foreign Medico- Chi- rurgical Review, gives the mean temperature from obser- vations extending through a period of thirteen years to be— November . . . 66-40° December . . . 60-82 January . . . 59-18 February . . • 59"oi March . . . . 60-15 April . . . , 64-06 Ma)' . . . . . 69-75 He says — "The mean annual temperature more nearly approaches that of Malta than that of any of the more ordinary winter resorts. It exceeds it, however, by 2°, Malaga by 3°, Madeira by 4°, Rome by 9°, Nice by 10°, and Pau by 13°. The mean annual temperature of Cairo is higher, but its winter is colder than that of Algiers. The excess of the annual mean over that of Madeira depends upon the greater summer heat of Algiers, since, as regards winter and spring, the two places are almost identical. It follows, therefore, that the differ- ence between the coldest and hottest months, and between spring and summer, will be less in the case of Madeiia, but the difference between TEMPERATURE OF ALGIERS. S winter and spring is less at Algiers, and is indeed less than in any place with the meteorology of which I am acquainted." The temperature steadily rises for one half the year, viz. from February to August, and steadily declines during the other half, from August to February. There is in Algiers no sudden chill at sundown, such as is always experienced at Nice, and other winter stations on the Riviera — a certain change, of course, there must be, but it is so gentle that even invalids are not in this country afraid of extending their afternoon rambles, or seen hurry- ing home, like slipperless Cinderella, if the clock has already struck the hour of return. " It is the evenness of the temperature even more than its mildness which makes its charm. Eight months of the year — from the begin- ning of October to the end of May — the weather is delightful, being neither too hot nor too cold. There is no necessity for fires, although every room has a fireplace, which people of European parentage, but who are born here, sometimes make use of. The country is green, flowers bloom, birds sing, all nature rejoices in life and colour, whilst frost and snow being never seen, it is scarcely possible to believe that it is winter." — Algeria as It Is. The following is the account of " Days in December," written by M. Fromentin, whose works on Algeria have earned him the title among French people, of the " Poet of the Sahara : " — " It is almost impossible to believe that the year is dying — for us who are out of doors from morning till nightfall. Day follows day, but the impression created by the one so exactly repeats that of the preceding, that I am unable to distinguish between them. I lose count of time. It is a long drawn-out state of happiness, unknown to those who live in the agitation of our variable climates. Not a cloud — not a breath to disturb the peace of the heavens. From six in the morning to six in the evening, the sun travels calmly across a spotless space whose colour is true azure. He drops into a clear heaven and dis- appears, leaving behind him, at the door of his bedchamber, a crimson 6 WALKS IN ALGIERS. point like a dropped rose leaf. Then a light mist covers the foot of the hills as if to hide the transition from day to night, accustoming the eyes to darkness by a tender veil of soft grey. The stars light one by one in the heavens. At first one can count them. Then suddenly the sky is ablaze with them. The night grows luminous as the sunset-glow departs ; and when day is fully ended it is replaced but by a solemn chiaro-oscuro. Meanwhile the sea sleeps in a sleep which for a month has been untroubled, save now and then by the keel of a passing ship. Calm and limpid it lies with the transparency, the immobility, the brilliancy of a mirror. Can this in truth be winter.?" — Une Annie dans le Sahel. People learned in such matters prove that a great deal of rain falls in Algiers, that the actual quantity, in fact, exceeds the rainfall of London. Those who know the climate would scarcely be persuaded that there was not some illusion in the matter, were it not for the long array of figures brought up against them. The notion, in truth, appears perfectly ridiculous, especially when it is remem- bered that drought invariably prevails in Algiers during the summer months, and that the winter is known as the rainy season. But it must be remembered that the quantity of rain which falls, bears no proportion to the number of days on which it falls, " a fact which has a very direct bearing on the interests of the invalid," says Dr. Mitchell ; and for two hundred and sixty-nine rainy days in London, there would be but ninety-five in Algiers, all days being accounted as rainy on which a few drops fall, and the day considered to consist of twenty-four hours. The experience of the present writer is, that during January and February of the year 1877, there was one showery day, the rest being all brilliant sunshine. It often rains very heavily at night, coming down like a torrent, or an overturned bucket. But even after this, the earth next CLIMATE OF ALGIERS. 7 morning will be found dry, and the pavements perfectly white. In truth, Algiers, in spite of statistics, must be considered to possess an especially dry climate, and the absence of mosquitoes is a sufficiently good proof of this. " A climate which is at the same time moist and warm, being con- sidered more beneficial for a particular class of invalids, there may be a wish to accommodate matters when that of Algiers is called damp. Whether it be favourable or prejudicial to consumptive subjects, winter in Algiers is generally dry and bracing." — Algeria as It Is, Dr. Mitchell also says — " The climate of Algiers must be considered dry and bracing." Dr. Shaw, who was chaplain to the English factory in Algiers from 1720 — 30, writes in his travels — • " The Tell, or cultivated parts of this kingdom, lying between 34" and 37° N. lat., enjoy a very wholesome and temperate air, neither too hot and sultry in summer, nor too sharp and cold in winter. During the space of ten years that I attended the factory of Algiers, I found the thermometer only twice contracted to freezing point — then the whole country, which was very unusual, was covered with snow ; nor ever knew it rise to sultry weather, unless the wind blew from the Sahara." The class of invalids, or rather of constitutions, to which the climate of Algiers may be considered suitable, are categorized by Dr. Bodichon as follows : — " Algiers possesses a climate favourable — " I. To persons of a dry temperament. It is found that such are easily naturalised. " 2. It is good for old persons, who are much less liable to pul- monary diseases and catarrhs there than in Europe. "3. For rheumatic subjects. They are much benefited, if not cured, by a residence of some years here. "4. For lymphatic temperaments. The excess of heat and light is advantageous to them, giving them the tone they require. "5. For subjects disposed to phthisis, since disorders of the lungs occur much less frequently than in Europe." 8 WALKS IN ALGIERS. Dr. Bodichon, it may be remarked, is looking at the matter rather from the point of view of a French colonizer than an English visitor ; that is to say, he contemplates a residence throughout the year, and not a stay of only a few months. He also gives a list of persons to whom he considers the climate will be prejudicial: — " I. To very corpulent persons. " 2. To persons affected with hypertrophy of the heart or large vessels. " 3. To those suffering from dysentery and organic diseases gene- rally, and especially for all having any malady of the nerves — since the climate increases nervous irritability. "4. To drunkards, who will pay their penalty in sanguineous con- gestion and fevers, and for all subject to derangement of their mental faculties." Dr. Bodichon has also an alarming list of the evil effects of the climate, which, it is to be hoped, may only be applicable to residents of long standing, and are not likely to influence winter visitors, for he assures us that — "I. The climate inclines to idleness, and to physical and also moral torpor. "2. That it incites to violence and ferocity — the wind of the desert, every time that it blows with any force, causing an increase of crime, and leaving behind it a traU of murder and suicide. " 3. That it produces selfishness by augmenting the personality." This climatic action, according to Dr. Bodichon, is felt by Europeans as well as natives. He says — " It results from an over-excitement of the nervous system and an increase of sensibility to the detriment of reason. The general action of the Sirocco both on vegetation and animal life is parching. It is, therefore, the enemy most to be feared for civilization in Algeria. It brings with it the sand which destroys the fruits of industry, and that irritation of the nervous system which is so pernicious to morality." INFLUENCES OF CLIMATE. 9 Dr. Bodichon lays the wild and naturally lawless disposi- tion of the Arabs entirely to the blame of the climate, and is altogether as hard upon the Sirocco, as English philoso- phers are apt to be on our own pet evil — the East wind. For the comfort of winter visitors to Algiers, and the consolation of their anxious friends, it will be well to remember that this pernicious breeze is almost unknown during the colder months. Also it may be some relief to their feelings to hear, on Dr. Bodichon's authority, that " Calvinists and Puritans will be found to resist the baleful effects of this wind better than persons of other persuasions," and therefore advises, " If your colonists cannot be induced to become one or the other, at least try and make them reasonable, and inculcate in them some ideas of moral duty." With reference to consumptive persons — "It is admitted by nearly all French physicians who know the Algerian climate, that a residence in Algeria can ameliorate and even cure consumptive patients. Consumption is a disease belonging chiefly to fair races and to cold countries. It is best treated by a residence in a warm country, and by means that tend to give the constitution of the dark race." — Considerations sur I Algerie. Dr. Bodichon. " Of all the means employed to cure pulmonary consumption, the influence of climate is, without doubt, that which has the largest measure of success. With regard to Algiers we would place it in the first rank, both from the mildness of its climate and the beauty of its site. In a northern climate the deadness of nature and damp fogs produce depression. This moral state does not allow of a sufficient reparation of the vital energies, and assists the development of the tubercles." — Bulletin de la Societe de Climatologie Alg'erienne Dr. Puzin. Dr. Puzin also says — "The winds of the S., S.E. and S.W. are refreshed by traversing 10 WALKS IN ALGIERS. the mountains, and rarely reach us charged with dust. The Sirocco only blows at rare intervals, seldom lasts more than a day, and is not specially bad for persons with weak chests." He also states — "That the water of Algiers, which is clear, limpid, and very agree- able in taste, is strongly impregnated with carbonate of lime, which is a notably remedial agent in phthisis. Indeed, it is to be remarked that consumption is very little known in countries whose water-supply is strongly charged with this substance." Dr. Mitchell, after patient investigation of the matter, comes to the conclusion that phthisis is a disease con- siderably rarer in Algiers than in Europe or North America ; also that other diseases of the respiratory organs are much less frequent. And Dr. Jackson, in his " Medical Climato- logy," remarks — "As a resort from the inclement season of northern Europe for persons threatened with pulmonary consumption, Algiers is deservedly in good reputation. The climate is far from being of a relaxing character : on the contrary, it combines with its usual mildness and equability, a decidedly bracing and tonic influence. Consumptive patients in whom there is a well-marked deposit of crude tubercle may pass one or more winters in Algiers with advantage, under circum- stances which afford nature the most ample leisure for repairing the disorganized structure. The sooner the patient is placed under its influence, the more likely is the result to be beneficial. But when the disease has gone beyond what I have mentioned, Algiers is not to be recommended." Indeed, in cases where the disease is approaching its fatal termination, it seems simple cruelty on the part of medical men, to drive the patient away from the loving care of his own family circle, to die in a strange land ! Happily, Algiers has not yet become the resort of this hopeless class of invalid, and the winter-visitor is spared MEDICAL OPINIONS. It the sad sights and harrowing scenes which he so often encounters at Mentone, and other heahh-stations of the Riviera. The class of invaUds who chiefly frequent Algiers are persons affected by asthma, bronchial affections, and rheumatism, and these, who would be sufferers in their own land of fogs and damp, can, in tlie pure sunny climate of Algiers, scarcely be classed under that heading. " There is a health-giving influence in a bright atmosphere and cloudless sky which is not fully appreciated. Light has a higher power in the functions of the animal economy than we are apt to think, and proofs are not wanting. Deprive the tadpole of its influence, nourish it as you will, and it will remain a tadpole still. But it is in the vegetable kingdom that we have the clearest manifestation of its working. In plants we find the secretions developed in greater per- fection according to its intensity. Deprived of it, we find them flowerless, fruitless, and with small and stunted leaves. Had we no other proof, we should be authorised in inferring that that which is so potent on vegetable life, is not inert on animal life. The physiology of the two kingdoms is ever more or less closely associated, and that which stimulates the flower to expand its petals, giving as it were a welcome to the vivifying influence, is also, though perhaps more obscurely, a stimulus to man. " Every man has experienced the gayness and brightness of spirits which a clear sunny day produces, and no man who has known the horrors of a London fog will be unable to paint the reverse of the picture, but it is a question if this bright, mental atmosphere which comes from a bright physical one, is not the direct result of its stimu- lating action on us simply as animals. Life within us is intensified, and the 7nens sana is tinged with the impressions of the corpus sanum." — 0« the Curative Value of the Algeria}! Cliinate. Dr. A. Mitchell. There can be no doubt that the first, the chief, the ever- present charm of Algiers is its beautiful climate. At the same time, again to quote Dr. Mitchell's pamphlet — "No climate is perfect, and the invalid who seeks Algiers expect- ing to find nothing but uninterrupted serenity will be disappointed. 12 WALKS IN ALGIERS. Bad weather occurs there as elsewhere ; but, on the whole, figures and experience justify me in saying, that few climates are superior, and more likely to benefit that class of patients who seek for health in a more genial temperature, and a less cloudy atmosphere than our own." Before quitting the medical atmosphere it would perhaps not be out of place to mention some small matters of hygiene, which are recommended by physicians to travellers in this as in other warm countries. It seems perhaps superfluous to say, Do not walk out in the burning sun without an umbrella; but it would be well for English travellers to remember, that an um- brella cannot be spared them as an article of dress in Algiers any more than in their own country, though its use is somewhat different, and to observe how thoroughly the natives, who understand these matters, shelter their heads from the fierce African sun. Smoked glasses, but not hbcc, are also recommended for the eyes. " The diet of the European in Algiers," says Dr. Bodichon, " should be tonic." For persons disposed to consumption he advises plentiful feeding on meat, fish, oysters, lobsters, and other substances containing iodine, and the use of port-wine or claret as a beverage — tea being avoided, " since it increases perspiration." Time to be spent in Algiers from the end of October to the first days of June. This, with a general recommendation of air, regular, gentle exercise, and sun-baths^ he believes would in most cases be found efficacious. For he says, in conclusion — " Cure should be sought by hygiene rather than by physic. Con- sumption is a constitutional disease, and constitutions cannot be changed by physic, though they may be modified by hygiene." HEALTH AND PLEASURE. »3 As a pleasure resort — as opposed to a health resort — Algiers can certainly not presume to rival her opposite neighbour, Nice. For those who are lovers of nature, who drink in the beauty of a glorious landscape with delight, and find a charm in the quiet pleasures of the fields and lanes, Algiers has, indeed, an exhaustless store of attractions. In the ever-changing yet changeless beauty that meets him on every side, in the glowing colours of sea and sky, in the luxuriant wealth of wild-flowers that grow in his path, in the interest and mystery that cling about the Eastern people among whom he is suddenly plunged, the traveller who is a lover of the picturesque, who has anything of an artist's eye — though he, maybe, lack the artist's hand — must surely rest content. He can scarcely be able to regret the promenade — which is not ; the shabby little Hyde Park in miniature — which is not ; the Parisian toilettes — which are not — and other de- lights which Nice offers to the votaries of fashion. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that at Algiers, fashion is not. There are wonderfully few French visitors at Algiers ; those who come, invariably pronounce the place to be triste, and complain that there are no distractions. There is a fairly good opera given three times a week during winter, but the absence of the promenade and the toilettes is an insuperable objection to French enjoy- ment. In truth, Algiers is being gradually taken possession of by the English ; the hotels are filled with English to the exclusion of other nationalities ; the pretty villas of the suburbs are during the winter months occupied entirely by '4 WALKS IN ALGIERS. English. Several English families have residences to which they return year after year for their vi^inter season, forming what is beginning to be known as the English colony. There is, therefore, a certain amount of quiet gaiety always accessible to English visitors, for the national colony of Algiers seems to be possessed with a more sociable and friendly spirit towards strangers, than is usually put to the credit of English people, and Lieutenant-Colonel Playfair, the English consul, sets the example of geniality and kind- ness. It may be as well to state, for the sake of those visitors who wish to enter into society in Algiers, that the foreign custom prevails, of new arrivals being expected to call on the older inhabitants. General Chanzy, the Governor, following the example of his predecessor Marshal MacMahon, distinguishes himself by his hospitality towards English winter visitors. The Prefet of Algiers has lately married an English lady. Small subscription balls are not infrequent among the visitors at the Hotel d'Orient, and, although unmarried ladies under thirty, and gentlemen whose dancing powers are not impeded by asthma, are at a premium, the English colony, and the English birds of passage manage to keep themselves tole- rably well amused. Perhaps among the attractions of Algiers it would be a mistake to omit that which fills so large a place in the Englishman's beau-ideal — sport. Game of all kinds is plentiful in Algeria — partridges, hares, snipe, wild- ducks, and wild-boars are to be found within easy distances of Algiers itself ; while hons and panthers to be hunted down still attract the more adventurous spirits southward. In conclusion, we again quote Dr. Mitchell, who looks at the agremeiits of Algiers from the invalid's point of view : — SOCIETY IN ALGIERS. " With difficulty, if at all, will the European traveller find a spot on earth where natural beauties so combine with those of man's creation to please and interest him. And it is not of small moment to the invalid that pleasure and interest meet him at every step, that he has neither fatigue nor risk to run in seeking them, that they are of a nature to amuse without exciting him, adapted to all tastes, and to all capabili- ties. In this point of view, Algiers contrasts most favourably with other places of resort, where the objects of interest are chilly cathedrals, cold picture-galleries and such-like, which fashion demands that the stranger shall visit, whether he be an invalid or in health, and for which he must assume a spurious enthusiasm if, from deficiency of nature or education, he lacks the taste. It is of real importance to the invalid that he should leave his room, not full of some fatiguing excursion, but simply to be in the open air, to wander about where his fancy may lead him, sure of finding himself gratified and amused." The writer can offer no further suggestions for the comfort of the winter traveller to Algiers, other than the recommendation to be provided with a certain amount of warm clothing in case of a few days' cold, and the earnest advice not to leave too early in the spring, so as to run the risk of exchanging African sunshine for English east winds. CHAPTER II. ON THE ROAD TO ALGIERS. *' Look on fertile France." I Henry VI. iii. 3, Paris to Marseilles, express, in i6| hours. THE through fare from London to Algiers is, first-class, jQ\o 9s. 6d. ; second-class, JP^i i8s. ; but as the French express trains are composed of first-class carriages only, those travellers who wish to make the journey from Paris to Marseilles at all rapidly, will be compelled to take first-class tickets for that portion of the route, not only for themselves, but for any servants they may have with them. The steamers of the Messageries Maritimes, the best line, start from Marseilles at five o'clock every Saturday afternoon, being in correspondence with the express which leaves Paris on Friday evening at eight o'clock. It is thus barely pos- sible to leave London on Friday morning and to proceed straight on to Algiers, but as we presume few travellers for pleasure would care to undertake so fatiguing a journey without rest, or indeed to pass through Paris without spend- ing at least a few hours in that most attractive of capitals, we will imagine that on Thursday morning at latest, a start ACROSS FRANCE. has been made from Charing Cross or Victoria, that Thurs- day night and Friday have been passed in Paris, and on Friday evening our travellers have arrived at the station of the Chemin de fer de Lyon, ready for their flight due south. But to those whose time is not very limited, a journey across France at a less rapid rate — a journey, as the French people would call it, oi paresseiix — is very much more to be recommended, as on this route will be passed several inter- esting and remarkable spots, each of them worthy at least of a day or two's visit. A through-ticket admits of arrets at various points without extra charge, and luggage should in any case be registered straight on to Marseilles from Paris. Whether the breaking of the journey can be recommended to persons in ill-health, depends very much on the weather of the time-being, also on the invalid's capability of endur- ing long journeys, and on the possibility of securing a /// coupe for the night travel. If the weather should not be immoderately cold, and rooms with fires in them are ordered by letter or telegram at each stopping-place, it is probable that two or three shorter journeys would, in most cases, be found less fatiguing than one long one, and in this way night-travelling would be altogether avoided. Lyons, the most convenient and almost a half-way halt between Paris and Marseilles, will be found an agreeable resting-place; and although the town possesses no monuments of special interest, the extreme beauty of its situation, and its position as the second city of France, make it well worthy of a visit, while those who, regarding it as a great manufacturing centre, expect to find in it a second Leeds or Manchester, wiil be pleasantly disappointed with the cleanliness of its |8 IVALKS IN ALGIERS. broad handsome streets, and the unsullied purity of its dear blue sky. Lyons. Hotels. — Grand Hotel de Lyon, a very fine hotel, but a long way from the station. Grand Hotel Collet, in the same street. Hotel de I'Europe, Place Louis le Grand, also very good, and much nearer the station ; rooms from 3 fr., dinner 4 fr., service I fr. Hotel des Negociants, Hotel du Havre et du Luxembourg ; dinner, 3j fr., good. Hotel Michel, Hotel d'Angleterre et des Deux Mondes, Hotel de rUnivers, all in the Cour Napoleon, near the station. Fiacres. — Two-horse carriages of the Compagnie des Petits Maitres, I fr. 25 c. per course ; by the hour, l fr. 50 c. for first hour, following hours, I fr. 25 c, luggage free ; outside the town, 2 fr. After mid- night, all fares -j fr. more. Carriages of other companies dearer. Hotel omnibuses meet the trains. There are several railway stations at Lyons ; the principal one, that at which the traveller should alight, is the Perrache. Lyons is a city of 324,000 inhabitants, the chief seat of the silk manufacture of France. It is finely situated at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone, the two rivers flowing through the whole length of the city, while it is surrounded on all sides by a natural fortification of hills. The Romans, perceiving at once the extraordinary ad- vantages of the site, built a city here (Lugdunum), and it became one of their chief strongholds in Gaul. There are unfortunately scarcely any traces of the ancient town left, but we read in history of the important part it played in the early ages of the Christian era, and of the terrible persecution which took place here, under Marcus Aurelius, in the second century. Of the vast amphitheatre which stood, we are told, on the height to the south of the city, and was capable of holding fifty thousand persons — the chief scene of the martyrdoms — not a vestige now remains, although the ruins are mentioned by Coryat in his Z YONS. 19 travels in 161 1; and the only relic of the terrible scenes there enacted, is in the name of the river that flows so placidly by the broad and sunny quays — the Saone or Sangona, red from the blood of the slain. In this persecu- tion perished the venerable Pothinus, first Bishop of Lyons, a man over ninety years of age ; Blandina, whose name has come down to us as a model of heroic constancy under cruel sufiering; and many others, the number of victims amounting to several thousands. - During the Middle Ages, Lyons became a rich and important manufacturing town, one of her merchants being that Peter Waldo, who in the twelfth century first publicly preached in France against the corruptions of the Roman Church, and being, with his followers, driven from his native city, spread his opinions through Southern France, Switzer- land, and the valleys of the Alps. In revolutionary times Lyons was the scene of frightful tragedies. Rich, prosperous, and loyal, she seemed specially marked out for the cupidity and bloodthirstiness of the Jacobin party. In the year 1793 the town withstood a severe siege, marked by many deeds of heroism, but being compelled to surrender through famine, it was given over to the ravages of the Republicans, who reaped a terrible vengeance in it. " On the ruins of this infamous city," said Barere, when he announced in Paris that Lyons had fallen, " shall be raised a monument to the eternal glory of the Convention, and on it shall be engraved the inscription, Lyons made war on freedom, Lyons is no more ! " The Revolutionary Tri- bunal did their best to accomplish the work thus laid out for them. The finest quarters of the city, containing the 20 WALKS IN ALGIERS. handsomest private buildings in France, were razed to the ground, no less than ^70,000 being paid out of the public treasury for the labour of " demolitions." Collot d'Herbois, an actor whose performances had in early years been hissed at the theatre of Lyons, was appointed Proconsul. With him was associated the noto- rious Fouche, and during the reign of these two worthies, upwards of six thousand persons suffered death in the city from the guillotine, from drowning, and from wholesale fusillades, which were found convenient as a means of despatching from one to two hundred victims at the same time ! Lyons has been almost rebuilt within the present century, and is a fine modern town of broad, clean, and regular streets, and it possesses two or three remarkably handsome open squares or " places." Of these the Place Louis le Grand is the finest. It is one of the most spacious squares in Europe. The houses surrounding it were destroyed during the Revolution, but were afterwards restored, and the statue of Louis XIV., which adorns the centre of the square, was erected in 1825. The Place Napoleon has a bronze statue of Napoleon I. Adjoining this place is the broad Cours Napoleon, planted with trees. Here is situated the Perrache Railway Station. Between these two places lies the most fashionable quarter of the city. In the Place des Terreaux is the Ilutel de Ville, where the Revolutionary Tribunal held its meetings, while on the adjacent place, the guillotine was, at the same time, employed in its deadly work. This was also the spot on which the young Marquis de Cinq-Mars, favourite of Louis XIIL, and would-be rival of Richelieu, was executed in the year 1642. This unfortunate young man, raised by the will of the minister into power, and intended to be used as a tool for L YONS. 21 governing the King, fell, after a short struggle against the iron despotism of Richelieu, into his wily enemy's hands, and being convicted of treasonable intercourse with Spain, was, with his friend and accomplice, De Thou, dragged by Richelieu to Lyons, and beheaded on the Place des Terreaux. At the time of his death Cinq-Mars was twenty- two years of age. The Hotel des Beaux Arts, or Museum, is also in the Place des Terreaux. It is free to the public every day from nine till three. Under the arches of the court are some interesting Roman remains- altars, sculptures, inscriptions, &c. On the first floor is a picture gallery, containing some Roman mosaics and several very fine paint- ings; in the Salle des Anciens Maitres, notably an Ascension (156) by Pietro Perugino, which is considered to be his masterpiece ; the Scourging of Christ (169), by Pa/wa Giovane ; Madonna and Child bestowing flowers on the Emperor Maximilian and his consort (73), by Diirer. This is a celebrated picture painted at Venice in 1506, brought from Vienna to Paris by Napoleon I., and afterwards presented to the city of Lyons. On the story above is the " Galerie des Peintres Lyonnais," in which are a portrait of Jacquard, inventor of the loom which bears his name, and the busts of other celebrated natives of the town. The Musee ArcheoLogique, on the first floor, contains in the entrance room to the left, the brazen tablets on which is engraved the speech delivered by the Emperor Claudius in the year A.D. 48 before the Roman Senate, in defence of the measure which bestowed citizenship on the Gauls, and in the central saloon many Roman coins, bronzes, &c., with some antique jewellery found in the neighbourhood. There are also natural-history collections and a library in the same building, but the town library {Bibliotheque), comprising 150,000 volumes, is in a separate building on the banks of the Rhone. The Grand Theatre is a handsome building, the interior clean and comfortable, and the performances good. Lyons possesses many churches, but few that offer any attractions to the traveller. The Cathedral is situated on the right bank of the Saone, adjoining 22 WALKS IN ALGIERS. the handsome modern Palais de Justice. The church dates from the thirteenth century-, has a good central tower and old stained-glass windows, but the general effect of the building is gloomy. In the Bourbon Chapel (first to right of entrance) are some fine sculptures, and the cathedral also possesses a clock of very curious and elaborate mechanism, which is exhibited to strangers. On the opposite bank of the Saone is the little church of the Abbaie d' Ainay, one of the oldest in France, dating from the tenth centur}', and having then been constructed from the ruins of some ancient edifice. The vaulted roof is supported by four antique columns of granite. Beneath the church are some Roman dungeons, where it is supposed early Christian martjTS may have been confined before their execution. The pilgrimage church oi Notre-Dame des Fourvieres, on the height above the town, is well worthy of a visit, for the sake of the extremely beautiful ^iew to be obtained from the terrace before it. The church itself is a modem building containing a "miraculous" image of the Virgin, with numerous votive tablets ; but the %-iew will, on a clear day, well repay the fatigue of the pilgrimage. The route is between the Palais de justice and the Cathedral, through narrow, steep streets, past the hospital of Les Antiquailles, then to the right by the Passage Abr'ege, through vineyards and gardens strewn with fragments of Roman masonry, to the Obsei'catoire, a small wooden tower near the church. From the Observatoire (admis- sion J fr.) the %'iew is even finer than fi-om the terrace of Notre-Dame, embracing the panorama of the city, with its two rivers and countless bridges, the encircling belt of wooded hills bristling with fortresses, and, in the distance, on every side, the vague mysterious outlines of far- away mountain ranges. The environs of Lyons are well worth exploring, and the traveller will find facilities of all kinds for making short excursions, in the way of local trains and omnibuses, while steamers ply on both rivers. An interesting point is the confluence of the Rhone and Saone, a mile and a half from the Perrache Railway Station (omnibus from Place de la Charite to the Pant de Mulatiere, where the rivers are separated by a breakwater). The different characters of the two streams are very remarkable, as they flow side by side, joined but not commingled, the Rhone clear, rapid, and impetuous, the Saone still and turbid. Certain old writers have been pleased to find in the phenomenon a symbol of matrimonj*. On the left bank of the Rhone is the Pare de la T'ete d' Or, a fine botanical garden and pleasure ground. L YONS. A VIGNON. Avignon. Hotels. — De I'Europe, dinner, 4 fr. ; De Luxembourg, dinner, 3 fr. Both very good and comfortable ; both a long way from the station. Omnibus, 50 c. Avignon is a place of remarkable interest, crowded with associations, both historic and poetical, and in its style altogether unique among French towns. Indeed, it is difficult for the traveller who visits it for the first time, and is conveyed to his hotel through the narrow and tortuous streets, destitute for the most part of footways, and bordered by ancient houses, whose lower windows are all defended by stout iron screens, such as Michel Angelo designed for the old palaces of Florence, not to believe that he is in the land of Dante and Giotto. In truth, Avignon is much more Italian than French, and up to the year 1791 was a Papal possession, a nest in the wilderness, which the sove- reign pontiffs kept as a refuge in case of troublous times at home; and for nearly seventy years, from 1309 to 1377, they held their court here, and dispensed the spiritual government of Europe from the gloomy palace on the rock which dominates the town, and which, from the railway, forms its most conspicuous object. The Papal Palace, a fortress with walls a hundred feet high, is now used as a barrack, but can be visited on application to the concierge. It is supposed to have been erected by Clement V., the first Pope who reigned at Avignon. Rienzi was imprisoned here, in the Tour des Oubliettes, in the year 1351. In the rear is La Glaciere, a square tower which was once the prison of the Inquisition, and where, in October, 1791, sixty innocent persons, men, women, and children, were murdered by the revolutionary party with circumstances of great atrocity. A visit to the Glaciere is graphically described by Dickens : — 24 WALKS IN ALGIERS. "We went to see the ruins of the dreadful rooms in which the Inquisition used to sit. Passing through a courtyard, among groups of soldiers, we turned off by a gate and entered a narrow court, ren- dered narrower by fallen stones and heaps of rubbish, part of it choking up the mouth of a ruined subteiranean passage tliat once communi- cated (or is said to have done so) with another castle on the opposite bank of the river. Close to this courtyard is a dungeon — we stood within it in another minute — in the dismal tower Des Oubliettes, where Rienzi was imprisoned, fastened by an iron chain to the very M-aU that stands there now, but shut out from the sky which now looks down into it. A few steps brought us to the cachots, in which the prisoners of the Inquisition were confined. On, into a vaulted chamber now used as a store-room, once the chapel of the Holy Office. The place where the tribunal sat was plain. The platform might have been removed but yesterday. Conceive the parable of the Good Samaritan having been painted on the wall of one of these Inquisition chambers ! But it was, and may be traced there yet. Higher up in the jealous wall are niches where the faltering replies of the accused were heard and noted down. Many of them had been brought out of the very cell we had just looked into, so awfully ; along the same stone passage. We had trodden in their very footsteps. . . . Les oubliettes de I'Inquisition ! My blood ran cold as I looked down into the vaults, where these forgotten creatures, with recollections of the world outside — of wives, friends, children, brothers, starved to death and made the stones ring with their unavailing groans. But the thrill I felt on seeing the accursed wall below decayed and broken through, and the sun shining in through its gaping wounds, was like a sense of victory and triumph. I felt exalted with the proud delight of living in these degenerate times to see it — as if I were the hero of some high achievement ! The light in the doleful vaults was typical of the light that has streamed in on all persecution in God's name, but which is not yet at its noon ! . . . I walked round the building on the outside in a sort of dream, and yet with tlie delightful sense of having awakened from it, of which the light down in the vaults had given me the assurance. The immense thickness and giddy height of the walls, the enormous strength of the massive towers, the great extent of the building, its gigantic proportions, frowning aspect, and barbarous irregularity, awaken awe and wonder. The recollection of its opposite old uses : an impregnable fortress, a luxurious palace, a horrible prison, a place of torture, the court of the Inquisition — at one and the same time a house of feasting, fighting, religion and blood — gives to every stone in its huge form a fearful interest, and imparts new A VIGNON. 25 meaning to its incongruities. I could tliink of little, then and long afterwards, but the sun in the dungeons. The palace coming down to be the lounging place of noisy soldiers, and being forced to echo to their rough talk and common oaths, and to have their garments flutter- ing from its dirty windows, was some reduction of its state and some- thing to rejoice at ; but the day in its cells and the sky for the roof of its chambers of cruelty — that was its desolation and defeat ! If I had seen it in a blaze from ditch to rampart, I should have felt that not that light, nor all the light in all the fire that burns, could waste it like the sunbeams in its secret council-chamber and its prisons." Near the palace, and in front of the Gladere, is the con- spicuous Cathedral of Notre-Dame. It dates from the fourteenth century, with a porch of a much earlier period, and has been recently restored. It contains the monument of Pope John XXII., who died at Avignon in 1334, and that of Benedict XII. (died 1342) in the left aisle. The hill beside the Cathedral is laid out in a pleasant garden, with a point of view on a cluster of rocks in the centre. The prospect from this spot is charming and very extensive. In the garden is a statue to Jean Althen, erected in 1846, out of gratitude to him for having introduced the cultivation of madder, now the chief produce of the district, and exten- sively used as a dye for the French military trousers. Opposite the Papal Palace stands the old Mairie — the mint of the Papal period. It is now used as a Cottservaioire deMusique, the old coat of arms remaining above the ancient doorway. In the Rue Calade is the Musee, open daily, fee I fr. On the ground-floor is a good collection of Roman antiquities, mostly found in the neighbourhood. On the first floor a picture gallery, in which are several fine paintings, three small pictures attributed to Holbein, Madonna (80), Lor. di Credi, Crucifixion (loi), 26 WALKS IN ALGIERS. Erckhout, &c., with a collection of the works of the Vemet family, aW natives of Avignon, with a good Mazeppa, by Horace Vernet, the most celebrated of the name, many of whose subjects are Algerian. There are also a library and a valuable miscellaneous museum. In the garden behind the building is a monument erected by an Englishman to the memory of Petrarch's Laura — her tomb in the Church des Cordeliers having been destroyed during the Revolution. There is perhaps no association of greater interest in Avignon, than that which clings about the names of Petrarch and the lady whom his verses have made immortal. She lived and died here, and it was at the Church of St. Clare in Avignon that the youthful Petrarch first saw, and was enamoured of her. But his attachment was of the most romantic kind. At the time when she so took his heart by storm she was already a wife, though only in her nine- teenth year, and we have no reason for believing that through the whole of her honoured and honourable life, she ever gave the devoted poet the slightest token of her regard. But neither in life nor after her death did her image ever fade from his mind — neither time, nor absence, nor even a meeting when youth had passed away from both lady and lover, could rob him of the sweet enchantment ! To him she was ever the peerless lady, the ideal of all that was beautiful and good, the perfection of womanhood. She died of the plague, which was raging in 1348 in Pro- vence, and no less than ninety sonnets, the most touching and graceful of the poet's productions, were written after this event. In morte di Afadonna Laura. The vale and fountain of Vaucluse, celebrated by Petrarch, and where he bought a small house and garden, can be A VIGNON. NISMES. 27 visited from Avignon, either by carriage direct or by taking train to Lisle-sur-Sorgue station on the Cavaillon branch railway; fares 2 fr. 70 c, 2 fr., I fr. 50 c. Thence drive or walk three miles to the village of Vaucluse (Hotel de Laure). Petrarch's house exists no longer, and the magnificent forest of oaks which in his time surrounded it, is now replaced by olive-groves and vineyards; but the laurels which he planted and loved as namesakes of his fair one remain. They, or their descendants, are still pointed out to the admiration of visitors. NiSMES, though not on the direct route from Paris to Marseilles, is so very little out of it, and is so well worthy of visiting, that few persons travelling at leisure would care to pass it by. It can be reached either by carriage from Avignon, in which case the beautiful Roman aqueduct of the Pont du Gard can be seen on the way ; or by railway — main line as far as Tarascon, where carriages are changed. From Tarascon to Nismes, three-quarters of an hour ; fares, 3 fr. x 5 c, 2 fr. 25 c, I fr. 70 c. Nismes. — Hotel de Luxembourg, on the Place ; dinner 4 fr., service I fr. Cheval Blanc, opposite the Arena. Hotel et Restaurant Manivet, opposite Maison Carree. Hotel de la Mediterranee. Hotel des Arts, near railway. Town omnibus, 25 c. This town, which was an important Roman station, is chiefly remarkable for the beauty and perfect preservation of the Roman relics. They are all within easy reach of the railway station, and may be visited in a very short time, but the town itself is bright and pleasant, and the traveller would not regret a couple of days or so spent at it, provided that the mistral, or north wind, is not blowing at the time. 28 WALKS IN ALGIERS. To this wind, peculiarly strong, and cutting almost as an f^nglish north-easter, all this portion of France is subject. While it is blowing, neither Avignon nor Nismes would be a desirable halting-place, especially for an invalid. To such, in this case, we can only say, pull your warmest wraps about you, and hasten with the swallows, south. But, as a rule, the mistral is only felt in any force in the spring, and during autumn and early winter, the climate of Provence justifies all that has been said and sung in its praise. The road from the railway station across the Place leads in a very few minutes to the Arena, or Amphitheatre, which is, compared wth other buildings of the same kind, in a marvellous state of preservation. It is built of stone, and has a double row of sixty arches, with columns between each, the four entrances projecting a little. The walls are seventy-four feet high, the upper gallery is about a quarter of a mile in circumference, and the building is supposed to have held about thirty- two thousand persons. Though little more than half the size of the Coliseum at Rome, it is as a ruin more perfect, and as a building more beautiful. It is supposed to have been built by Antoninus Pius, about 140 B.C. The next object of interest, which will be seen on the right hand, is the Maison Carree, an ancient temple supported by thirty Corintliian columns, and dating from the time of Augustus or Antoninus Pius. It was converted in the jSIiddle Ages into a church, then used as a town- hall, and is now a museum, in which are a collection of antiquities and a gallery with several good pictures, i fr. entrance. The concierge lives opposite. From thence, turning left by the Canal, the visitor reaches the Jardin dela Fontaine, a charmingly laid-out promenade, \vith pleasant shady walks climbing the sides of a wooded hill. In the garden, close to the Cafe, is the Nyj-nphcBum, or, as it is popularly called, the Temple of Diana, a fine vaulted building with niches for statues, and containing numerous busts and fragments of ancient masoniy. Here, too, are the Roman Baths excavated by Louis XIV. and ornamented with statues. The baths contain a large peristyle with low columns, and enclose the spring wliich supplies Xismes with water. The concierge at the entrance of the garden keeps the key of the Nymphseum and Baths. I fr. mSMES. 29 On the hill above the garden is an old Roman tower, the Tottrmagne, from which an excellent view of the town and surrounding country is obtained. Key at a small red house to the right on the way up. The Pont dii Gard, unless seen on the road from Avignon, will occupy an afternoon. Carriage, there and back, I2 fr. It is a bridge and aqueduct over the river Gard, remarkable from having three tiers of arches in a most perfect state of preservation. Indeed, it is con- sidered to be the finest Roman aqueduct in existence. It is supposed to have been built by Agrippa, general of Augustus, and was intended to supply Nismes with water from the springs of Airan, near St. Quentin, a distance of fourteen miles. It has recently been undergoing restoration. Nismes has a population of sixty thousand, one quarter of whom are Protestant. It has frequently been the scene of fierce religious struggles, and suffered severely under the persecution of Louis XIV. On the spot now occupied by the theatre, Jean Cavalier, the young Camisard leader, laid down his sword after his long and heroic struggle at the head of his Protestant peasants, obtaining honourable terms for himself and his followers from Marshal Villars. The journeyfrom Nismes to Marseilles is but a short one, slightly delayed by the unavoidable change of carriages at Tarascon. Beyond this town the vine and the olive, now seen in abundance for the first time, proclaim the sunny land of the South ; but those to whom the olive is a new acquaint- ance will probably be disappointed with it. Its sombre grey hue is at first sight not pleasing, and flat landscapes of olive gardens planted in formal rows, are apt to seem dismal in colouring. To be appreciated, the olive foliage should be seen in masses, on a sloping hillside, relieved here and there with the bright tints of the orange-tree, or some other vivid green. Then its delicate and tender hues, standing out from a background of cloudless blue sky, are very 30 WALKS IN ALGIERS. beautiful. Indeed, the olive, like the face of a friend, grows more beautiful from intimate acquaintance, and in the end is found to have a charm fully as great as that of its more brilliant rivals. After passing Aries (Hotel du Nord and Hotel du Forum), a place also possessing numerous Roman remains, but of less interest than Nismes, a somewhat uninteresting country is traversed by the railway, until, as the train emerges from the long tunnel of Pas-des-Lanciers, the longest in France, all necks, or rather all necks belonging to travellers to whom the route is a new one, are eagerly strained for a first glimpse of the Mediterranean. Suddenly it bursts upon the view, a rippling mass of colour, or, as often as not, without even a ripple upon its surface, a sheet of deepest blue, lying softly, like some regal mantle laid upon the land. To see it thus for the first time in its glorious intensity of colouring, under the smiling blue of a true southern sky, is a vision not easily forgotten ; and the delight of it and the gladness seem perhaps all the greater, by way of contrast, if the traveller has left but a few hours behind him, the gloom of winter. If he is so favoured in his first introduction to the sunny sea, it will go far to keep it in his pleasant memories, even though in after times, it may not look at him with so friendly and calm a face. Marseilles. Hotels. — Grand Hotel de Marseille ; Grand Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix, facing south and wth lift ; Hotel de Noailles — all fine and excellently arranged hotels in the Cannebiere Prolongee, the principal street of Marseilles. Dinner, 4 fr. 50 c. ; attendance, I fr. Hotel du Petit Louvre, Rue Cannebiere ; Hotel des Colonies, Rue Vaucon. Dinner, 3 fr. 50 c. Good and comfortable. Fiacres. — One-horse, I fr. 5c c, per course ; 2 fr. 25 c. for first hour, MARSEILLES. 31 2 fr. for succeeding hours. Two-horse carriages, 2 fr. per course ; 2 fr. 50 c. for first hour, and 2 fr. for each succeeding hour. From 6 P.M. to 6 A.M., one-horse, I fr. 75 c. ; two-horse carriage, 2 fr. 50 c. per course. Each article of baggage, 25 c. A tariff should be given by every driver to the person engaging him, as in Paris. Boats in the Port Ancien, at the end of the Rue Cannebiere, i\ fr. for first hour, I fr. for each succeeding hour. Marseilles, a city of three hundred thousand inhabitants, is the principal seaport of France, and its harbour presents a scene of the greatest animation, being crowded with vessels from all parts of the world, v/hilst its quays are thronged by a motley company of sailors of every nation, and every colour, among whom the fair-bearded English- man and the tawny Lascar seem to be predominant, while the ear is assailed with a perfect Babel of languages, in which a kind of hybrid Italian succeeds in getting the upper hand ; indeed, the patois of the Marseillais has a certain Italian sound about it. It is the old langice d'oc as opposed to the langiie d'oyl of the north. There are very few sights to be seen in Marseilles, beyond the ever-moving interest of the port, with its irregular pile of old white houses, perched, as it seems, one on the top of the other for a look sea-ward, and the beauty of the island-studded harbour. An extremely fine view of the whole may be obtained from the church of Notre-Dame de la Garde, which is situated on a height above the Port Ancien, from which several paths lead to it, but the ascent is somewhat fatiguing. The view from the Residence Imperiale, a house built by the late emperor, but never inhabited, is a fine one. It is reached by following the quay on the left side of the old port. There is a museum — Musee de Longchamps — in the boule- vard of the same name, which contains, besides other col- lections, a picture gallery with some paintings by ancient and modern masters. There are also some rather remarkable pictures in the hall of the Consigne, or office of the health authorities, the entrance to which is a gate at the far end of the Port Ancien. Fee 50 c. The Cholera on board the Frigate Melponione, Horace Vernet. The Chevaher Rose directing the Burial of those who have died of the Plague, Guerin. The Plague at Milan, a relief in marble, Pujet, Bishop Belsunce during the Plague of 1720, Gerard. The Frigate Justine returning from the East with the Plague on board, Tanneurs. A statue of Bishop Belsunce has been erected on, the boulevard of the same name turning out of the Cannebiere. This brave and devoted pastor, during the terrible plague which ravaged Marseilles in 1720, carrying off some forty thousand persons, continued his labours of love in the midst of the dead and dying, encouraging others by his example even more than by his words, and being himself through the whole pestilence saved from attack. Pope, in his " Essay on Man," devotes a couple of lines to celebrate him : — " Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath When nature sickened and each gale was death ? " Marseilles has been almost rebuilt, and is now a fine modern town, retaining little of its old picturesque character, except in the neighbourhood of the old Port. What it has lost in quaintness, it has no doubt gained in healthiness. CHAPTER III. ARRIVAL AT ALGIERS.— DULL AND USEFUL INFORMATION. Le soleil se levait, Alger nous apparut, .Salut terre d'Afrique, a ton beau ciel salut ! Salut ! Jamais I'hiver en deplaisant visage, En soufBant en tes doigts n'aborde ton rivage. C'est toujours le printemps aux riantes couleurs Qui pare tes vallons en les semant de fleurs." H # It " Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies." Tennyson, THE steamers from Algiers, both of the Messageries Maritimes and Valery Companies, start at five o'clock on Saturday afternoons. The Valery have an extra packet on Tuesday at the same hour. The fares are, from Marseilles to Algiers, ist class, 80 fr. ; 2nd class, 60 fr. There are also other lines of steamers cheaper, but not so good. The vessels of the Messagerie 9.nd Valery Companies are fine boats, extremely well arranged, and the food provided on both, for those who have sea appetites, is excellent ; but the Messagerie boats are the largest, and altogether the most comfortable, though somewhat slower than the others. The movement is felt less in them, and the cabins are fitted up, for the accommodation of families, with two, three, or D 34 WALKS IN ALGIERS four berths, according to requirements. These should be secured beforehand ; and luggage must be registered, or the companies do not hold themselves responsible for it. The average passage is thirty-six hours, and, as a rule, except in the Gulf of Lyons, which has an evil reputation, no great inconvenience will be experienced even by indifferent sailors. But the Mediterranean is, like all inland seas, subject to very sudden squalls, and at times extremely bad weather is encountered. The Mediterranean is what is called a choppy sea, and many persons who have crossed the Atlantic without discomfort, suffer from their passage across the sunny southern pond. The vessels take a due southern course, passing between the islands of Minorca and Majorca about twelve hours after leaving Marseilles, and sighting the coast of Spain. Long before dawn, on the second day of the voyage, the pleasing and welcome intelligence is circulated, " Algiers is in sight," and the traveller, seized with a sudden passion for early rising, hastily shakes himself out of his morning slum- bers, and hurries on to deck. If he fail to do so, he loses one of the most charming sights possible to conceive. As the vessel glides into the still waters of the port, Algiers, the Algiers of many a thrilling and romantic story, lies before him, vague, shadowy, and mysterious, with the curtain of night yet undrawn from her sleeping face. The vagueness and the mystery have a symbolism in them, to the mind of the European who thus takes his first glimpse of African soil — ^who has thus his first impression of the strange world that lies so near his shores, and yet whose life is so apart from his, so shrouded, so unde- veloped. He looks about him in the luminous darkness, FIRST VIEW OF ALGIERS. 35 luminous as all Algerian nights are, with tender shades of blue on sea and sky, and his first impression is that he has chanced upon some gala night. Points of light flicker here and there among the shipping, and flit over the face of the smooth water ; long lines of radiance twist and curve about the shore, and bright spots glowing one above the other, throw into relief quaint indistinguishable masses of white buildings that mount into the sky. As he strains his eyes into the darkness, suddenly the gleam of the illumination seems to take a yellow hue — to lose its brilliancy ; a faint tinge of blue passes over the mass of shadowy white, and, turning his head quickly east- ward, he perceives that night is ending — that a new day is born. It grows and gathers strength, the blue in the eastern sky turning to pale gold, then shifting to softest tints of rose-colour that intensify and deepen every instant, until the whole horizon glows with trembling light and colour, bathed in the refulgent beauty of an African sunrise, while the sun, himself scarcely distinguishable in the glory of his surroundings, rises with slow majesty behind the seaward spur of the Djurdjura Mountains. It is a scene not soon to be forgotten, nor will " custom stale its infinite variety." It will stamp itself upon the gazer's mind as a remembrance to be cherished in darker hours, and under greyer skies — to be recalled again and again, to live with him as a promise and hope of the future — " a joy for ever !" Then is the moment, when the rose-glow lights her white- washed walls with a magic beauty, for the traveller to take his first real look at Algiers— the warlike, the white — as she rises blushing from the sea. 36 WALKS IN ALGIERS. " One wants a pencil dipped in colour to give any adequate concep- tion of it. " Imagine terrace after terrace of pure white marble piled upon a sunny height, with a broad blue bay below ; bright green hills stretch- ing towards a vast velvety plain on either side ; beyond all a line of snow-tipped mountains, dim and distant as clouds, and you have some shadowy idea of as fair a picture as the world can show." — A Winter with the Swallows. " And when the sun rises full upon her, painting her with those ver- milion tints which every morning reach her straight from Mecca, one might fancy her to have risen during the night, from an enormous block of pure white marble veined with rose-colour." — Une Annee dans le Sahel. Fromentin. This is the first sight of Algiers, as described by one who saw her from the deck of a pirate ship in which he had been captured : — "Algiers, forming an extensive semicircle of hiUs rising in amphi- theatric beauty round the city, and many of them studded with country houses, is exceedingly picturesque as seen from the sea, while the numerous vineyards, orange and olive groves which surround the town, showing great marks of industry and cultivation, do not bear much analogy to the fierce character and vagrant lives of these African tyrants." — PanantVs Narration of a Residence in Algiers, 1814. " This place, Algiers the warlike, which for several centuries has braved the greatest powers of Christendom, is not more than a mile and a half in circumference. It is situated up the declivity of a hill that rises north and north-east, whereby the houses rise so gradually above each other, that there is scarce one but what in one or other of these directions, has a fuU prospect of the sea."^ — Dr. Shawns Travels, 1720—30. "The town has the appearance of a theatre, the houses rising in tiers one slightly raised above the other. Its form is quadrilateral, the buildings closely pressed together without gardens." — Voyages deM. de Breve, 1 605. " Algiers looks from the sea like the sail of a great ship," says one old traveller (Peyssonnel, 1725). Another, Des- fontaines, writes in 1789 — " This city, with its whitewashed houses rising in amphitheatric THE LANDING. 37 order one above another, is extremelj' beautiful as you approach it by water. The charm, however, dissolves most effectually on entering the town, where there is nothing to excite admiration." It is to be hoped that the modern traveller may not find his first impressions thus rudely dispelled, although it is hard to be forced to descend from the glory of southern sunrises, and the romance of rose-tinted Moorish palaces, to the excessively matter-of-fact business of landing luggage, and scrambling for rooms at hotels. But such are the necessities of our every-day unromantic life, which thrusts itself perpetually upon us, even in the midst of our sublimest visions. No sooner does daylight appear, than the steamer is crowded round with a flotilla of small boats, manned by a motley crew of Arabs, Kabyles, Spaniards, and Maltese, waiting to convey the traveller from the vessel to the quay, whilst they struggle for places, and wrangle and vociferate in an undistinguishable jargon which is half Arabic and half Lingua franca, itself a hybrid patois grown from all the languages of modern Europe, but which more nearly resembles Italian than anything else. The scene is, at least, an animated one, and the stalwart forms, dark faces, and picturesque dresses of the Arabs and Kabyles, add not a little to the general effect; but the traveller will possibly not be sorry, when he finds himself and his smaller impedimenta safely landed on the quay. " It is not easy to meet with a more noisy, extortionate, and cove- tous set than these Europeanised Arabs, who are the first specimens the newly arrived traveller sees before he puts his foot on shore. Our steamer had scarcely dropped anchor when we were surrounded by boats filled with them. An indescribable scene of confusion followed. Vociferating in guttural Arabic and African French, a host of strange- 38 WALKS IN ALGIERS. looking Kabyles scrambled up the ladder. Pushed back by the gen- darmes and pulled down by other invaders who were trying to ascend, only a few gained the deck. One of these, a long, lanky fellow, with baggy trousers, d la Turc, about his loins, and his gandoura a kind of nominal shirt, looking in this scanty plumage, with his shaven head, not unlike a native ostrich, seized our bags viva forza. We thought the Berber would have carried us off with our baggage, when a stout Nubian interposed his claim to the prey. All were quarrelling and fighting about us, whilst the row in the boats presented another phase of Arab life at home." — Algeria as It Is. It is only fair to say that this rather presents a picture of the landing as it was some few years since in Algeria, than as it is at the present day, the debarkation being now somewhat better arranged and more orderly. But the only way to avoid extortion and abuse from both boatmen and porters is to be well up in the " tarif." The authorised charge for landing is 30 c. each person, and 20 c. each package. With the larger luggage the passenger has not to concern himself, as that will be conveyed by the authorities to the Custom-house on the quay, where he will have to claim it on payment of a small due. On the quay, carriages (i fr.) and guides in plenty will be found waiting to bring him to the hotels, which are all very near to the quay, but the walk to them is a hot and fatiguing one, either by the incline or up the long flights of steps. The charge for porterage is — to the lower town, in which all the hotels are situated, under 50 lbs. 25 c, over 50 lbs. 75 c. ; to the higher town — under 50 lbs. 30 c, over 50 lbs. l fr. Hotels. — There is a great want of a really first-class hotel in Algiers, such as may be met with in other winter HOTELS, ETC. 39 stations frequented by the English. It is a want which will doubtless, in time, be supplied, since the foundations of a fine new hotel are already laid on a splendid site opposite the sea. At present there is much difficulty in obtain- ing accommodation, and the existing hotels are scarcely up to the average of a provincial French inn. The prices of the rooms are high, the cuisine indifferent ; and, while the lower floors are by no means the pleasantest, or the most healthy, there are no lifts — a terrible disadvantage for asthmatical and other invalids. The Hotel d' Orient, on the Boulevard de la Republique, is finely situated, with a splendid view of the bay and the Djurdjura Mountains from the front rooms, but the back and side rooms are dull. Rooms from 4 to 30 fr. ; dinner 5 fr. ; breakfast 3 fr. ; attendance i fr. This hotel has the first reputation in Algiers, and it will be necessary to write some time beforehand in order to secure good apartments. There are a fine marble entrance-hall, which serves as an agreeable lounge, a large public salon facing the sea, and various private sitting-rooms ; a reading and smoking-room with no English papers in it except Galignani. Arrangements can \)Q xa2t.dj& en pension from 12 fr. a day by the month. The cuisine is very poor, and the attend- ance indifferent. Hotel de la Regence, Place du Gouvemement ; situation not so good, except that it faces south, and so has the full benefit of the sun. View of the sea only from the upper windows, as the clump of bamboos that stands before the hotel, completely shades the lower stories. Price of rooms rather lower than at the Orient. Dinner (the best in Algiers) 4 fr. ; breakfast 3 fr. Arrangements are made en pension 40 WALKS IN ALGIERS. by the month. The landlord is extremely attentive and civil. Hotel (T Europe, Place Bresson, with a fine view of the sea from the front windows. The entrance is poor, but the arrangements of the hotel are comfortable, and the landlord is most attentive and obliging. The salle a manger faces the sea. The salon is at the side. Dinner 4 fr. ; break- fast 3 fr. Arrangements made by the month. These are the hotels chiefly frequented by English people. There are various others in the to%vn of less pretension, which are more particularly patronized by foreigners. Among these may be mentioned — The Noiel de Paris, in the Rue Bab-el-Oued, which was, until the construction of the "Boulevard," the principal hotel of the town. Hotel de Geneve, Rue de la Marine, with a sea view from some of the rooms. Hotel de F Oasis — all fairly good second-class houses — besides numerous smaller inns. In the country, at Mustapha Supdrieur, there is an hotel or pension, kept by Mr. Zammit (Hotel de la Villa Orientale), in the house formerly occupied by the late British Vice- Consul, Mr. Elmore. The grounds are beautiful, and the table excellent. There are no private sitting-rooms ; and, as the house is built somewhat in Moorish style, the win- dows are small and the rooms have little sun in them. It is a residence better suited to the spring than to the winter months. Terms from ^4 to a week. There is also a pension kept by Mr. Thomas higher up the hill. Terms a week. Good furnished apartments are every year increasing in HOTELS, ETC. HOUSES. 41 number as the demand for them becomes greater. Those opposite the sea fetch high prices. The suites of rooms are all let here, as is universal on the Continent, with a kitchen, and attendance is not given. Dinner can be sent in from a restaurant, of which there are several. Restaurant de la Bourse, on the Boulevard de la Repub- lique, is particularly good. Breakfast 3 fr. ; dinner 4 fr., or k la carte. French cuisine. Restaurant of Hotel du Midi, behind the Rdgence. Very- good and extremely moderate. Italian cuisine. The cafes of Algiers are frequented only by men, and are filled through the day and evening, by drinkers and smokers of all classes, whose chairs obstruct the pavement under the colonnades. The principal are the Caf^s de Bordeaux, d'Apollon, and de la Bourse, on the Place du Gouvernement ; d'Orient and de Paris, on the Boulevard ; d'Europe, on the Place Bresson. The elegantly appointed ice-cafe's of France and Italy have, curiously enough, no counterpart in French Algiers, nor do ices seem to be eaten, at any rate during the winter months. Furnished Villas in the suburbs of Algiers are in great request during the winter months, and may be had at almost any price, according to size, situation, &c., beginning, perhaps, from 150 fr. to 200 fr. a month, and mounting up to 1,000 fr. or 1,500 fr. The most fashionable quarter is Mustapha Sup^rieur, where is the Governor's summer palace, and where the EngHsh Consul and most of the English residents have their houses. Here the rents are highest, but on the other sides of the city equally pretty villas may be hired at cheaper 42 WALKS IN ALGIERS. rates. All these houses have gardens, in which hothouse flowers, rich and rare according to our Engh'sh notions, grow like weeds, many of the villas being buried under masses of bougainvillier, a rich purple creeper. For information re- specting houses, apartments, &c., application should be made to Mr. Zerbib at the English Library and House Agency, 21, Rue d'Isly, or to M. Dufont, House-agent, Rue de ?Iamma. The wages of servants are from 40 fr. to 50 fr, a month, men and women alike. For a moderate-sized villa, one woman servant, a bonne, is thought quite sufficient; and she not only undertakes to cook — as few cooks cook in England — wait and do all the house-work required, but she also goes every morning by omnibus or train to the market, and caters for the family wants. It need scarcely be said that unless the English housekeeper has some notion of Algerian prices, she pays considerably more than she should do to her bonne. Almost all articles of food are cheap and plentiful at Algiers, poultry and game especially so, and vegetables and fruit to be had almost for nothing. Nearly all the butter eaten in Algiers comes from Milan, and is not, as a rule, good. Tea is extremely dear. The best is to be had at the English chemist's in the Rue Bab-Azoun. The market for vegetables and fruit is held every morn- ing in the Place de Chartres, under the arcades, on one side of whicli are the best butchers' shops, and on the opposite side of the square the best grocers — Saliba and Folka. In these shops Huntley and Palmer's biscuits, Crosse and Blackwell's preserves and pickles, and a variety of small English delicacies, may be procured. There is no lack of good shops at Algiers, where all SER VA m 'S. SHOPS. 43 kinds of European goods may be bought at prices very little higher than in France. The best are in the Rue Bab-Azoun, which is a Regent Street in miniature. Arab and Eastern manufactures are to be found in the bazaars or passages leading from the Place du Gouverne- ment, in the Rue de la Lyre, the Place Malakoff, &c. Here are soft-coloured carpets and curtains, haiks of finest silk and alpaca, native jewellery of all kinds, embroidered leather-work, Kabyle and Tunisian pottery, ostrich eggs mounted in filigree, feather fans and a variety of costly curiosities. All these shops, or rather stalls, are kept by Moors or Jews, and it must be understood by travellers that a great deal of bargaining is expected by them, before a purchase is arranged, and that the dealers invariably ask a higher price than they intend to take — the Jews more particularly — while they at the same time seem generally willing to part with their goods at smaller profits, rather than lose a customer, or allow his money to pass into the hands of their neighbours, the Moors, towards whom they entertain no very neighbourly feeling. The traveller who makes a few purchases amongst these people, is soon received with a friendly welcome by the various merchants as he passes down the bazaar ; he is invited to walk in here, offered coffee there, and generally made much of, without being importuned to buy ; and the Moors especially, with the grand courtesy which is habitual to them, will take an extraordinary amount of trouble to gratify the curiosity of the stranger. A depot of Eastern goods kept by a Frenchman, Dorez, is well worth visiting. It amounts to an exhibition of all that is rarest and most beautiful in native work. His 44 WALKS IN ALGIERS. establishment is in the Rue Bruce, at the corner of Rue Socgemah. That of Madame Luce, in an old Moorish house, in the Rue de Toulon, where the most elaborate embroideries are worked by Arab girls, should on no account be omitted. Ladies only are admitted to see the children at their work ; but gentlemen are not excluded from the purchasing-room. The prices will not be found excessive. This establishment has Government support. It is an effort on the part of the French to elevate the Arab woman, by making her independent. An attempt was also made by Madame Luce to add some small amount of mental to the manual instruction given ; but it had to be abandoned, Arab prejudices being too strong to permit of its continu- ance. Arab parents are with difficulty persuaded to allow their daughters to learn a handicraft ; but nothing will induce them to allow their children's prospects to be spoiled by being taught such unholy arts as reading and writing. Learned maidens, it seems, are by no means at a pre- mium among Moorish suitors. Banks. — Bank of Algeria, Boulevard de la Republique ; Socidtd Gdnerale de I'Algerie, Rue Bab-Azoun ; English and American banker, J. Monk Jackson, Boulevard de la Republique (on the incHne leading from the Boulevard to the Quay). Mr. Jackson, with a liberality for which all English and American visitors to Algiers are grateful, has attached to his offices a reading-room, which is open all day long to any who choose to make use of it, and is well supplied with English and American newspapers. Here is also a register of English visitors. Banking hours are from eight to eleven, and from three to five. There is no English club in Algiers. BANKS. CONSULS, ETC. 45 "The best French club is the Cercle d' Alger, Rue de Palmyre. Strangers admitted on presentation by members. French billiard tables, reading and writing room, and good cuisine." — Murray's Guide. Consuls. — English Consul-General, Lieutenant-Colonel P. L. Playfair. Office, Maison Limousin, Place Bresson ; private residence at Mustapha Supe'rieur, near the Colonne Voirol. American Consul, Colonel Burgher, 4, Rue d'Isly. English Church at the Porte d'Isly. English Library, 21, Rue d'Isly. Winter visitors are expected to contribute 10 fr. each towards its support. Presents of books gladly accepted. English Doctor, Dr. Thompson, Rue Rovigo; fee 12 fr. 50 c.; most kind and attentive. General Post-office, Boulevard de la R^publique. Letters and newspapers from Europe arrive three times a week, and the post, or courrier, as it is called, leaves four times a week for Marseilles. Postage at the same rate as in France. Telegraph Office in the same building. There are several Newspapers published in Algiers : — Le Monitmr de I'Algerie, LAkhbar, La Vigie Algerienne, Lx Mobacher, with French and Arabic text, &c. Most of these, with one or two French newspapers, are taken in at the hotels. The Bibliotheque, in the Rue de I'li^tat-Major, is open daily to readers, who will gladly acknowledge the kindness and courtesy of the Curator, Monsieur MacCarthy — the well- known Algerian scholar. The Theatre is in the Place Bresson, where, during the winter season, operas are performed three times in the week, as well as on Sundays. The interior is tastefully decorated, the seats comfortable, and the performances far 46 WALKS IN ALGIERS. from despicable. Evening dress not necessary. Places can be secured at noon on the day of the performance. Private boxes, 20 and 16 fr.; orchestra and balcony stalls 4 fr. Ladies do not go into the orchestra stalls. Baths. — The best European baths are at 44, Rue Bab- el-Oued; the best Moorish at 2, Rue de I'Etat-Major, which are reserved for women from noon until 5 p.m. The operations of a Turkish bath are sufficiently well known, and scarcely need describing. The bath is the rendezvous of all the Moorish ladies, who constantly spend whole days in these watery delights, while the night is employed in the same manner by the men. The treatment, according to a French writer (Nodier), who minutely describes the process, seems to be a little rough, if one may judge by the following passage : — " The temperature of this room is so high, that after having been subjected but a few minutes to its enervating influence, one is glad to lie down, so incapable do the limbs feel of supporting the weight of the body. Then begins the long operation of pounding and rubbing, to the monotonous chant of verses from the Koran. This is not all. The patient, seized by active and well-practised hands, hears every bone in his body cracking; he is twisted and turned, rolled into a ball and rolled out again, as if he were a clown, and while one of the swarthy negro attendants pinches every vertebra of his spine, others take advantage of his nervous movements to pull his arms and legs in different directions, and make all his bones crack at once. At this moment he may esteem himself happy if the kindly caution of a friend have taught him the Arab word which signities 'enough' [barca), and which speedily puts an end to these somewhat laborious gym- nastics." Negroes attend the bath for the men, and negresses for the women. There are sea baths on the shore, which are much patronized in spring and summer. BA THS. CONVE YANCES. 47 Conveyances. — There is a tramway, which will be found very convenient by travellers. The place of starting is the Place du Gouvernement, and the cars run in two opposite directions, to St. Eugfene, and to Mustapha Infdrieur, &c. The carriages are extremely clean and comfortable. There are many omnibuses, or coricolos, as they are called here ; but they are almost exclusively used by the Arabs, and cannot, on any account, be recommended to Europeans. The only omnibus which is not patronized by the natives is that (a green one) which starts every hour from the corner of the Place du Gouvernement and Rue Cleopatre, for Mustapha Superieur, the English quarter. This is gene- rally filled with English residents and visitors. The omnibuses or diligences which run to more distant places are slightly superior to the town conveyances, but will not be found possible for ladies. To Bou-Zarea. lo a.m. 4 p.m. Returning Birkhadem . 10 a.m. 4 p.m. ,, Guyotville . 5 a.m. 2.30 p.m. „ Staoueli . . 3.30 p.m. „ Cheragas . 10 a.m. 3.30 P.M. ,, 7 A.M. I P.M. 7 A.M. I P.M. 7.30 A.M. 5.30 P.M. 6 A.M. 7 A.M. 1.30 P.M. Carriages or Voitures de Place of all kinds : — The day of 12 hours . . . . . 20 fr. The half-day of 6 hours . . . . 11 fr. By the hour . . . . . , . 2 fr. A drive of three hours or so is usually considered a half day. There is a tariff of fares to the different points ; but it must be admitted it is seldom accepted without dispute. Any imposition, however, should be immediately referred to the Prefet, who has gained much credit by the regulations 48 WALKS IN ALGIERS. which he has introduced with regard to conveyances, and the strictness with which he has enforced them. " Drive me to the Prefecture," will usually put an end to extor- tionate demands. By the course : — In the Lower town In the Upper .... Outside the town : — - To Agha Railway Station To the Hospital of the Dey Cite Bugeaud Mustapha Inferieur (hospital) Fontainebleue St. Eugene Road to 4th kilom. Jardin d'Essai Summer Palace of the Governor Colonne Voirol. Ruisseau Hussein-Dey (Bridge) Pointe Pescade. Frais-Vallon El-Biar (church) Notre-Dame d'Afrique . Bou-Zarea .... These fares include the return journey, but if the traveller alights, half a franc must be paid for every quarter of an hour the carriage is kept waiting. After 1 1 p.m. the fares are increased by one-half. Good private carriages can be hired at the livery stables from 20 fr. to 25 fr. a day, including driver. Saddle horses at 5 fr. a ride, or 150 fr. a month. Carriages by the month cost about 400 fr to 5CX) fr., includ- ing coachman, or with a single horse 300 fr. Livery Stable Keepers. — J. Ducotterd, opposite the Hotel des Postes, Rue de la Liberie. Charles Mame, a British subject, just behind the Enghsh Consulate. La Gier, behind the Telegraph Office, and others. fr. c. 1 o 2 o • I 25 . 2 o • 2 50 • 3 o • 3 50 . 4 o • 5 o . 6 o CHAPTER IV. THE NATIVE INHABITANTS OF ALGIERS. " His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen." Dryden. " Sufferance is the badge of all our tribes." Alerchani of Venice. THAT which to an European un travelled in Eastern lands makes the chief novelty, and constitutes no small portion of the charm of Algiers, is the extraordinary variety of costume which meets him at every turn ; the blaze of colour, the mingling of the grandly simple with the picturesque and grotesque — Eastern life and European civilization walking side by side. He is at first somewhat bewildered by the new persons rather than the new things about him. He feels suddenly transported into a masquerade, and can scarcely persuade himself of his surroundings that they are " all real." He finds himself, at every moment, transgressing the rules of good manners, by staring his hardest at each strangely-clad figure he encounters. As Arab, Moor, or Jew, each in his curious Eastern dress, passes by him, he is sent back in imagination a score or two of years to the days of his childhood, when he pored in delight over the pictured pages of the Thousand 50 WALKS IN ALGIERS. and One Nights, or even earlier still, to the dimly-remem- bered days of his babyhood, to the roughly-coloured but well-beloved daubs which adorned the nursery-walls, and presented to his infant mind, as intimate acquaintances, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brethren. The remembrance of them, as thus portrayed, has, in the lapse of years, almost faded from his mind ; but now, suddenly, in the streets of Algiers, they meet him face to face, jostle him or brush by him, with their grandly- sweeping garments and impassive faces, while he stands doubting, with a strange uncertainty, whether that which he sees before his eyes is real, or whether he will not presently wake up to find that he has been dreaming. There are about ten thousand native Mahomedans in the city of Algiers, out of a population of forty-nine thou- sand souls. These are chiefly Arabs, and, as we somewhat arbitrarily call them. Moors. There are also a considerable number of negroes, and, added to all these, a large native Jewish population, each of whom wears his distinctive garb ; and on first arriving the stranger finds himself some- what puzzled to distinguish between the various races. The Arabs, those majestic figures who, with their white burnous wrapped about them, first attract the traveller's attention, and most forcibly remind him of the Biblical patriarchs, are the descendants of that Arab horde, which in the seventh century swept over and conquered the north of Africa, and at the same time established there the reli- gion of Mahomet, while the native population, with the European colonists, were either destroyed or driven into the mountains. Of these mountaineers we shall have to speak further. The Arabs are for the most part agricul- THE ARAB. turists on a very small scale, or shepherds ; and the greater portion of them still carry a long thick shephera's staff as part of their ordinary dress. They are all bare-legged, and some of them bare-footed, though a residence in towns and the necessity of treading Arab. on burning pavements have induced many to adopt the use of shoes. The head is invariably covered by the hood of the burnous, and is besides bound round and round with thick hempen cord ; and the burnous itself, made of a heavy white woollen material, seems to serve not only as 52 WALKS LV ALGIERS. a garment to keep out equally heat and cold, but also, like the Scotch shepherd's plaid, as house and home. At all hours of the day and night, curious white bundles may be seen lying like dropped sacks by the wayside, and the passer-by, curious to inquire, will discover that they are Arabs rolled up in their burnous, and fast asleep, or at any rate bent on the enjoyment of that dolce-far-niente, which is as dear to the Arab mind, as to that of his neighbours on the opposite side of the Mediterranean. They are a remarkably fine race of men, with handsome intelligent faces, brown complexions, expressive melancholy- looking eyes, aquiline noses, good teeth, and black beards ; but that which most particularly distinguishes them, is the wonderful ease and dignity of their carriage. They have the spring of the desert in their elastic step, and wear their ragged robes as though they were regal mantles. "In the transparent atmosphere, the dark skins and bright-coloured clothes of these stalwart fellows seemed actually to shine with a lustre, whilst the wonderful power, majesty, and grace of their whoUy un- fettered limbs was quite a revelation." — A Winter -with the Swallows. Owing probably to this same freedom, a deformed or ill- shapen Arab is scarcely to be met with, even among the lowest or begging class, but blindness is very preva- lent. In spite, however, of their fine proportions and lithe limbs, the Arabs are said to be constitutionally a weak race. They live very poorly, chiefly on kous-kous, a preparation of semolina ; and though able to support a wonderful amount of fatigue on so Httle, they easily succumb to disease. Their first illness is said to be their last, while the race is THE ARAB. S3 gradually but surely dying out, as it seems to be the fate of all primitive races to do, before the onward march of the civilizer. During the famine of 1867, in spite of all the efforts made by the French, more than two hundred thou- sand persons are said to have perished. The French give the Arabs a very bad name for ferocity, dishonesty, and treachery ; but it is possible that the im- mense gulf which lies between the two races, their opposite character, manners, and traditions, as well as the hatred naturally engendered batween conqueror and conquered, make them scarcely fair or unprejudiced judges. As indi- viduals they will be found kindly and courteous, and very well disposed towards the English, whom they distinguish instantly from the French, and regard with much more favour — cherishing, so it is stated, an idea that one day the British rule will supplant the French in Algiers, affording its people the same privileges which their co-religionists in India enjoy. However this may be, English visitors are invariably treated with deference by the Arabs ; and ladies may ramble without fear through the most unlikely-looking quarters of the city, or in the lonely country lanes. Courage, generosity, and hospitality have always been recognised as virtues among the Arabs ; they pay great respect to old age, and under French rule, seem learning honesty. " Professional thieves of the European stamp, such as the pick- poclcet fraternity, do not exist among the Arabs. " Speaking of respect for the law, or fear of chastisement, we may remarlv that cases of assault and robbery, such as make the environs of some European capitals unsafe after dark, are seldom heard of in the neighbourhood of Algiers. Whether this be owing to the inoffensive disposition of the natives, or whether it is to be attributed to the 54 WALKS IN ALGIERS. excellence of the police — partly Arab and partly French — is not of so much importance as the fact itself." — Algeria as It Is. The lower classes of Arabs are excessively dirty, and their near neighbourhood is to be avoided, especially as their religious prejudices forbid them from taking away life, even that of an insect. The result may be better imagined than described ! The higher orders of Arabs and Moors are, on the con- trary, scrupulously cleanly in their persons and dress, spend- ing a large part of their life at the bath, while their clothes, especially those of the women, are of dazzling whiteness and purity. The people whom we term Moors, called " Hadars," or dwellers in houses, by the Arabs, are a mixed race, the descendants of Arabs, Turks, and Europeans. They were the pirates at whose name Europe, two centuries ago, trembled. At the present day they form the mercantile or shopkeeping class of Algiers, the wealthiest among the natives. They are to be found sitting cross-legged, with a melancholy and supercilious air, in their tiny shops, sur- rounded by their gay wares, themselves in their picturesque costume, the most attractive feature of the whole. But they also, many of them, possess pretty country-houses, where they keep their harems, or where at least their wives and daughters live in elegant and sad seclusion. The dress of the Moor is very handsome, with richly- embroidered vest, wide silk sash, and bag-trousers. On his head he wears a fez surrounded by a white turban. He drapes a cloak gracefully over one shoulder, and altogether presents a stately and striking figure, but without the ease and gracefulness of the unfettered Arab. Nor are his THE MOORS. 55 features so well defined or characteristic as those of the purer race ; but the Moors are usually handsome, with pale oval faces and dark melancholy eyes. On the whole they have a somewhat effeminate look. Moorish Woman. The Arab and Moorish women are alike veiled, a striped white shawl, called a haik, of coarser or finer material according to the position of the wearer, being thrown over the head, and concealing the whole person down to the feet, the face being hidden by a white linen handkerchief, WALKS IN ALGIERS. called an adj'ar, tied tightly across the nose, under the eyes. The general effect is decidedly clumsy and ungraceful, especially with those Moorish women whose toilette beneath the haik is elaborate. In the street they present the appear- ance of animated clothes-bags, and walk with a curious shuffling gait, very far removed from the unfettered dignity of their lords and masters. Their lives, poor things ! are altogether in accord with their costume. They are not "emancipated;" and though in the houses of the richer Moors the slavery of their women may be gilded, it is but slavery after all. The Mahomedan invariably buys his wife — that is to say, he pays a price for her to her family, large or small according to her reputed beauty, or accom- plishments as a housewife ; and though when a girl is born to him an Arab laments, a man with many daughters, if he knows how to dispose of them well, in time becomes rich. It is curious to observe how this custom of wife-buying is found among all semi-barbarous peoples. It has been laid on modern civilization to develop the notion of a dowry — a notion which is certainly carried to its very fullest extent, by the nation which has made Algeria a French province. But the Arab, perhaps naturally, considers the wife for whom he has paid, very much in the same light as his horse or his ass — as very decidedly his chattel, to be driven and beaten, to fetch and carry, to work and toil, while the hus- band and master reclines at his ease, idly smoking his chibouck. The French have done a good deal to improve the con- dition of the Arab woman, by exacting vengeance when any special act of ill-treatment comes to light. If you chance NATIVE WOMEN. S7 to see an Arab prisoner marched through the streets by mounted soldiers, and are curious enough to inquire his offence, you will probably be told, " It is his wife he has been beating ; they all do it, these Arabs." And then come the shrug and sneer, with which a Frenchman invari- ably speaks of a race with whom he has so little in common. But the cases which thus come under public notice are naturally, only the most flagrant. A French writer on the subject says truly enough — "When an Arab woman marries she is sure onlj' that she will be a slave ; but who can tell how many domestic tortures, which no eye can see, or into whose mysteries the law never ventures to penetrate, she will have to endure " Islamism, though it places woman in a decidedly inferior position to man, does not, any more than Christianity, countenance these cruelties ; but unhappily it is not only among Mahomedans and half-savage Arabs, that wife- beating and wife-murder are known to exist as national crimes ! The secluded position and complete ignorance of the Arab woman, add to the difficulties which surround any attempt to ameliorate her condition, but it is a hopeful sign that women are found to avail themselves of the strong arm of the law against unusual oppression, in spite of the disrepute among their own people, which such a proceeding naturally entails. A curious anecdote is told apropos of this subject. An Arab chieftain had occasion to travel to Constantine on business, and bade an affectionate farewell to his family. In a few days he returned in a state of great excitement, and, calling his favourite wife from the tent, bade her fetch 58 WALKS IN ALGIERS. him four posts and a cord. To the woman's horror he seized her, lashed her to the stakes, and began savagely beating her. Her cries attracted a crowd of villagers. "What has she done?" asked one. "She, the best of wives and mothers, the pearl of the tribe ! " exclaimed another. At length, the infuriated man stopped to explain, that at Constantine he had seen an Arab woman accuse her hus- band before the court of ill-usage ; and the Cadi, backed by the French authorities, had actually given a judgment in her favour ! " All men are insulted through this woman ! " exclaimed the chieftain ; " and I am but relieving my mind, and assuring myself that I, at least, am master in my own family." Happily these prejudices are to a certain extent giving way, and some of the more intelligent and less bigoted Arabs, who have observed how much better is the social position of the wife among Europeans, have made it a point that their daughters should be married according to French law, a course which not only secures to them a certain amount of legal protection, but also prevents them from having any legitimate rival in the affections of their husbands. Arab women, unlike the men, are small, and not as a rule good-looking, except when very young. Their noses appear to become flattened by the constant use of the adjar, and their faces are very colourless from the same reason. It is a curious fact that this disguise was unknown among Arab women, until the time of Mahomet's marriage with his young and beautiful wife Ayesha, as to whose conduct, indeed, it became needful for the angel Gabriel to make a VEILED LADIES. 59 special communication, before the Prophet's uneasiness could be removed. The jealousy of one man has been powerful enough to cover the faces of all Moslem wives and daughters for twelve hundred years, and etiquette's stern laws, adding their weight to religion's teaching, still forbid any decent Mahomedan woman to show any portion of her face, but her eyes. "Young Arab and Moorish women, we may remark, cover the face because they are ordered to do so ; the old find it a convenient pohcy, for like charity, the veil covers many defects." — Algeria as It Is. Surely there is compensation in all human woes, and Mahomet was, after all, but a bungling tyrant, when he veiled flat noses and coarse mouths, only to display to still greater advantage, the one special charm and glory of Arab beauty ! In some parts of Algeria, where it is to be supposed jealousy reigns rampant, the women, even the poorest, are only allowed to show one eye, and have to make their way through the world — often encumbered with heavy burdens — as best they may, crab-fashion. But in Algiers itself, custom is not so severe ; the adjar is sometimes observed to be of the very thinnest material, so that the shape, at least, of the features can be discerned beneath it ; and the eyes are permitted to do their work of fascination without obstruction. The effect of the soft black eyes which look out above the adjar, is rather spoiled by the practice of tattooing the forehead, and also that of extending the eyebrows, so as to meet in one line ; but the eyes themselves are almost always large and beautiful, and have, for the most part, the tender wistful look of some dumb animal in them. 6o WALKS IN ALGIERS. All the Arab women colour their nails and the palms of their hands with henna ; some of them dye the roots of their hair to the same red tint. Their indoor costume varies according to the circum- stances of the wearer, from the simple shirt, or liabaya, of the working woman, to the elaborately embroidered vest, rich sash, and silken trousers of the fashionable belle. But all, from highest to lowest, are resplendent with jewellery. Earrings, anklets, and bracelets of gold, necklaces roughly set in Eastern fashion with various precious stones, set off the charms of the wealthy Moorish woman ; silver, coral, or glass takes the place of gold in the adornment of her poorer sisters, while even the little Arab beggar-girl of the streets, with scarcely a rag to cover her, has her shapely brown arms encircled, above elbow and wrist, with bands of copper. As a Moorish woman walks along, the rings, or bangles, she wears on arms and ankles, make a faint jingling music " wherever she goes," and one is instantly reminded of that " tinkling with the feet " which Isaiah so severely reproved in the Jewish ladies. In the Koran, besides, there is an express direction as to the jewels of women — that they are not to display them, except to women or to their near rela- tions ; also " they are not to make a noise \vith their feet, that their hidden ornaments may be discovered." A Mahomedan woman's jewellery is her personal pro- perty, and remains hers in case of divorce or abandonment. Moorish women of the better class are very rarely seen abroad. During the year following their marriage they are not permitted to cross the threshold of their houses, and afterwards but seldom ; the baths and the cemeteries, which THE KABYLES. 6i they visit on Fridays, being the only places of amusement open to them. The Kabyt.es, the mountaineers to whom we have re- ferred, were the inhabitants of the country before the Arab invasion; indeed, their occupation dates back to such a very remote period, that we may be almost permitted to call them the original inhabitants. They are supposed to be of Phoenician origin, but have a considerable admixture of Greek and Roman, and even Teutonic blood in them, as is evident by the fair skins and blue eyes constantly found among them, and which do not belong to African or Asiatic races. They are also known as Berbers — men of Barbary, or, as the Romans called them, Barbarians. At the time of the Arab invasion they were a Christian people, and, owing to the Roman colony in their midst, considerably advanced in civilization. Driven by the Arabs from the plains, they established themselves in the moun- tains, where, until within the last twenty years, they main- tained inviolable their independence. But though they resisted the sword of the Arab invader, they in time adopted his religion, retaining only as relics of their former faith, the habit of keeping their Sabbath on the Christian Sunday, instead of on the Mahomedan Friday, and of having as a rule but one wife. The Kabyle woman altogether occupies a very much better position than the Arab woman. She is not veiled, and is treated, it is said, as a companion and equal by he husband, in whose occupations she assists. Kabyle women are not often to be met with in Algiers itself, and the men who journey thither to dispose of their goods or to make purchases, are scarcely to be distinguished from Arabs, 62 WALKS IN ALGIERS. unless it may be by the fairness of their skins and the dirtiness of their burnous. They are all very poor, but industrious and ingenious. The attractive wares in the Moorish shops are to a great extent of Kabyle manufacture. The inhabitants of Algiers seem to be of all varieties and shades of colour which the human face is capable of wearing. In addition to the pale-faced Moors and brown- skinned Arabs, there is a very large population verging on, if not reaching, the negro type, with a certain propor- tion of the " pure " African. Negresses seem to be in greater numbers at Algiers than negroes, or possibly their avocations as bread and cake sellers in the streets, cause them to be more prominent than the negroes, who for the most part are employed in basket-making, and other industries in the houses of their quarter. The negresses are painfully ugly, with protruding lips and flat noses. They wear a blue and white haik, checked like dusters. The elder ones, at least, do not veil the face. They are to be met with principally at the Arab markets in the Place de la Lyre and the Place d'lsl)'. They are also employed at the Moorish baths, and wherever hard work is required. The negroes are an extremely industrious, gay, and con- tented race. Before the French conquest they were all in a state of slavery, and they are, therefore, unlike the Arabs, well satisfied with a government which has brought them such a welcome change of fortune. A more numerous, and generally picturesque race, are the Mozabites, who, with the shining black skin of the negro, can boast of well- shaped noses and Egyptian-looking mouths. They are finely made, have large and expressive eyes, and, indeed. NEGROES. MOZABITES. 63 are many of them, both men and women, really handsome, although the description given by D'Aranda in 1642, would scarcely suggest the idea of beauty. He says — " The Mozabi are thought of little account, as they love the kitchen better than the camp. They are verj- deformed in their countenance, for they are neither black nor white, but look as if their faces were perpetually oyled." They come from a country called Mozab, south of EI- Aghouat, and actually in the Great Sahara. They are supposed to be identical with the Moabites of Scripture, and to have migrated from Syria in the time of the Prophet. The district which they properly inhabit is a frightfully hot one, consisting of seven cities all built on oases in the desert, which by the untiring energy and industry of these people are maintained in the highest state of cultivation. Not only do palms and vines flourish here, but by means ot immense labour and an admirable system of water storage and irrigation, even corn and vegetables are raised, and tobacco and cotton cultivated. In Algiers the Mozabites monopolize the trade of butchers, to which the Arabs have an objection. Their shining black faces and bright eyes may also be seen, as a rule, in a framework of greenery, in the small vegetable and fruit shops of the Arab town. Their dress is very peculiar, consisting of a loose, sleeve- less shirt of woollen material, striped red and blue, and reminding one irresistibly of that " coat of many colours " which caused so much envy in the breasts of Joseph's brethren. On their heads they carry white turbans. The women for the most part wear the haik of the blue checked duster-pattern which is worn by the negresses ; but some of them are in white like the Arabs, and are veiled. 64 WALKS IN ALGIERS. Even under the government of the Deys the industry and excellent qualities of the Mozabites were recognised. They were encouraged to settle in Algiers by a kind of charter being granted them, which gave them the monopoly, not only of the butcheries, but of the flour-mills and public baths. Another race who were favoured by the Turkish rulers in much the same fashion were the Biskris. We are informed by an old traveller — "They (the Biskris or Biskarras) are employed here in all the lowest occupations, as street and chimney cleaners, and as carriers of water. They have an Emir or chief who is responsible for their conduct, and pays a tribute to the Dey, which he afterwards di\-ides among all those of the nation who are in Algiers. Every evening these people are distributed through the streets, where they lie down at the doors of the houses and shops, to protect them from robbery. They are answer- able for all thefts committed, so that if a house or shop is broken into, they pay the damage, and are severely punished. " These cases are not frequent, but when they occur, he who has been robbed makes his complaint and states his loss. The Dey then sends for the Emir of the Biskarras, who, in his turn, orders the negligent guard to appear before him. The end of the investigation usually is, that the Biskarras on whom the fault lies, are sent to be hanged at Bab-Azoun, and the whole nation is condemned to pay the value of the lost property, the fine being divided equally among them." — Rela- tion d^un voyage sur les cdtes de Barharie en I'JZ^, par J. A. Peys- sonnel. The duties of the Biskris as police have fallen into other hands ; but they are still the scavengers of the city. Early in the morning long files of them may be seen travers- ing the streets, each with an unhappy and long-suffering donkey, across whose back are slung panniers of palmetto ; these are for the reception of the refuse which is collected from before every door. By this somewhat primitive means THE BISKRIS. 6S the streets are kept well cleaned, while the gutters are con- tinually running with pure water. The Biskris are also the porters and water-carriers of the city. There are very few houses into which water is artificially carried. In the Moorish houses the rain-water was anciently Water-carrier. Stored in cisterns beneath the courts, in case of siege, we are told by an old traveller, "for there are no wells in the city, and the water has to be brought from long dis- tances by means of aqueducts, which could easily be cut down by an enemy" (M. Peyssonnel, 1725). The aqueducts F 66 WALKS IN ALGIERS. Still supply Algiers, the water being conveyed by them to numerous fountains in various parts of the city. It is about these fountains, that picturesquely Eastern groups of men and women are always assembled, chatting and filling their great copper jugs — the classical amphora — for the service of the various houses. Rachel the soft-eyed may sometimes be seen there; oftener Morgiana the dusky, carrying her pitcher with a regal grace ; but the Biskris is never-failing — it is his pro- fession. The lives of these people are said to be this. The Biskris comes, if not from Biskra, as his name implies, from some inland province of Algeria — less favoured of nature and less frequented by the rich foreigner. He finds his way from his home in the desert to the great city on foot ; he has no shoes to wear out, and the dates he carries with him, or the cactus-fruit he plucks as he goes along, support him through the weary journey. If, when he arrives at Algiers, he have a couple of sous in his pocket, he hires an emphore, as the copper jugs are called. He is paid a sou for each load that he carries into a house. Upon this he makes money. Five or six sous a day suffice for all his wants. Lodging costs him nothing. He lies down to sleep anywhere and everywhere. He lives upon bread or kous-kous, two sous-worth of coffee daily, and a little fruit. In ten years he has accumulated perhaps as much as forty pounds. With this he returns to his desert- oasis, buys a plantation of date-palms, and a robust ^^^fe to water them and wait upon him. B)'-and-by he will probably afford himself two or three more of these luxuries j but •wives, even in the Sahara, are expensive articles, a good THE BISKRIS. THE JEWS. 67 young one not being able to be procured under five or six pounds. One, however, does for a beginning, and thus hand- somely provided with land and substance, the retired Biskris settles down upon his property, to avenge himself for his ten years' hard work, by doing nothing but smoke his chibouck during the rest of his days. Among the native population of Algiers are to be found about seven thousand Jews, who by their quaint costumes and handsome faces add not a little to the general effect. Indeed, the Jew's dress, not differing very much from the wealthy Moor's, except that its colours are usually darker and richer, and that his legs are encased in well-fitting blue stockings, is about the handsomest to be met with in Algiers. The Jewess's costume is more remarkable for quaintness than beauty. It consists of a long, straight, silk dress of some bright colour, usually green, with the addi- tion of a shawl for outdoor wear ; the hair is entirely covered with a black silk handkerchief bound tightly over the brows, while the chin is encased in a white linen cloth, with which the jaws seem bound up. To complete the coiffure, a huge bow of gold and white embroidered gauze is fastened at the back of the head, and hangs down over the shoulders. Under such a disguise it is scarcely possible for the Jewish beauty to assert itself, but the faces of the younger women are some of them extremely handsome, and as they walk the streets with the swinging gait peculiar to them, their rich complexions and bold black eyes, form a curious contrast to the shrouded faces and forms of their Moorish sisters. 68 WALKS IN ALGIERS. No one can have greater reason to rejoice in the French occupation of Algiers than the Jews. Although they have been established in large numbers here for centuries, many of them having fled to North Africa from persecution in other countries, especially at the time of the expulsion of their race from Spain, they were still an oppressed and down-trodden people in the time of Turkish rule. They were made to suffer various personal indignities, compelled to dress always in black, " in long garments with a great cape of black serge without seam," we are told, " and their women were only permitted to veil a portion of their faces," which may possibly account for the disfiguring fashion of hiding the chin. They were not allowed to ride on horse- back. When passing a mosque they were obliged to go barefooted ; they dared not approach a fountain or well if a Moor were drinking there. It devolved upon them to execute all criminals, and to bury them. When they them- selves suffered death they were burnt alive, and on every pretext they were robbed and fined. In spite of all which, the race continued to live in Algiers — to thrive and prosper. " It is true we suffer very much, but then what money we make ! " said a Jew merchant to Pananti, who has written so interesting an account of his adventures as an Algerine captive. Since the French conquest the Jews have of course been relieved of all their disabilities, and have indeed been treated with such honour, that the jealousy of the Arabs has been roused to no small extent. No reverse of fortune has seemed to them so cruel, as that which has put power and trust in the hands of the despised Jews. Possibly, in exalting the Jewish over the THE JEWS. 69 Moorish race, the French have not acted advisedly, and it is said that the revolt of 1871 was, in a measure, caused by the discontent of the Arabs at the enrolment of Jews in the French army, and the appointment of a Jewish judge. Be this as it may, the Jews of Algiers are now a flourishing community, absorbing to themselves the chief commerce of the town. Like their compatriots all over the world, they are sleek in manner and apt at driving bargains, but good citizens, peaceable, and industrious. CHAPTER V. HISTORICAL NOTICE OF ALGIERS. " Algiers the warlike." HE town of Algiers is built on the site of the ancient X Icosium, a fact which was fully proved by certain inscriptions, found during the excavations necessary for the foundations of the new Boulevard ; but, though created a Lalin city by the Emperor Vespasian, it never played any important part in history, being overshadowed by the glory of its neighbours, Carthage — the modern Tunis, and Julia Csesarea, the modem Cherchel. It claims, however, a heroic origin, for Sallust, the his- torian, relates that when Hercules on his travels " passed by this spot, he was abandoned by twenty of his followers, who chose the place to build a city there." The mythical conquest of Northern Africa by Hercules, is intimated by the fable that he took the globe from Atlas upon his own shoulders, overcame the dragons that guarded the orchards of the Hesperides, and made himself master of the golden fruit. Can this, one is led to wonder, have any reference to the golden orange-groves that He at the foot of the Atlas Mountains ? EARLY HISTORY. 71 This part of the world was known to the ancients as Libya or Mauritania, the home of the Mauri, and the original inhabitants of the country, " rude Libyans," as they are described by Sallust, are supposed to have been of Canaanitish origin. Indeed, we are assured by ancient writers — Procopius, and certain African historians cited by Leone — that there existed at one time two pillars of white stone, set up by the earliest settlers, with the following inscription in the Phoenician language and character upon them : — " We are the Canaanites that fled from Joshua, the son of Nun, that notorious robber." In the year 860 B.C., Dido, sister of the King of Tyre, landed with her followers on the coast of Africa, and founded the famous city of Carthage. " Phoenician Dido rules the state, Who fled from Tyre to shun her brother's hate." The Carthaginians at first were contented to pay a tribute to the Libyans, but soon freeing themselves from this degradation, they subdued the neighbouring tribes, and gradually increasing in power and wealth, extended their dominions over the whole northern coast of Africa from Cyrene to the Atlantic, conquered the Balearic Islands and Sardinia, and made settlements in Sicily. Their possessions in Sicily first brought them into col- lision with the Romans, and led to those struggles which take up so large a portion of Roman history, and which are known as the Punic wars. The Carthaginians under Hamilcar crossed over to Spain, established an empire there, and founded the city of New Carthage — Carthagena. 72 WALKS IN ALGIERS. The famous Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, not only con- quered the whole of Spain, but, crossing the Pyrenees with an army of sixty thousand men and thirty-seven elephants, he led his victorious troops up the valley of the Rhone to the Lake of Geneva, and successfully accomplished a passage of the Alps, though under incredible difficulties and suffering extraordinary hardships, by which one-half of his army was sacrificed. He shortly afterwards gained the battle of Cannas — the greatest defeat ever sustained by the Roman arms — and wasting the country as he went, carried terror to the very gates of Rome. The disgraces and disasters suffered by the Romans in this second Punic war, were not fully avenged until the close of the third, sixty years later, when, in the year 145 B.C., Carthage, after a desperate resistance, was taken and utterly destroyed by her implacable rival and foe. The city suffered pillage and fire, its magnificent buildings were razed to the ground, and their very foundations ploughed over. Once masters of the land, the Romans organized a system of government which, while leaving a great part of the country nominally in the hands of the native inhabit- ants, secured to them the real power. The mountain tribes — Libyans, Barbarians, Berbers, or Kabyles as we call them — had never owned allegiance to the Carthaginians, but during the long struggle between them and the Romans had taken the part, sometimes of one, sometimes of the other. After the fall of Carthage, several of their chieftains reigned over a portion of Mauri- tania and the neighbouring Numidia, with the title of king, but under the protection of the Roman state. UNDER THE ROMANS. 73 The most celebrated of these was Jugurtha, a brave and ambitious prince, who took up arms against the Romans, and after having for some years successfully opposed them, was betrayed into their hands, taken to Rome, dragged in chains through the city to adorn the triumph of Marius, and subsequently starved to death in the same prison beneath the Capitol, where the apostle St. Peter, and St. Paul were afterwards confined. From this time, although various native princes were appointed to the different African kingdoms, the power of the Romans became more and more firmly established. Juba I., King of Mauritania, favoured the cause of Pompey against Julius Cfesar, and took up arms against him, joining his forces to those of Scipio. He was how- ever defeated, and totally abandoned by his subjects. Preferring death by his own hand, to being dragged captive to Rome, he killed himself, and his kingdom became a Roman province, of which Sallust, the historian, was the first governor. Juba II., son of this prince, graced Caesar's triumph. He was then but a child, and was educated at Rome, acquiring a high reputation as a man of talents and learn- ing. Augustus Caesar gave him in marriage, Cleopatra, daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and, conferring upon him the title of king, restored him all those African posses- sions which had belonged to his father. He founded the city of Julia Caesarea (Cherchel), enriched and beautified it, and made it the capital of his kingdom. Many traces of it still remain. During a prosperous reign of forty-five years he occupied himself chiefly with the arts and sciences, and so greatly was he 74 WALKS IN ALGIERS. esteemed, that the Athenians raised statues to him, and his own subjects worshipped him as a deity. Juba wote a history of Rome in Greek, often quoted by ancient writers, but of which only a few fragments remain. He also wrote the history of Arabia and various treatises, now lost, on the drama, painting, grammar, Roman antiquities, the nature of animals, &c. He is called by Plutarch " the greatest historian among kings." He died about a.d. 19, leaving a son, Ptolemy, the last independent prince of the African provinces. After having, in conjunction with the Roman general Dolabella, put down an insurrection of the wilder tribes, Ptolemy was summoned to Rome by the tyrant Caligula, and there put to death, a.d. 40, Caligula being, it is said, not only annoyed at the magnificent state kept by the African prince, but also jealous of his good looks. Mauritania again reverted to Rome, and from this time the history of North-western Africa follows the varying fortunes of the Roman empire. "It is from the period of the next three hundred j'ears that most of the Roman remains in Algeria date." — Murray's Guide. " This period witnessed the greatest development of art on the soil of Africa. The prosperity of the country was at its height; now were built those monuments which twelve centuries of barbarous devastation were not able to efface. Tiberius issued a decree which forbade Africa being chosen as a place of exile, 'for,' said the Emperor, ' those who leave Rome in Italy find a second Rome there.' " — Gaskell. In spite of its prosperity, the country does not seem to have been in a very settled condition, for we hear of con- tinual outbreaks of the Barbarians, of Julia Csesarea being utterly destroyed by Firmus, a rebel Moorish chieftain, and, indeed, of constant tumults. The introduction of Chris- tianity, instead of acting as a soothing influence upon the EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 75 motley population, seems only to have added fresh elements of strife, not alone in the bitterness engendered by heathen persecutions, but in the far more bitter hatred of rival sects and opposing views, among the converts to the new reli- gion. At the same time, the early Church of Africa was dis- tinguished by an extraordinary amount of zeal and learning, and its bishops rank among them, names no less venerable than St. Augustine and St. Cyprian, polemical writers no less celebrated than Tertullian. " Africa, not Rome," says Dean Milman, "gave birth to Latin Christianity." " This whole region, once the scene of Carthaginian greatness, abounded with Christianity in the second century, though of the manner of the introduction of the gospel or of the proceedings of its first planters we have no account." — M Liner's Cliurch History. But Irenseus, in the third century, speaks of the Churches of Libya ; and Tertullian, who wrote some few years later than Irenseus, asserts that the Mauritanians and Gsetulians, " together with hidden unknown tribes, provinces, and islands which could scarcely be numbered, all had heard and received the religion of Christ." Indeed, in a council held at Carthage in a.d. 253, and presided over by St. Cyprian, we hear of no fewer than eighty-seven African bishops being present, besides an equal number of presbyters and deacons. All this time we hear nothing of Icosium, except that it was the seat of a bishopric, and therefore possessing a Christian population. Meanwhile the decline and fall of the Roman empire are preparing. "As the Roman power declined in Africa, the boundary of civilized 76 WALKS IN ALGIERS. manners and cultivated land insensibly contracted ; added to which, the countrj' from the confines of CjTene to the columns of Hercules was distracted with religious discord. The source of the di\-ision was derived from a double election, a.d. 312, in the Church of Carthage, the second in rank and opulence of the ecclesiastical thrones of the West, producing a schism in the Church which lasted in Africa until Christianity itself was extinguished." — Gibbon. The Emperor Constantine having been called on to decide between the rival bishops, Donatus, the rejected candidate, with his followers, constituted themselves a separate sect, and, being subjected to persecution by the orthodox, retired in great numbers to the Atlas Mountains, where they resisted an armed force sent to " convert " them, and spread terror through the country by their frantic fanaticism. The great Roman empire was falling to pieces, borne down by its own weight and the corruption that had spread through every part of it, to its very core. But it was not thus permitted to die of " calm decay." On all sides the Barbarian hordes pressed into it, sweeping away to a great extent the complicated fabric of its civilization in which it gloried, but breathing into its feeble body a new spirit of life and youth. The outlying African provinces were not exempt from the rough discipline to which the rest of the empire was subjected, nor to the demoralization which preceded it. Now comes the romantic and touching episode of the treason and repentance of Count Boniface. Placidia, daughter of Theodosius, whose varj'ing career had found her at one time captive in the Gothic camp, then wife to a Barbarian prince, and now mother of a Roman emperor, ruled the state for her son, Valentinian III. Her BONIFACE. THE VANDALS. 77 two generals and councillors were yEtius, and Boniface governor of Africa, the friend of St. Augustine. Boniface had at all times been faithful to the cause of Placidia. ^tius, who was of Barbaric origin, had more than once entered into negotiations with the Goths and Huns, who were threatening the empire. But being jealous of Boniface, and of the influence he possessed over the mind of his mistress, he accused him of treachery. He secretly persuaded Placidia to recall Boniface from his government, and at the same time advised Boniface to refuse obedience, assuring him that his death was intended. Boniface fell into the trap laid for him. The charge of treachery was utterly groundless, but Placidia, surrounded by a thousand difficulties, beheved it. Boniface was disgraced from his command. Stung with indignation, he committed the crime of which he had been accused, and invited Genseric, chief of the Vandals, from Spain into the African provinces. Genseric did not hesitate to accept the invitation offered him. Having passed like a scourge over France and Spain, he crossed the Mediterranean at the head of eighty thousand men, and entered into possession of the whole northern coast of Africa from Tangiers to Cherchel. Everywhere the persecuted Donatists joined his standard. No sooner was the deed done than the double dealing of -^tius came to light ; and Count Boniface, repenting bitterly, set himself to the task of undoing his own work. But it was easier to invite the Vandal hordes than to be quit of them. They were by no means disposed to give up what they had acquired. A struggle ensued, in the course of which they not only 78 WALKS IN ALGIERS. established themselves firmly on the ground they had hitherto possessed, from the pillars of Hercules to Hippo (Bone), but even in time extended their conquests to Carthage. Hippo, into which city Boniface shut himself, withstood a siege of fourteen months. In this town lay the aged Augustine on his death-bed. He did not live to see the triumph of the Vandal power, but he lived long enough to know that their triumph was inevitable, and that it was his friend and disciple who, in his fit of wild rage, had thus brought destruction on the land. At length, after another battle and another defeat, Boni- face gave up all for lost, and sailed away for Italy. He met his rival and detractor, .^Etius, in single combat, and fell by his hand. The Vandals were Christians, though of the Arian sect, and their occupation of Africa does not seem to have been accompanied with the same terrorism which they exercised in other countries. The inhabitants were permitted to a great extent to retain their possessions, and even their laws and internal administration were respected. Genseric, having established himself firmly on the land, devoted himself to the formation of a fleet, with which he dominated the Mediterranean, conquered Sicily, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles, and, landing on the coast of Italy, carried Rome by assault and sacked it. The power of the Vandals waned with the death of Genseric in 477, and Belisarius, the celebrated Roman general, once more, in 533, restored Africa to the Roman empire and to the orthodox religion. The triumphs of Belisarius were much more sweeping and devastating than those of an ordinary conqueror. He did his utmost to AHAB INVASION. 79 exterminate the Vandalic population, and those who were not destroyed preserved their lives only by flight to the mountain fastnesses. There, in the remote Kabyle tribes, the golden-haired descendants of the fugitive Vandals may yet be traced among their swarthier-skinned brethren. The Roman power never again really flourished in Africa. At one moment the army mutinied, at another the Berber tribes, descending from the mountains, seized the strongholds which the degenerate Romans were too feeble to maintain. In this unsettled condition the country fell an easy prey to the Arabs, who, in the strength of their new faith — a mere handful of men, " with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other " — had already conquered Egypt (641), and were pressing on their victorious course westward. In the caliphate of Osman, son-in-law of the Prophet, Akbah-ben-Nefa, having swept like a torrent through the land, penetrated to the western coast of Africa, his career, though not his ambition, stayed by the prospect of the boundless ocean. Riding his horse into the Atlantic waves, Akbah was found lamenting that he could go no farther " to preach the unity of God." The arguments of his discourse had been powerful and sweeping ones ! After a sharp but short struggle, the impetus of the Mahomedan invasion carried all before it, and the con- quered accepted not only the rule but also the religion of the conquerors. That which the Vandals had spared was shattered by the ruder hands of the followers of the Prophet, and in their wake not only Christianity, but civilization, the arts, knowledge, all disappeared. Unlike the Vandals, they left nothing as they found it. With laws, polity, and 8o WALKS m ALGIERS. religion of their own, fiercely intolerant of any other system, and urged on by an arrogant fanaticism, they passed over the land as destroyers. The Church — the Christian Church of Africa — which had been adorned by the virtues of St. Augustine and sealed by the blood of St. Cyprian, crumbled away at touch of the Moslem scimitar, and its place has known it no more. Indeed, torn as it was by factions, demoralized by schisms, and overladen as it had become with superstitious observances, the Christianity of Africa had left in it very little of life or energy — no front which it could offer to the severe iconoclastic zeal of Islamisni, no answering shout to the war-cry with which half the civilized world rang, and at which it trembled, " There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet." Those whose faith had been dissipated in petty disputes, whose ritual was a modified idolatry, whose liberty of con- science had but resulted in license of morals, had little to oppose to the fervour of a rehgion which, if not true, was strong ; if not pure, was at least purer than that which it sought to displace. The faith of Islam triumphed, and barbarism with it. The only organized and determined resistance that the Arab invaders met with in Africa, came not from the citizens of the Roman empire, not from the descendants of the renowned Carthaginian warriors, but from those half-savage and fiercely independent tribes of Berbers or Kabyles, who, shut up in their mountain fastnesses, and protected by their boundless deserts, had for the most part set the power of imperial Rome at defiance — sheltering fugitives from its justice or tyranny, allying themselves with the heretical THE BERBERS. 8i Donatists, receiving in their midst the defeated Vandals, treating the Roman colonists as friends or foes as the fancy of the moment took them, but through all unsubdued and uncontrollable. As the Roman power declined in Africa, the native influence had gained ground. For instance, the city of Algiers itself, being destroyed by the Vandals, was rebuilt and inhabited at the time of the Mahomedan invasion by a Berber tribe. This is but one example of a state of things which was repeating itself all over the country, and it was the Berbers who, with a patriotism greater than that displayed by the luxurious Greco-Romans, most successfully, and for the longest period, resisted the Arab arms. Now is the time of the somewhat mythical Queen Kaina, prophetess as well as queen, who reigned on Mount Aurbs. Descending upon the coast, she not only defeated the Saracens, but drove them for a time from the country. After their retreat the victorious prophetess, it is said, assembled her chiefs about her, and proposed a measure of strange and savage policy. " Our cities," she said, " and the gold and silver which they contain, attract the cupidity of the Arabs. These vile metals are not the objects of our ambition. We can content ourselves with the simple fruits of the soil. I-et us, then, destroy these cities, bury in their ruins these pernicious treasures, and when the avarice of our foes shall want temptation, they will, perhaps, cease to threaten the tranquillity of our land." The proposal was accepted with applause, and from Tangiers to Tripoli the whole coast was devastated by the patriotic Berbers, the stately groves of palms cut down, the cities destroyed, the G 82 WALKS IN ALGIERS. buildings razed to the ground, the whole fertile country converted into a desert. All this story of Queen Kaina is thought by Gibbon to have more the air of a legend, invented by the Arabs to account for their wholesale devastation of the country, than of history. But it is certain that the Berbers, at this time, came prominently forward in their efforts to stem the tide of the Mahomedan aggression, and almost, if not quite, succeeded. They at least succeeded in maintaining their own inde- pendence, though accepting after a time the religion of the dominant race. Retiring at length to their mountains — such of them as escaped massacre — they bid defiance to their enemies among the snows of the Atlas, unsubdued as ever. In 711, not the Mahomedan Alexander who had regretted the want of more worlds to conquer, but another of his race, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and found a new world for his exploits, and a new scene for his fierce mis- sionary labours in the fruitful land of Spain. Many of the Moors followed the Arabs in this adventurous enterprise, and the African name was given by Europeans to the Eastern invaders. During the next century the provinces of Africa were under the rule of Emirs appointed by the Caliph, and the history of the country becomes only a series of struggles, between the representatives of rival Mahomedan sects and dynasties, which possess but a very small amount of interest. In 944 Ziri, governor of Asshir, one of the provinces of Central Mogreb, built the Arab city of Algiers called El- Djezair, the isles, from four little islands which studded THE MOORS. 83 the port, and which are now covered by the works of the harbour. But under the Arabs, Algiers never rose to be a city of very great importance. It belonged to Tlemgen, then to Bougie, was again made part of the province of Tlemgen, passing successively through various phases of prosperity and decadence. El-Bekri, who visited Algiers in 1067, speaks of it in terms of admiration : — "This ancient and beautiful city can boast of various magnificent monuments of antiquity, and some gateways of very excellent constrac- tion. The harbour is perfectly safe, and has in it a spring of fresh water. There are to be constantly seen here vessels from the different provinces of Africa, from Spain, and other countries." At the end of the thirteenth century another old traveller, El-Abdery, after having admired the site of Algiers, remarks — " This town is deprived of its science as an exUe is separated from his famUy. There is not one man left in it who could make any pre- tension to learning, nor, indeed, an individual who has the least instruction." When the Moors were chased from Spain by Ferdinand the Catholic in 1501, they returned to establish themselves on the coast of Africa, and gave themselves up to piracy. The Spaniards followed them across the Mediterranean, and pushed their advantage so far as to possess themselves of Oran, and even in 15 10 to storm Algiers. They were unable to hold the town, but they established themselves on a small rocky island immediately fronting the harbour, and not much over two hundred yards from the land. Here, Peter Count de Navarre demolished the tower of observation which had been erected by the Arabs, and 84 WALKS IN ALGIERS. built the famous fortress known as La Penon, from the Spanish Fena, a rock, which for twenty years kept the pirates at bay. " The presence of the Spanish ganison in the harbour prevented the Arabs from using their port, and they were compelled to seek a refuge for their vessels on the shore of Bab-el-Oued, near the mouth of a ri\Tilet which gave its name to this portion of the city. For the rest, this result, of which the Spaniards were not a little proud, was only disastrous to the unfortunate Christian slaves, who were compelled to drag the pirate ships up the shelving shore, by the simple force of their arms." — U Algerie. M. Berbrugger. The presence of the Spaniards so near their doors becom- ing intolerable to the Algerines, their Emir, Selem Ben Teumi, called to his aid a famous Turkish corsair, Baba- Ar oudj - Barbar ossa. This adventurer and his brother, Kheir-ed-din, sons of a fisherman of Mitylene, had long been the terror of the Mediterranean, and were now attempting to establish them- selves by seizing one of the seaboard towns. Repulsed at Bougie by the Spaniards, who held possession of that place, they gladly availed themselves of Selem's invitation to aid him in the defence of Algiers. The sequel may easily be imagined. A romantic story is told in connection with Barbarossa's usurpation. The Emir Selem had for wife Zaphira, a Berber princess of great beauty ; and the hope of possessing her, even more than the desire for power, urged the pirate, it is said, to the crime which he committed. The unfortunate Selem was found dead — strangled — in the bath, and Barbarossa, making a great parade of sorrow, was immediately pro- claimed King of Algiers by his pirate followers. Zaphira, though kept as a kind of state prisoner, was BARBAROSSA. 85 treated with the utmost deference. Soon Barbarossa sent messengers to her, proposing marriage. Zaphira returned for answer that while her husband's murder remained unavenged, no other man should claim her. The pirate, anxious to approve himself to the lady, instantly commanded a large reward to be offered for the detection of the murderers, and actually had thirty persons executed in expiation of the crime. Then he addressed himself again to the princess. " What you required is done," he said. " There can be no further barrier to oppose between us." " You, and you alone, are the murderer of my husband ! " was the message returned by the widow. Barbarossa, enraged at this defiance, made his way to the apartments of the Princess, to force her to listen to his suit. Zaphira, on his approach, drank a cup of poison which she had prepared for such an emergency, and fell dead before his face, while the tyrant revenged himself for the loss of his prey, by putting to death all the women who had been her attendants. This story is related by an old traveller and historian, Laugier de Tassy, who even gives the text of the letters which passed between the Princess and the corsair, though he is candid enough to confess, that he cannot altogether vouch for the verbal accuracy of the correspondence ! Barbarossa reigned two years amid bloodshed and rapine like the terrible old tyrant that he was, and was killed in a battle with the Spaniards on the frontier of Morocco in 151 8, fighting bravely to the last. 86 WALKS IN ALGIERS. Kheir-ed-din, his brother, was on the death of Barbarossa made King of Algiers, and he set himself seriously to the task of ousting the Spaniards from that island-fortress, which had been such a grief and mortification to the mur- dered Selem, and had led to his unfortunate invitation to the corsair brothers. Kheir-ed-din sent two young Moors to the fortress, with the story that they were slaves escaped from their masters, begging protection, and desiring to be instructed in the Christian religion. Martin de Vargas, governor of the Penon, received the youths kindly, but observing, some little time afterwards, that they were endeavouring to esta- blish a communication with the shore, he ordered them to be hanged as spies outside the walls of the fortress that faced Algiers. The sight of this punishment raised the irritation of the Algerines to a still higher pitch. Kheir-ed-din resolved on storming the fortress, the more so as he had recently captured a Venetian vessel, which had supplied him both with guns and powder. He summoned the garrison to surrender, and on their refusal began, very much to their surprise, to fire on the fort from the shore, for hitherto the Algerines had possessed no cannon of sufiicient range, to cover the two hundred yards that separated them from the Spaniards. The Spaniards defended themselves heroically, but after a siege of seventeen days were compelled to surrender. Martin de Vargas, the governor, who was seriously wounded during the siege, was cruelly beaten to death by Kheir-ed-din in his palace of the Djenina. It was during the reign of Kheir-ed-din that the works of the harbour were begun, and from this time dates the Turkish supremacy in Northern THE PENON. CHARLES V. 87 Africa. The pirate Prince finding himself threatened, not only by the superior forces of the Spaniards, but by the discontent of the Algerines, placed himself under the pro- tection of the Porte, and surrendered the sovereignty of Algiers to Selim I., Sultan of Turkey, in exchange for a force of two thousand janissaries. He was appointed Pasha, and was afterwards promoted to the rank of high admiral of the Turkish fleet. He conquered Tunis, and gained a great naval victory over the Spaniards in 1538. In 1541 the Emperor Charles V. undertook his memo- rable and disastrous expedition against the Algerine pirates. The invading force consisted of three hundred and sixty vessels, commanded by Andrew Doria, and an army of twenty-four thousand men, with the Emperor himself as general. A bull of the Pope promised plenary indulgence to all those who fought against the infidel, and the ships bore each on the prow, a crucifix as a symbol of the holy cause in which the Spanish arms were embarked. The troops were landed on the eastern side of the Bay of Algiers, and the Spaniards, marching at once to the city, invested it, and encamped themselves in a stronghold on the heights above, which completely dominated it — a strong- hold still known as the " Fort de I'Empereur." The water-supply of the city, which it is to be supposed was still furnished by the old Roman aqueducts, was cut off, and the town generally so thoroughly panic-stricken by the approach of the Spanish army, that it was on the point of capitulating. The Pasha Assam, successor to Kheir-ed-din, had gathered his counsellors together, and all were in a terrible state of perplexity and alarm, when, it is said, a certain fanatical 88 WALKS IN ALGIERS. dervish appeared before the divan, and, urging patience, prophesied that within a short time a great disaster would overtake the Spanish arms, and that God, not man, would be the means of their downfall. Whether prophesied or not, the disaster took place. The following day a tremendous storm coming from the north drove the whole fleet from its insecure moorings, and washed away the entrenchments of the Spaniards, while the violent rain rendered their gunpowder useless. The Algerines now sallying out, attacked them with great fury, and completely cut them in pieces. One hundred and fifty of their ships had been wrecked by the tempest. In those that were left the discomfited Spaniards beat a hasty retreat from the inhospitable shore, leaving one-third of the army either dead or captive in the hands of the Turks, with an enormous quantity of treasure. After this signal victory the insolence of the Algerine pirates knew no bounds. Acknowledged masters of the Mediterranean, they carried on their trade of robbery and violence, not only upon the sea, but on the shores of all the neighbouring and even distant states, defying the united powers of Christendom to check their depredations or to punish their crimes. They proclaimed themselves, and were believed to be, invincible, and the great European nations, hopeless of conquering them, resigned themselves, one after the other, to the shameful expedient of purchasing immunity from their atrocities by the payment of a species of black-mail — an expedient whi:h, it may be imagined, was only very partially successful, and which led to endless complications. CHAPTER VI. CHRISTIAN SLAVERY IN ALGIERS. " Nido Algeri di ladri infame cd empio." Tasso. THE late M. Berbrugger, in his " Algdrie," writes — " The historians of Algiers, when anwng at the unknown period of Turkish domination, where the works of Haedo and Father Dan fail them, have adopted a very convenient means of concealing their ignorance. 'It would be useless,' they aU with remarkable unanimity agi-ee in saying at this particular point, ' to pursue further, these annals of horror and bloodshed ; ' acting on this principle, they quietly skip over a space of a century and a half at least." We venture to follow the example so worthily set us. Up to the beginning of the seventeenth century the kingdom continued to be governed by pashas or viceroys sent from Constantinople, who were continually being changed or murdered, and " concerning whom," says an old historian, " we find nothing very remarkable, further than that their avarice and tyranny were intolerable, both to the Algerines and to the Turks themselves." After this period Algiers was created into a beylik, or semi-independent state, owing, indeed, allegiance to Turkey, but electing its own governor, or bey, and forming with 90 WALKS IN ALGIERS. Other beyliks what were known as the Barbary States, and which were at once the horror and the dread of all Europe. The origin of this name is referred to in rather amusing fashion by certain old writers. "It is said to have been on account of their rude speech and uncouth manners, that the Arabs named these African people Bar- barians and their country Barbary, but, whatever may be the etjTnology of the word, it well consorts with the character of these brutal pirates." — Pierre Dan. Histoire de Barbarie et de ses Corsaires, 1649. Laugier de Tassy, a French traveller, who writes in 1725, takes a more kindly view of the matter. " The kingdom of Algiers makes a part of Barbary in Africa, and it is for this reason that these and the neighbouring peoples are called Barbarians. This word, according to our notions, compre- hends all that is most cruel, unjust, and opposed to religion and nature. Ill-informed people imagine that a native of Barbary must be a kind of African monster, controlled only by instincts such as are possessed by wild beasts, and that it is for this reason that this part of Africa has been called by such a name. But those who take the pains to read the history of many travellers to these countries, wiU convince themselves that there are a number of nations in the world who live in greater ignorance, and are in consequence more savage — approaching, in short, nearer to the brutes, than the inliabitants of Barbary, who are for the most part very ci^ilized. "The origin of the word Barbarj*, according to Marmol, comes from Ber, a desert, in the Arab tongue. John Leon, the old historian, says that the Arabs called the inhabitants of the country by this name, to mark the sound wliich they made in speaking, and which seemed to them an unintelligible jargon, but I do not think this etj-mology would satisfy the reader. I would rather advise that the word was derived from the ancient Roman custom, of calling barbarians all people whose manners were strange to them, and when the arms of Julius Caesar and Augustus conquered that part of Africa which was called Mauritania, the country was named by them Barbary, because the people who inhabited it, were the most unci^lized whom the Romans had ever yet seen." — Laugier de Tas<.y. Histoire d' Alger, 1725 [old translation). The history of the Turkish rule in Algiers is, in truth, UNDER THE TURKS. 91 little but a catalogue of crimes, which become wearisome by their sameness. We tire of the perpetual changes of equally worthless pashas and deys, of intrigues, treachery, and murders, and can scarcely rouse ourselves to pity or indig- nation, when we hear of three of these tyrants being elected to power and assassinated all in one day. We seem grateful to be rid of so many at once, but hydra-headed they spring up again and again for our discomfiture. The dey, at last, from being an absolute tyrant, sinks into the position of tool or puppet, continually set up and knocked down by the janissaries, or Turkish soldiers, in whose hands all the real power of the state lies. " The city is strongly fortified and garrisoned by the janissaries. Of these there are six thousand, who absolutely govern the Idngdom, recognising no authority, and putting their Bashaw in prison if he dis- pleases them. They are almost all men without faith, conscience, or religion, collected from all the states of Turkey and Christendom, and banished or fugitive from their own countries for the enormity of their crimes. They are shaven all but the moustache, splendidly armed, and handsomely dressed." — -Voyages de M. de Breve, 1605. " The Bashaw, the chief governor of all, admits a kind of subjection to the Grand Seignor in words, but makes little account of his orders. The soldiery is more dreadful to him than the Grand Seignor; accord- ingly his greatest work is to see them punctually paid at every new moon, for if he delays the money three hours after it is due, he is in danger of being strangled, or at least cast into prison." — Relation de la Captivite du Sieur Emanuele d'' Aranda, 1665 {old translation). " Although the election of the Dey is, according to the principles of the Regency, vested in the Divan, it is usually the result of the intrigues of a predominant faction amongst the janissaries, and is generally a sanguinary tragedy. A dey is murdered to make room for some more fortunate adventurer ; his immediate friends and adherents perish, or are plundered or exiled, and the public business or tran- quiUity is not interrupted beyond twenty-four hours. These revolutions succeed each other with a rapidity, which can hardly be credited by those who are unacquainted with the barbarous character and manners of the Turks. A Dey of Algiers, while alive, is the most despotic and implicitly obeyed monarch on earth ; but his reign is always precarious, 92 WALKS IN ALGIERS. and it is by jnere accident if he dies a natural death. Neither can a person elected, refuse or resign the honour of ruling in Algiers ; lie must either reign or perish." — Skater's Sketches of Algiers, 1816. Uninstructive and unamusing, however, as the internal history of Algiers may be during all this time, its connec- tion with the outer world has for us a most sad and thrilling interest, since for a period of nearly five hundred years, this unimportant little spot of African coast, was the scene of the most extraordinary outrage and tyranny ever suffered by modern nations. When we read that there were at one time forty thousand Christians in slavery in Algiers, all prizes, captured in piratical expeditions ; that the pirate fleet consisted of three thousand sail ; that during one space of six years, from 1674 — 80, three hundred and fifty English ships alone were seized by the Algerines, and no less than six thousand English subjects sold into slavery, or ransomed only at exorbitant prices ; when we hear that some of these unfortunate persons languished for scores of years in their miserable captivity, subjected to the most cruel treatment, suffering hardships inconceivable, starvation, and blows ; when we find that among the number of these unhappy slaves were many men of rank and influence, and of all the nations of Europe ; when we consider that the insult and injury thus suftered by Christendom were inflicted by a small and semi-barbarous state, without revenue save what was taken in piratical enterprise, possessing but a handful of troops, and they foreign mercenaries — we are filled with astonishment that so great an anomaly should have been permitted in the civilized world, such terrors suff"ered by the great maritime powers of Europe, not for five hundred, but for fifty years ! CHRISTIAN SLAVERY. 93 Added to which, it was admitted by all who visited Algiers that the defences of the pirate city were by no means impregnable. " In this piratical city the miseries of slavery have consumed the lives of six hundred thousand Christians since the year 1536, at which time Chereddin Barbarossa brought it under his own power, but it is hard to imagine why its government being so ill-administered could endure so long, making that hole dreadful to all Europe, since its strength, situa- tion, and fortresses are by no means considerable." — History of Algiers. Emanuele d'Aranda, 1665. " The walls of the city are partly of brick and partly of stone, with square turrets, and there are numerous fortresses, but the city could never defend itself on the land side, because there are a number of hills and mountains all round it, from which it could easily be battered do%vn." — Dart's Histoire de Barbarie, 1649. "The walls are weak and of little defence, unless where they are further secured by some additional fortifications. A ditch formerly sur- rounded the whole city to the landward side, which is at present almost entirely filled up except at the south and west gates. "Towards the sea it is better fortified. The battery of the mole gate upon the east angle of the city is mounted with several long pieces of ordnance, but as none of the fortresses are assisted with either mines or outworks, and as the soldiery cannot be kept up to any regular course of duty, a few resolute battalions protected by a small squadron of ships, might soon make themselves masters of the place."- — Dr. Shaw's Travels, 1 7 20 — 30. Yet though various expeditions were undertaken by the different naval powers against the Barbary States, and though the condition of the Christian slaves kept captive by the corsairs, was felt to be a crying evil and scandal, very little was effected. Spain seems to have been specially unfortunate in her chivalrous enterprises against her piratical neighbours over the sea, for we read, as a sequel to the unfortunate expedi- tion of Charles V., " In the year 1601 the Spaniards, under the command of Doria, the Genoese admiral, made another 94 WALKS IN ALGIERS. attempt on Algiers, in which they were more fortunate than usual, being only driven back by contrary winds, so that they came off without loss." The French, the Dutch, the Venetians, and the English were engaged in constant petty warfare with the pirate fleets, but, as a rule, their achievements were not very striking. Here and there " a great and glorious victory " was announced over the common enemy — such, for instance, as Admiral Blake's celebrated attack on Tunis in 1655, or the bombardment of Algiers by Du Quesne in 1682 — but the results of these triumphs were neither lasting nor satisfactory. A year or two after some such signal defeat, the pirate galleys were sweeping the seas with renewed force and vigour, carrying terroi and destruction wherever they went, making sudden descents upon peaceful seaboard villages in the dead of the night, harrying the helpless inhabitants, and threatening every traveller with a fate more terrible than death. " Those who have never been at Algiers and witnessed the fate to which Christians falling into the hands of the Barbarians are con- demned, cannot form any idea of that greatest calamity which fortune has in store for humanity, or into what an abyss of sorrow and wretchedness their feUow-creatures thus situated have been plunged." — PanantPs Narration, 1 8 14. A description of the life of these unfortunate captives is thus given by this writer, who was himself captured by the pirates in the year 181 3 : — " No sooner is any one declared a slave than he is instantly stripped of his clothes and covered with a species of sackcloth. He is also generally left without shoes or stockings, and often obhged to work bareheaded in the scorching rays of an African sun. CHRISTIAN SLAVERY. 95 " Some of these wietched beings are destined to make ropes and sails ior the squadron. These are superintended by keepers, who carry- whips and constantly extort money from their victims, as the price of a somewhat less rigour in the execution of their duty. Others belong to the Dey's household, and many are employed by the rich IMoors who may have bought them at market, in the lowest drudgery of domestic employment. Some, like the beasts of burden, are employed in carrying stones and wood for any public buildings that may be going on. These are usually in chains, and justly considered as the most unfortunate among their oppressed brethren. What a perpetuity of ten-ors and series of painful and monotonous days must not theirs be, without a bed to lie on, raiment to cover them, or food to support nature ! "Awoke at daylight in the prison where they are shut up at night, they are sent to work with the most abusive threats, and sink under the weight and severity of their keepers' whips. Made to sink wells and clean sewers, yoked with the ass and the mule, hundieds die miserably every year. The slightest offence is punished with two hundred blows on the feet or back, and when exhausted or sick, the wretched sufferers are abandoned like dogs by the roadside." Pananti relates the case of a poor ragged old man, whom he saw sinkmg under the weight of a heavy burden he was too feeble to carry further : — " ' Poor Christians ! ' he cried ; ' there is no help for them. Their groans are not heard in heaven. I was bom in Naples. I was noble, rich, and illustrious ; see how slavery can change the face and form. It is now eleven years since my sufferings began. I am forgotten by all the world.' " This was only one case among hundreds. Mrs. Brough- ton, daughter of the English consul at Algiers at the begin- ning of this century, and who writes of her " S'x Years' Residence " there, says — "It was pitiful to go to the Marina. The poor slaves would gather round us, and, kissing the hem of our gannents, would throw themselves at our feet, when our janissary or dragoman would beat and knock them out of our path, despite of all our orders to the contrary." 96 WALKS IN ALGIERS. This, too, was in the days when the Algerine power was beginning to dedine, and the presence of the English consul was felt to be a terror and wholesome restraint, even by the iniquitous Government of the Dey. The greater number of slaves were at this time Italian and Portuguese. Mrs. Broughton writes — " !My father successfully negotiated for the release of five hundred and eighty-four Portuguese slaves, some of whom had been in captivity over thirty years. But on making peace with Portugal the Dey immediately declared war against America b}' way of indemnity. ' For,' said the Dey, ' if we had not some nation to cruise against we should be ruined.' " The following is a description given of the bagno, or state prison of the slaves, by Captain Croker, R.N., who visited Algiers in 1815 : — "This frightful prison is to be found in one of the narrowest lanes of Algiers. A little square court at the entrance alone affords air and light to the captives. Their daily food consists of two black loaves of half a pound weight each, and those who work are allowed, in addition, ten oKves. But as no work is done on Friday, the Sabbath of the Turks, these unfortunate people are shut up all through that day, and no provision whatever is made for their sustenance by the Algerine Government, but water. Happily the chant}' of a Turk supplements this. This humane man, who had in his youth himself the misfortune to be a slave, has left some mone)- by which every Friday one loaf is supphed to each prisoner. It is worthj- of remark that it is a Mahomedan, an Algerine, who has thus mitigated the sufferings of the unhappy captives, and the Power which keeps them in slaver}', tjTannical as it is, concerns itself as to the faithful execution of this beneficent bequest." Still to quote Captain Croker : — " From the court I went up a stone staircase into a galler)-, from which led a number of dark rooms, the doors and windows of which were strongly secured by irons. Two of these chambers contained twenty-four beds or hammocks suspended one over the other, and SUFFERINGS OF THE SLAVES. 97 formed of some branches of trees interlaced. Miserable as these beds were, they could not be had without payment. " The atmosphere of the place was so impure, and the stench so repulsive, that one of the persons who accompanied me was taken ill immediately upon entering." This was the home of the slaves belonging to the Day, who were, for the most part, employed in the public works, in the harbour, fortifications, &c. The Dey claimed the eighth part of every prize captured, and chose his slaves, taking those whom he believed to be of highest rank, and who would therefore pay handsomely for their ransom. The rest were sold at a public market in the city. The following is the account given of some of his suffer- ings by le Sieur Emanuele d'Aranda, a Flemish gentleman, who with two other friends was captured by the pirates in the year 1642. He was sold in the public market. " A certain old man with a stick in his hand," he writes, " took me by the arm and led me several times up and down the market place, and those who were desirous to buy me asked me my name, countiy, and profession. They examined my hands to see if they were hard and brawny by working, and caused me to open my mouth to see whether my teeth were able to overcome biscuit in the gaUeys. Then they caused us all to sit down, and the old man took the first and led him three or four times up and down the market, crying out arrache arrache, that is to say, who offers most The first being sold was set on one side of the market, and another was served after the same manner. I learned that I was bought by a rich pirate named Ali Pelegin." — Old translation. The fate of the Christian slaves bought by private indi- viduals, was often very much less terrible than that of the unfortunate state captives, who were condemned to labour at the public works. H WALKS IN ALGIERS. As a rule, it was to the master's interest to treat his slave with a certain amount of consideration, so that, at least, his health should not fail him, and often he acquired the position of a valued and trusted servant ; but the treatment experienced by the unhappy slaves of Ali Pelegin seems to have been inconceivably cruel. This man, who possessed between five and six hundred slaves, did not feel himself bound to provide in any way for their support, not even the pitiful black loaves supplied to the galley-slaves by the State. Instead, he gave them each day, three hours' exemp- tion from labour, during which time they were permitted to work or steal for themselves. They practised various trades, and followed all kinds of small occupations, for the sake of earning a few coppers, but many, we are assured, died of absolute star\^ation, and by far the greater number supported themselves entirely by thieving, M. d'Aranda writes — " Finding that we were to work every day, yet not have a piece of bread from the patron, and because we had not confidence and abiUty enough to steal — for that profession requires practice, especially in a countn- where there are so many thieves, and consequent!}- people are more distrustful — the Knight de Cherf, M. Calouen, and I resolved to go to an Itahan Jew merchant, named Francesco Capate, resident at Algiers, and to receive of him sevent}--five patagoons, condition- ally that he should be paid one hundred at Antwerp." — Old translation. Monsieur d'Aranda and his friends, though men of wealth and position, were careful to conceal their names and rank, for fear of exciting the rapacity of the pirates. It appears from his account that at this time, at least, the amount of ransom was the chief point considered by the corsairs, and certain renegade European slaves were in the habit of visiting the captives on their arrival in Algiers, and, under SUFFERINGS OF THE SLAVES. 99 pretence of sympathizing with them, would extract from them the secret, of how much their friends might be willing to give, or contribute for their release. Monsieur d'Aranda gives a touching account of the sufferings he underwent in the bagno, or slave prison, of Ali Pelegin : — " In the morning we were roused from our miserable rest on the bare stones by the keepers, who assailed us with abuse. ' Get up, you dogs! Come down, you scoundrels ! ' — this was our morning salutation. We were then marched away in gangs to work, accompanied by guardians provided with whips and cudgels. We were set to the hardest work — rope-making, delving, corn-grinding, and carrying. " When the wheat was pounded it was put into bags to be carried up forty steps into the granary. " On one occasion, by misfortune, there fell a little of it on the ground, which the guardian, taking note of, said to me, Pilla esse cane, that is, ' Take it up, you dog ; ' but I not understanding, he gave me three or four blows with a cudgel over the back, which caused the blood almost to gush out, for I had nothing about me but my shu-t. The wheat being put into bags, he gave me a load to cany, but I had hardly gone four or five steps so laden, ere the bag, for want of strength, began to slip down my head, so that the guardian was forced to be so kind as to help it up again, but in requital for his assistance he gave me tliree or four blows over the face with his fist. "Henceforth, on account of my weakness, and in consideration of four ryals a month, I was put to lighter labour, such as carrying pots of water for the guardian's wife. I was extremely pleased with this new emplojTnent. She was a negress, but a very good-natured person, and sometimes gave me a piece of bread or a mess of pottage." — Old translation. Pananti, in his " Narration," gives a very sad account of the moral condition of the unhappy captives : — "A slave after awhile begins even to despise himself. The soul is often purified in the crucible of adversity, but in the state of slavery there is something so abject and forlorn, that it destroys courage and quenches all the fire of generous sentiments, depriving its victim at once of mind and dignity. Sonow vitiates the heart when it breaks the spirit ; virtue is weakened or even extinguished. Religion, too, lOO WALKS IN ALGIERS. that column of heaven to which we cling when all around us totters, ceases to afford consolation to ;he heart which is ulcerated; those who come to regard themselves as utterly abandoned upon earth, no longer look to heaven for consolation, and in their relations with their fellow- men, instead of uniting for mutual help, hatred and enmity embitter their distress. For he who has suffered from man's inhumanity to man, feels that the streams of pity are dried up within him." Laugier de Tassy, who takes a much more favourable view of the treatment experienced by the slaves than other writers, is loud in proclaiming their demoralization. He says — "It is rare to find slaves who are not addicted to ever}- species of ^^ce, and it is generally their own vicious and bad conduct which causes them to be hardly treated." M. d'Aranda speaks of the drunkenness, the constant robberies, and savage fights which went on in the bagno among the slaves — fights which sometimes the guardians would put an end to, by shooting promiscuously among the combatants. This seems the climax of all horrors. The notion of these poor oppressed outcasts preying upon and maltreating one another, expending upon their weaker companions in misfortune, the violence of the passions, which their own sufferings had aroused ! Happily there is a reverse to this sad picture. Dark as was the atmosphere in which they existed, the surround- ing gloom seemed only to make the radiance of some pure and holy lives shine with a greater lustre, and the slaves' prison-house of Algiers, foul den though it was, has witnessed some of the noblest deeds of self-devotion, and been the home of some of the grandest souls that ever looked to heaven for help and guidance. SPANISH MISSIONARIES. lOI Foremost, perhaps, in the noble band stand those devoted servants of God, who for the sake of ministering to the spiritual wants of the unhappy captives, were found willing to abandon country, friends, and all the blessings of civiliza- tion, and to share voluntarily the fate which was justly considered the most terrible which could befall a Christian man. There were many such, who through long years thus suffered all the horrors and hardships of slavery, for the sake of the Master they served, and the people among whom they ministered. The devoted Capuchin, who sacrificed his life's liberty in order to procure a last resting-place for his suffering brethren (page 232), was not alone in his good work ; and to the honour of the Spanish priesthood be it said, that it was they who led the van in this chivalrous enterprise. They, whose burning zeal too often led them into fierce excesses and persecutions, here found a legitimate and grand field of occupation ; and the same qualities possibly, which in power made them intolerant and oppressive, enabled them to endure without murmuring, the hardships and miseries to which their mission condemned them. From the proximity of Spain to Algeria, a vast number of the slaves were naturally belonging to that country, and from a very early time the ministrations of the Spanish priests began. A society was formed called the Fathers of the Redemp- tion, the members of which body not only travelled through- out Christendom, collecting alms for the ransom of the captives, but also performed the far more arduous and painful duties, of a life spent among these scenes of suffering and horror. I02 WALKS IN ALGIERS. The Mahomedans, religious after their light themselves, seem to have made no objection to the work of the Fathers among the Christian slaves, and even permitted a room to be appropriated for the purpose of a church, in the bagno. As a rule, except in the case of very young captives, little attempt was made at proselytizing by the Turks. The female captives were most subjected to this, and though there are many instances on record of noble constancy under persecution, it is certain that many of the unhappy women captured by the pirates, were induced to embrace Islamism, for the sake of being treated by their captors with greater respect and consideration. A certain number of the Christian male slaves also became renegades, and rose to high offices in the State, more than one having attained the somewhat unenviable position of Dey ; but, except in rare cases, these defections were rather from self-interest than from compulsion, since as no Mahomedan was allowed to work at the galleys or other laborious employments, it was rather to the interest of the Turks that their slaves should remain Christians ; indeed, M. d'Aranda relates the curious case of a renegade, who was beaten back into Christianity by his indignant owner ! The good Fathers of the Redemption did not confine their care to the souls of the slaves ; they had some regard to their bodily sufferings, and established a hospital for them at Algiers, where they generously received and tended, as far as they were able, the sick of all Christian nations, and where, after awhile, the Turkish masters would send their slaves during illness, paying a small weekly sum towards their maintenance, instead of permitting them to die like REDEMPTION OF SLAVES. 103 dogs by the wayside. It is to be feared that they were more urged to this course by interest than by humanity, but in any case the result was good. When a sufficient sum had been collected for the redemption of the captives, certain priests would come over to Africa to negotiate as to the ransom. It was in this way that the historian. Father Pierre Dan, made his voyage to Algiers. The rule was to redeem first the children and women, as being most likely to be perverted from the faith ; next the younger captives, and the remainder by lot. It was on these occasions that many a noble act of self-abnegation was performed, more worthy even of being remembered in history than the celebrated, " Your need is worse than mine," of Sir Philip Sidney. " You have a wife and children; take my place." " You have aged parents longing for your return; I have none whose heart is breaking at my absence ; go instead of me." Incidents such as these were by no means of uncommon occurrence, even among those wretched beings in whom slavery might well have extinguished all gene- rous feeling. Many such grand acts of self-devotion have been recorded ; many such exchanges were accepted, always with a fervent promise of ransom on the part of the liberated towards the liberator — a promise which was, it is to be feared, too often forgotten as soon as the dreaded shores of Africa were lost to sight, though several notable instances of gratitude, and honourable per- formance of pledged word in such cases, are cited by M. d'Aranda. In particular, the case of a Spanish fisher man, who, being released by his master, a Spanish renegade, on condition of paying a certain amount of ransom within a 104 WALKS IN ALGIERS. given number of years, actually at the end of that time came himself to Algiers with the money, to procure which he had parted with almost all that he possessed. Even among the renegades, whom one is naturally dis- posed to consider with aversion and contempt, and who were often far more cruel and debased than the Turks them- selves, were to be found ocrasionally instances of kindly and humane feeling. M. d'Aranda relates — " The guardian pacha (of the slaves) was a Spanish renegade, named Amet, who, though in the presence of the Turks he would flourish his whip and speak roughly to the Christians, would never so much as touch one of them, and would whisper them not to mind his threats, as he only used them to avoid suspicion." The English, from time to time, like other nations, organized expeditions for the ransoming of their countrymen fallen into slavery in the Barbary States. Indeed, the Fish- mongers' Company has still a fund which was left by a charitable member of the guild for this purpose. In 1646, amid the troubles of Charles I. and his Parlia- ment, we hear that " a ship of strength, called the Charles^^ was sent over to Algiers with a gargasoon of money and goods, under command of one E. Cason, to negotiate with the Dey for the release of British subjects. By favour, the market price of the slaves was accepted by the Algerine potentate, and at this time two hundred and forty-four men, women, and children were redeemed and sent home, leaving another five hundred yet to be ransomed. The women, of whom there were a good many, seem to have been accounted the most valuable, since they and the children cost on an average ^^50 a head. Next to REDEMPTION OF SLAVES. them came the skilled workmen, carpenters, and navigators, together with the chirurgiens, who were redeemed at ^38 each. In all these negotiations for ransom, the Jews of Algiers had a hand as intermediaries, and managed, we are con- stantly informed, " to cheat both sides." But there seemed to be no way of dispensing with their dishonest services. In 1655 Admiral Blake, after destroying the pirate fleet, demanded and obtained at a certain fixed price the release of every British subject in slavery in Algiers, but the prestige thus acquired by the English name does not appear to have been of long avail. On the restoration of Charles II., a petition was presented to Parliament, concerning the " lamentable condition of one thousand five hundred British subjects, at this time suffering and undergoing most miserable slavery in the piratical city of Algiers," with a moving relation of the cruelties endured by them, accompanied by a prayer for the revival of an old tax, formerly applied to the purpose of redeeming such unfortunate persons. In 1661 Lord Sand- wich being sent by Charles II., to bring the Queen from Portugal, was, at the same time, directed to settle the disputes with Algiers. In this he was not successful, for Pepys in his " Diary" observes — " The business of Algiers hath of late troubled me, because my lord hath not done what he went for, though he did as much as any man in the world could have done." And later he mentions, that in 1662 letters came from "my lord "— " That by a great storm and tempest the whole of Algiers is broken I06 WALKS IN ALGIERS. down, and many of their ships sunk into the Mole, so that God Almighty hath ended that unlucky business for us, which is veiy good news." Pepys also tells us how he went to the Fleece Tavern to drink, and did remain till four o'clock hearing stories of Algiers, and the manner of life of slaves there, and how certain gentlemen — one of them father of the Archbishop of York — who had been slaves — "Did make him fully acquainted with their condition, how they did eat nothing but bread and water, and how they were beat upon the soles of their feet and their bellies, at the liberty of their patron." During the next few years continual outbreaks occurred between the English and Algerian Governments, in the course of which many thousands of British subjects were taken as slaves by the pirate cruisers, with little hope of redemption. In April, 1682, peace was at length made, and a treaty signed by Charles II., perhaps as disgraceful to English liberties as any ever concluded by Great Britain. In the treaty was a clause that — " The King of Great Britain shall not be obliged to redeem any of his subjects now in slavery, but it shall depend absolutely upon his Majesty or the friends or the relations of the said persons in slaver)^ to redeem such as shall be thought fit, agreeing to as reasonable a price as may be with their patrons or masters, for their redemption, -without obliging the said patrons against their will to set any at liberty.''^ This treaty, which recognised the slavery of British sub- jects without even the power of redemption, was renewed by James II. in 1686, and even by George II. in 1729. The only power which at this time made any stand against the tyranny and rapacity of the Barbarj' States was France. FRENCH ATTACKS ON ALGIERS. 107 In 1662 and 1663 Algiers was bombarded and set on fire by the French admiral Du Quesne, in revenge for which Mezzo Morto, the Dey and a renegade, caused the consul and twenty other Frenchmen to be blown away from a great gun on the Mole, their remains being scattered over the decks of the French ships. The gun which Avas the instrument of this horrible revenge is now at Brest, on the Place d'Armes. After doing in his turn as much damage as he could to the town and shipping, Du Quesne was forced to retire, and a peace was subsequently concluded. In 1688 the town was again bombarded by the French under the Due d'Estrees, and at this time the consul and forty Frenchmen were in the same way blown from the cannon's mouth. During the next hundred years Algiers was constantly at war with one European state and another, and in spite of continual internal dissensions, and conse- quent perpetual changes of Government, in spite of earth- quakes and constant ravages of plague — which in one year (1702) is said to have destroyed upwards of forty thousand persons in the city of Algiers alone — the pretensions and the successes of the Algerine arms continued, and one after another the great Powers of Christendom were led to con- clude the most humiliating terms of peace with their Barba- rian opponents, Venice, Spain, Holland, Portugal, Den- mark, Naples, and the United States becoming actually tributary, while the capture of Christian slaves went on with unabated vigour. Great Britain at length had the glory of putting an end to an outrage under which Europe had groaned for cen- turies. As soon as the termination of the Continental war allowed io8 WALKS IN ALGIERS. leisure to attend to this long-desired object, a squadron was sent to Algiers under Lord Exmouth, who was instructed to require, that all the European captives in the Algerine territory should be given up under payment of a fixed sum, and that this nefarious system should be abolished. The Algerines in presence of the English fleet agreed to these terms, but hardly had Lord Exmouth set sail, before the treaty was violated in the most open manner, by the mas- sacre of a large body of Neapolitan coral-fishers at Bone. The British Government, exasperated at this fresh outrage, determined to inflict a severe chastisement on the pirates, and to put an end for ever to the disgraceful traffic in Christian flesh and blood. On the 27th of August, 1816, Lord Exmouth, with a fleet of five ships of the line, three large and two small frigates, four bomb-ships, and five gun-brigs, arrived before Algiers. He was accompanied by a Dutch squadron of five frigates and a corvette, which he had encountered unexpectedly at Gibraltar. A flag of truce was sent on shore to demand from the Dey, reparation for the late infringement of the treaty, and the surrender of the whole of the Christian slaves in Algiers without ransom or con- dition, as well as the release of the English consul, who on the appearance of the fleet had been put in irons. Two hours were given for an answer to this demand. None being received, the English fleet bore up, each vessel proceeding to take its appointed station in front of, and very near to, a most formidable range of double bat- teries. Indeed, the whole harbour was at this time one great fortress bristling with artillery, and the attack of the fleet was one of the most daring to be found in our naval BOMBARDMENT OF ALGIERS. 109 history. The flag-ship Qiieen Charlotte was anchored not fifty yards from the Mole head ; so near, indeed, that the faces of the people crowding the Mole as mere spectators could be seen. When a shot was fired from the harbour battery at the admiral's ship, and the Qtieeii Charlotte was preparing to reply, Lord Exmouth frantically waved his hat to warn the foolhardy sight-seers from the Mole ; but the signal not being understood or attended to, the first broadside, we are told, " swept off hundreds of them." " Then commenced as animated and well-supported a fire as I believe was ever witnessed, from a quarter to tliree tiU nine in the evening, and not altogether ceasing till half-past eleven at night." — Lord Exmouth' s Despatch. The flotilla of mortar, gun, and rocket-boats was ably conducted, and by means of it, all the ships in the port were set on fire, which spread rapidly over the whole arsenal and storehouses. "The burning of the enemy's ships so near the British fleet, occasioned," says Lord Exmouth, " several anxious moments," but in the end the Algerine batteries were effectually silenced, the whole, according to the official despatch, being accomplished with the most perfect dignity and silence. " Such a thing as a cheer I never heard on any part of the line," writes the admiral ; " and that the guns were well directed will be seen for many years to come, and remembered by these Barbarians for ever." In the English fleet were one hun- dred and twenty-eight killed, and six hundred and ninety wounded. The next morning the Dey accepted the con- ditions previously imposed by the British admiral, viz. the surrender of all Christian slaves and the cessation of Chris- tian slavery, the refunding of all the money paid by the no WALK'S IN ALGIERS. Italian Governments of Naples and Sardinia, for the redemp- tion of their slaves during the current year, and reparation and public apology to the British consul. These demands being complied with, Lord Exmouth was preparing to sail away, when he was informed that two Spaniards were still retained by the Dey on the pretence that they were prisoners for debt. He at once prepared to renew the attack on Algiers. Alarmed by the threat, the Dey surrendered the two men, and thus Lord Exmouth had the satisfaction of declaring, that he left in Algiers no Chris- tian soul in captivity. The following are the terms of the treaty, which was obtained from the Algerine Government by means of Lord Exmouth's vigorous persuasions : — "In consideration of the deep interest manifested by H.R.H. the Prince Regent of England for the termination of Christian slavery, his Higlmess the Dey of Algiers, in token of his sincere desire to maintain inviolable liis friendly relations with Great Britain, and to manifest his amicable disposition and high respect towards the Powers of Europe, declares that, in the event of future wars with any European Power, not any of the prisoners shall be consigned to slavery, but treated with all humanity as prisoners of war until regu- larly exchanged, according to European practice in like cases, and at the termination of hostilities they shall be restored to their respective countries without ransom ; and the practice of condemning Chiistian prisoners of war to slavery is hereby formally and for ever renounced. "Done in duplicate, in the warhlie city of Algiers, in the presence of Almighty God, the 28th day of August in the year of Jesus Christ, 1 816, and in the year of the Hegira 1231, and the 6th day of the moon Shawal." Mr. Shaler, American consul in Algiers at this time, has these " minutes " of the battle, as recorded from his own house in the city : — " On the morning of the 27th of August, 1816, the weather BOMBARDMENT OF ALGIERS. Ill being remarlvably fine and temperate, the atmosphere only shghtly agitated by the breath of zephjTS scarcely perceptible, the whole western horizon, as seen from this house, is covered with vessels of war of various classes and sizes, from the terrible three-decker, down to the insignificant gunboat. The proximity of this fleet was announced last evening by alarm guns, and they appear to be approaching under the influence of a cun-ent. At eleven o'clock the breeze freshens a little, and a frigate is detached from the fleet, stands near in with the marine batteries under a flag of truce, and sends a boat on shore. This frigate maintains her position, with a flag of truce fljing, until about one o'clock. In the meantime the fleet concentrates in the bay in apparent readiness for action. On the flag being hauled down on board of the frigate, many signals are seen flying in the fleet, and six frigates under the Dutch flag are formed in a separate close line of battle ahead. A French coiTCtte that was lying in the bay, on the appearance of the combined fleets this morning, left her anchorage and stretched out amongst them. At forty-five minutes past one, four bomb vessels take their positions opposite the city, at distances hardly exceeding a mile from the principal marine batteries. At a quarter-past two, many signals are seen fljang, and the manoeuvres of the fleet indicate the intention of taking positions of attack. At half-past two p.m., the British admiral in the Queen Charlotte, of one hundred and twenty guns, fills away with a moderate breeze from the north, and leads in, in majestic style, followed by two ships of seventy-four, one of ninety- eight, and another of seventy-four guns ; the frigates stand in promis- cuously, with the apparent intention of taking allotted stations, and the Dutch squadron follows in regular line of battle. A few minutes before three the British admiral passes out of sight of this position, and to appearance almost brushing the formidable line of marine batteries with his yards. At this moment two seventy-four gun-ships take their positions at distances apparently not beyond pistol-sliot, and at the same time the Impregnable, of ninety-eight guns, with a rear-admiral's flag, though at much greater distance ; obviously an error. At this time the fleet has passed out of sight of this position, except the three last mentioned and several sloops and small craft, which keep manoeuvring imder sail, without apparent intention to anchor. At exactly three o'clock a gun is fired by the Algerines upon the British admiral, and the battle instantly becomes general. At twenty minutes past three the fire of the marine batteries appears to be silenced, and hundreds of fugitives from them are seen fljing along the seashore, under the walls of this house, where many of them are mowed down by the fire of the Impregnable. The cannonade endures with great fury on the part of 112 WALKS IN ALGIERS. the British, and is returned with constancy from tlie batteries in this quarter. At five o'clock the fire of the marine batteries is renewed, and continued at intern als. At half-past seven the shipping in the port is discovered to be on fire. At eight o'clock the consul is informed that the British consul has been taken from his house by an armed band, and confined in hea\y chains in the common prison for criminals. At half-past eight the cannonade endures. The upper part of this house is apparently in ruins ; five shells have burst within its walls. At nine the fire begins to slacken on both sides. At eleven the growling of cannon is only heard at long internals. At midnight, from the terrace of this house, everything in the port appears to be in flames^ and two wTecks on fire are drifting out. The spectacle at this moment is peculiarly grand and sublime. A black thunderstorm is rising, probably an effect of the long cannonade ; its ^^vid lightning discovers- the hostile fleets retiring with the land breeze, and paints them in strong relief on the deep obscurity of the horizon. Shells and rockets occasionally streaming across the horizon, and discharges of cannon from ships still within reach, proclaim an enemy fatigued, exhausted, but not vanquished ; while the Algerines, by discharges of cannon at intervals from a line of batteries more than three mUes in extent, lay claim to the same honours. The morning of the 28th discovers that the Algerines are unable to make way further resistance, while the combined fleets appear to be in a state to renew the battle. In the course of the day the former acknowledge themselves vanquished, by accepting the humi- liating terms of peace offered to them by the \ictors." CHAPTER VII. THE FRENCH IN ALGIERS. " Alger, ton role est beau si tu sais le savoir." THE following are the dates of the Deys who ruled in Algiers during the early part of this century, two or three only being omitted from the list, whose reign lasted only a few weeks. They were all assassinated with the exception of Ali Khodja, who died of the plague, and Hussein, deposed and exiled by the French : — 1799 Mustaplia. 1805 Ahmed. 1809 Hadji Ali. 1815 Omar. 1817 Ali IChodja. 1818 to 1830 . . Hussein. The signal chastisement inflicted by Lord Exmouth on Algiers, though it had one grand result — viz. that Christian slavery as an acknowledged institution, was for ever put an end to — by no means fulfilled all the hopes which Europe had based upon it. Reduced almost to a state of ruin by the destruction of their capital, and by the confiscation of their chief source of revenue, the Algerine pirates lost no time in showing I 114 WALKS IN ALGIERS. that their late defeat had by no means deprived them of their ancient spirit or audacity. The Dey Omar made a moving appeal to his co- religionists, the Sultans of Turkey and Morocco, which was warmly responded to ; and though the unfortunate Dey paid in his own person the penalty of his defeat, before the year was out not only was Algiers rebuilt, but the Algerine fleet was once more sweeping the seas, threatening the commerce of the world, and ravaging as of old, the coasts of Spain and Italy. At the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1818, the means were discussed of putting an end to this disgraceful state of affairs. The plenipotentiaries of Eng- land and France were asked, that their Governments should make a formal protest to the Barbary States on the subject, to " warn them that the certain effect of their persistence in systematic hostility to pacific commerce, would be to draw upon them a league of all European States, on the consequences of which it would be well for the Barbary States to reflect in time." At this time Sweden, Holland, Spain and Sicily were all under tribute to the Dey of Algiers, and even France con- sented to pay a large sum of money as the price of peace. The way of it was this : the exclusive right to the coral fisheries had been obtained by the French, in consideration of an annual tribute of 17,000 francs. Suddenly the Dey demanded 200,000, which being agreed to, he immediately gave leave to other nations to fish on the French coral grounds. The French consul protesting, was ordered to quit Algiers, and only allowed to remain on payment of a sum of 100,000 francs. In June, 1824, a rupture occurred between Great Britain INSOLENCE OF ALGIERS. "S and Algiers, on the subject of an unwarrantable outrage committed on the English consul, Mr. MacDonell. Algiers was blockaded, and a slight engagement took place. Terms were then agreed to, but the English could scarcely be said to have been masters of the situation, since the condi- tions demanded by the Dey were granted — viz. that the obnoxious consul should not return to Algiers, and that the EngUsh flag should not be hoisted on the consulate. The pretensions and insolence of the Algerines now knew no bounds. They had defied with impunity the only nation whose name they held in dread, and they believed them- selves once more, masters of the world. The events which actually led to the French expedition were briefly as follows : — During the years of scarcity in France, from 1793 — 98, corn to the value of 15,000,000 francs had been exported from Algiers. Part of the debt, owing to the disturbed state of affairs which had existed in France, remained unpaid in 1827. A settlement was now agreed upon, the creditors being two Algerine Jews, named Bacri and Bousnach. But the Dey, after a fashion common to Eastern poten- tates, constituted himself Bacri's creditor, and claimed tliat the money should find its way into the state treasury. In the course of the intricate disputes arising out of this matter, the Dey, at one of the state audiences, so far allowed anger to get the better of his judgment, that he struck the French consul, M. Duval, a blow in the face with his fan. " It is not to me, but to the King of France, that this affront is offered," said the Frenchman with dignity. ii6 WALKS IN ALGIERS. " No matter," returned the incensed Dey ; " I care no more for your master than I do for you." This direct insult to the national representative could not be overlooked. M. Duval at once quitted the Dey's court ; but the Dey not only refused to offer any apology or explanation of his conduct, but protested loudly that he was the person aggrieved — that his right and just dues had been withheld from him, and that the letters which he had addressed to the French King had remained unanswered. The French fleet in the Mediterranean attempted to blockade Algiers. The attempt was very ineffectual. Storms were constantly scattering the vessels ; two, the Silene and the Aventure, were wrecked on the coast and their crews murdered ; while Algiers, drawing its supplies from the interior or from other coast-towns, could afford to laugh at so inefficient an exhibition of European power. At length a special ambassador was sent over from France to try and arrange matters, but French diplomacy was no match for Turkish indifference. The Pasha would enter into no negotiations, unless he were reimbursed for the damage done to his city by the blockade, and M. de la Bretonniere left without any result having been obtained. As his ship sailed out of the harbour, without any warning or declaration of war, all the guns of the port opened fire upon him. This last outrage filled up the measure of Algerine inso- lence, and an expedition for the punishment of the " Bar- barians " was organized. " Algiers," says a French writer, " perished by her own fault. The audacity which had stood her in good stead during three centuries, ceased to be luck and became madness." FRENCH EXPEDITION. 117 At the end of May, 1830, a French army of thirty-four thousand men, under the command of General de Bourmont, sailed from Toulon amid the loud huzzas of vast crowds of people. But the war, says M. A. Fillias, was not popular in France. It pleased the King, recalling to his religious spirit the crusades of former ages ; but these were the last days of Charles X., and the voice of the country was not with him. M. de Polignac, the minister, was unpopular; and the expedition was generally believed to be, only an attempt to regain lost favour, by an appeal to the national love of fighting — a bauble held before the eyes of the army, to distract their attention from home matters. However that might have been, the expedition set sail amid the good wishes, it is said, of all the European Powers with the exception of England, "whose natural stiff-backed- ness and jealousy, made her protest loudly against others doing what she had failed to accomplish ! " In the expedition, however, sailing now as a volunteer, was an old officer of Lord Exmouth's fleet, whose presence and enthusiasm in the cause were, we are told, considered signs of good luck for the new undertaking — a circum- stance which says a good deal for the prestige of an old English salt. It was not until the T3th of June, that the French army finally decided upon a landing-place on the African coast, the peninsula of Sidi Ferruch, twelve miles west of Algiers, being selected. The landing of the troops was quickly and successfully accomplished, the Algerines offering scarcely any resistance. The Dey having at last roused himself from his apathy, ii8 WALKS IN ALGIERS. despatched an array of fifty thousand men to meet the French invader. On the 19th was fought the battle of Staoueli, and on the 24th that of Sidi Khalef, from the name of a small koubba, or saint's tomb, about which the fight raged hotly. In both these battles the forces of Hus- sein Dey were defeated, and after the last, the whole army retreated precipitately towards Algiers. The Turks, it is said, now loudly demanded the disgrace of the ruler, whose avarice and want of self-control had caused the war ; but Hussein, in his fortress of the Kasba, reproaching in his turn the officers of his army for permitting themselves to be defeated by " a horde of infidels," threatened to turn the guns of his stronghold on the city at the first sign of disturbance, and ordered that the holy war should be pro- claimed from every minaret throughout the country. Meantime the French were occupying themselves in making roads and disembarking stores. It was not until the 3rd of July, that they actually advanced upon the capital, establishing themselves upon the heights which overlook the city, and laying siege to the Fort de I'Empereur. The fortress was well defended, the Turkish troops again showing themselves to be valiant soldiers ; but the French fire was overwhelming, and at last the Turks were forced to retire from the fortress, blowing up the powder magazine as they did so. The French then took possession of the ruined citadel, and establishing themselves in another ruined fortress close by, the Fort des Etoiles, or Tagarins, pointed their guns upon the Kasba. The Dey now sent his private secretary, Sidi Mustapha, to treat with the invaders. ATTACK UPON ALGIERS. 119 " The Pasha," said the envoy, " acknowledged that God had shown himself on the side of the French, and that when Algiers quarrelled with the mighty Sultan of France, it would be better to make peace before the sun went down ; that the Pasha, in spite of his poverty, was willing to forego his claims on the French Government, and even to pay an indemnity for the war, on condition of the French army at once retiring from the country." These terms M. de Bourmont declines, advising the Dey that, as Algiers is now actually in his power, it will be well for him to surrender at discretion in order to prevent further bloodshed. The janissaries at the same time send an envoy to the French general, declaring, that the Dey's life being forfeited by his misconduct, they, the Turkish troops, are willing to depose and put him to death, and to elect in his place a new Dey, who " will in all things consider the will of the great French Sultan." M. de Bourmont dismisses the janissaries' envoy with the reply, that " the French army has not come so far to assassinate an individual, but to conquer an enemy." Two hours later a deputation of Arabs waits on General de Bourmont, to know what are the terms which a surrender will obtain. The following are then drawn out : — 1. That Algiers, with the Kasba and all the fortresses, be surrendered at ten o'clock the following morning. 2. That the religion and customs of the inhabitants be respected, and that no French soldier may enter a mosque. 3. The Dey and all the Turks to quit Algiers imme- diately, their private property being secured to them. I20 WALKS IN ALGIERS. After a stormy sitting of the Divan these conditions are at length accepted, with the additional clause, that the lives and property of the inhabitants be untouched and their women respected. The Dey only stipulates for two hours' grace, which is granted, and at noon on the 5th of July, the French troops march into Algiers through silent and deserted streets, scarcely any of the inhabitants caring or daring to show themselves, and the historic white flag of the Bourbons floats from the battlements of the old pirate stronghold — " Within, a palace, and witliout, a fort." The loss of life to the French, from their landing up to the taking of the city, had been comparatively trifling. One touching incident of the invasion is recorded; " Only one officer of high rank," wrote M. de Bourmont in his de- spatches home, "has been dangerously wounded. He is the second of my four sons who have followed me to Africa ; but I trust that he will yet live, faithfully to serve his King and country." The hope was fallacious, and the glory of the victor's triumph was dimmed by the grief of a bereaved father. An enormous quantity of treasure, great part of which was stored away in the vaults beneath the Kasba, fell into the hands of the French, the amount of which was com- puted at upwards of two millions sterling, being nearly double the cost of the war. Hussein Dey and his family, among whom were fifty- five women, embarked on the loth of July for Naples, his request to withdraw to Malta having been denied him. CAPITULATION OF ALGIERS. 121 In an interview which he had before his departure with General de Bourmont, he is said to have warned the French against the treachery of the tributary beys. Hussein Dey is described as a fine-looking man, sixty years of age, wearing a flowing white beard, and of remark- ably dignified manners. His moral character was some- what better than that of his predecessors, though he is accused of certain acts which savour of tyranny ; such for instance, as causing one of his ministers whose power he dreaded, to be strangled as he sat playing draughts with him, and also of putting some of his own family to death for the same reason. He finally retired to Egypt, where he was well received by Mahomet Ali, and where he died. The day after his departure from Algiers, the janissaries, to the number of two thousand five hundred, were despatched to Smyrna, those who were married being per- mitted to remain in the country. No sooner had the French entered Algiers than the Beys of Oran, Bona, Tittery, Tripoli and Tunis hastened to make their submission ; the chiefs of various Arab tribes sent in messages of welcome to their deliverers from Turkish oppression, and assurances of allegiance and friend- ship. It seemed as though the French conquest of Algiers was to be a work of no difficulty whatever. "The task of the army is fulfilled," wrote General de Bourmont, in a glow of exultation. A check was, however, soon to follow. On the 23rd of July, Bourmont, with twelve hundred foot, a hundred horse, and two pieces of cannon, marched on the road to Blidah, which he had been strongly advised by 122 WALKS IN ALGIERS. the Bey of Tittery to occupy, as a measure of creating con- fidence, and securing the allegiance of the tribes. At Blidah the French were received with enthusiasm. Scenes of fraternisation ensued. Thus thrown off their guard, they were attacked on the following day by a force of ten thousand Arabs, who almost succeeded in cutting off the retreat of the tiny army, on its breathless flight back to Algiers. This expedition had a most unfortunate effect so far as the French were concerned, since it deprived them of the high prestige their arms had acquired, and awoke among the natives a hope of absolutely driving them from the country. On his return from Blidah, M. de Bourmont found the baton and brevet of a marshal of France awaiting him. The honour came at an unfortunate moment. He was occupied in organizing a new expedition across the Metidja, when news reached Algiers of the Revolution of July and the deposition of Charles X. The blow fell as a thunderbolt upon the troops, who had just conquered a new realm in the King's name. An exciting scene took place at the Kasba, where M. de Bourmont gathered his staff about him, where oaths of eternal fidelity to the legitimate sovereign were sworn over drawn swords, and where the project was seriously dis- cussed of abandoning Africa to its fate, and marching the whole army back to Paris, to restore the King to his own. At length the agitation calmed down, the army, caring little for politics, declared its intention of abiding by the will of the nation, and eventually the tri-color took the place of the white flag, under which Algiers had been conquered. M. de Bourmont was at once superseded in his cona- DEFEAT AT B LID A II. 123 mand. On the 2nd of September the new governor arrived,- and the victor of Algiers left the scene of his conquests of two months since, a fugitive — proscrit. General Clauzel was received with acclamations by the army. He had served both under the Republic and the Empire, was known to be brave, and believed to be a man of ability. Proscribed and exiled during the Restora- tion, he rose again by the fresh turn of Fortune's wheel. He at once organized an attack on Blidah. The Bey of Tittery, who had now openly declared war against the French, was pronounced to be deposed, and Clauzel marched out to meet him. Blidah fell at once, in spite of a stout resistance, and Clauzel, leaving two battalions of infantry in that place, marched on to Medeah, the chief town of Tittery. To reach this, a narrow defile through the mountains had to be passed. Every rock and stone, every inch of ground, was hotly contested by the Arabs, but before reaching Medeah a deputation of the inhabitants made submission. General Clauzel, leavmg a garrison in this town, returned to Blidah, where he found the streets flowing with blood and strewn with corpses. Since his departure a vigorous attack had been made on the two French battalions by the Arabs, and a sanguinary battle of ten hours had ensued, in which the small French force was almost cut to pieces. The whole French army retired upon Algiers. General Clauzel, whose independent administration had given offence to the home Government, was shortly after this recalled, and succeeded by General Berthezene, a man of good intentions, able as an administrator, but utterly inca- pable as a general. 124 WALKS IN ALGIERS. The policy of the French Government at this time tended towards retrenchment in Africa. Every year the army in Algeria was reduced. General Clauzel had created two native regiments, under the name of battalions of Zouaves, to supply the places of French regiments recalled home. Now, a further diminution left the whole force in Algeria at ten thousand men. Meantime a general insurrection of the natives threat- ened, and every expedition undertaken by Berthezene proved disastrous. The next general appointed to the army of Algiers, was the Due de Rovigo, who had been general of division and minister of poHce under the tirst Napoleon, while at the same time a new authority was created, in the person of M. Pichon, as administrator of civil affairs. The united, or rather disunited rule of these two men, was as disastrous in every way to the new province as it could well be. The Due de Rovigo was essentially a soldier, a man of sanguinary and ferocious character, irritated into still further exercise of his arbitrary power, by the control which his colleague or rival attempted to exercise over him. The late administration had left all in confusion — the country was in open insurrection. M. Pichon would have conciliated and appeased ; the Due de Rovigo was deter- mined to conquer and punish. Not only did he ravish the country with fire and sword, impose impossible fines upon offending towns and villages, and in default sack them, but his career is also stained with the treacherous execution of the two Arab chieftains Mecaoud and El-Arbi, who, confiding in the word of a French general, allowed themselves to fall into his power. MISMANA GEMENT. "5 and were instantly arrested and, without trial, put to death. In the meantime General Boyer, in the province of Oran, by his ill-timed severities and unjust administration, was equally arousing the indignation of the Arabs, who pro- tested with a show of truth, that the French were " worse than the Turks." There now appears upon the scene one of the most remarkable characters that the nineteenth century — perhaps we may, without exaggeration, say the modern world — has produced — Abd-el-Kader. The career of this man, as full of adventure as that of any knight-errant of romance, forms so complete and thrilling a chapter of African history, that it merits being told continuously, and we will therefore in the following pages, consider rather the internal than the external conditions of the French-African province. The Due de Rovigo, whose ill-health at last obliged him to retire from his command, was succeeded by General Avizard, whose chief merit is in having established what is known as the bureau arabe, for the regulation of all matters having connection with the native population. One of these bureaux is attached to every command, the officers of which perform the same functions towards the native tribes, as the prefects do for the French — such as the collection of taxes, the administration of communes, &c. It is also their duty to keep peace between one tribe and another, to settle disputes, hear appeals, control the Arab chiefs in the exercise of their authority, and at the same time, keep the chief of their own department thoroughly au fait of the sentiments and political views of the natives within their own districts, for whose peaceable behaviour they are in a 126 WALKS IN ALGIERS. measure responsible. To this general (1833) succeeded General Voirol, who chiefly distinguished himself as a road-maker. At this time the question of the colonization of Algeria became a very agitated one in France. The conquest had been brilliant, but the trouble and expense of maintaining the new province had been very great. Moreover, the conquest itself had been the legacy of the Legitimists ; it was they who pointed to Algeria as a thing of their own creation — their pride and glory; and it was therefore little likely to become the pet child of the new administration. It was rather their role to represent it as an encumbrance — a white elephant, equally difficult to dispose of or provide for. And in truth, regarded as a colony, the first years of the French occupation of Algeria had not proved a great success. At the beginning, everything seemed to promise for France a new field of industry and wealth. No sooner had the swords of the army cleared the way, than a loud outcry was raised for colonists — the charms and advantages of the new El-Dorado were vehemently insisted on. To the appeal a considerable number of Swiss, Germans, Maltese, and also some French, responded. The conquest of the new land, its comparative proximity to France, seemed suddenly to awaken in French minds a hitherto undeveloped passion for colonization. With the national impetuosity, they threw themselves headlong into the new idea, buoyed up by the most extravagant notions of sudden fortune and certain success — it was the newest fashion, the latest c/iic. The results were terribly disappointing. Fever and want DIVIDED COUNCILS. 127 decimated the emigrants, who were for the most part igno- rant of everything they should have known, and wanting both in capital and perseverance, the two essentials to suc- cessful colonization ; added to which they found in this new land security neither for life nor property. Violent and yet feeble, because changeable policy, governed the country. Arbitrary legislation had alienated the Moors of the town, cruel reprisals had irritated the tribes of the plains and mountains — " disgust on the one side, discouragement on the other, defiance everywhere." This was the position of Algiers as described by M. le Baron Mounier. It began to be a question whether Algiers should be retained by France or not. A commission of inquiry was appointed on the matter, as to which M. de la Pinsonniere reported : — " There has been confusion in the organization of matters, confusion in the jurisdiction, confusion in the administration — confusion everj-- where, and injustice both to the colonists and natives. With regard to these last, we have killed on mere suspicion and without trial, persons whose guilt has been more than doubtful ; we have confiscated the property of their heirs ; we have massacred the bearers of our safe- conducts, slaughtered whole populations for crimes of which we have aftei-vvards found they were not guOty ; have tried at our tribunals men reputed saints and held in veneration of their people, for the offence of pleading the cause of their unfortunate countrymen — judges have been found to condemn them, and civilized men to execute them ; we have thrown chiefs of tribes into prison because our deserters have taken refuge among them ; we have dignified acts of treason by the name of policy, and quahfied as diplomatists those whom we should have scouted as odious spies. In fact, we have exceeded in barbarism the barbarians we came to civilize, and then we complain that we have not succeeded in our relations with them." The case of the colonist, according to the report, was 128 fVALKS IN ALGIERS. not much better than that of the native. Not only was he subjected to imposture in the purchase of his lands, to which matter the Algerian Jews lent themselves very readily, effectually cheating both native and European; not only was he exposed to a climate which more often than not proved fatal to him ; not only was he under constant terror of attack from the Arabs — attack, which oftenest took the destructive form of incendiary fires — but he suffered con- tinually from the lawless rapacity of his own countrymen. "The soldier of conquest," writes M. de la Pinsonniere, "always has considered and ever will consider himself absolute master of the conquered country, and in spite of the anxiety of the chiefs of an army to maintain discipline, the neighbourhood of a camp must always be disastrous to a colonist. Caring little for a future which he does not understand and which does not interest him, the soldier can only show his power in destroying and ruining. His hatchet hews do^-n planta- tions that time and barbarism have respected, fruit-trees and \ines are requisitioned to feed his camp fires, doors and window-frames of houses chopped up for the same purpose. The unfortunate colonist suffers in every way. Inexperience, disease, poverty and rapine alike combine to ruin him ; discouragement follow-s on discouragement; every year he sows less and reaps less ; if we do not take care he will come to an end altogether." Such, according to official reports, was colonization during the first years of French occupation in Algeria. The experiment had been tried, and had failed signally. Dr. Bodichon, the well-known Algerian physician, says — "The French have no taste for colonization. Those who come here for the most part have but one thought — to make as much money in as short a space of time as is possible, in order that they may escape back again to France." — Considerations sur VAlgerie. The Frenchman is not by nature a cosmopolitan — not like the Englishman, born to rove ! France is his world, COLONIZATION OF ALGERIA. 129 and while even a strip of blue sea separates him from his native land, he is not at his ease. Algeria, even with the French flag waving over it, and the French cafe' established on its soil, cannot be to him as France — the land of his love. Moreover, between the Frenchman and the Arab there is as it were "a great gulf fixed." M. Fromentin writes — " There are moral as well as chemical antipathies, and political economy will never succeed in changing the law of natural repulsion into love." The modes of life and habits of thought of the two peoples are antagonistic ; all that the Arab reverences the French- man scorns, all that the Frenchman delights in, the Arab loathes. Again to quote M. Fromentin : — " For us to live is to change, for the Arab to exist, is to continue. Is not this difference between the two characters sufficient to prevent them from understanding one another ? For the rest, the Arabs, our neighbours, at least those who belong to us, ask of us very little ; unhappily that little we are unable to grant them. They ask only to be let alone, not to be watched, cared for, or constrained ; to do that which their fathers did before them ; to possess their lands without title-deeds, to build without having their streets straightened, to move from place to place without passport, to be bom without being registered, to grow up without being vaccinated, to die without the formality of inquiry. As an indemnity for the ills which civilization has brought upon them, they contest their right to be poor and naked, to beg at the gates, to leave their fields uncultivated, to despise the SOU of which they have been dispossessed, and to quit a country which has not protected them from conquest. Those who have money hide it ; those who have none hug their misery ; and of all the rights which they liave lost, value none so highly as the right of being undisturbed, and of resigning themselves helplessly to fate." — Une Anti'ee dans le Sahel. The difficulties which attended the French settlement in Africa were undoubtedly very great — all the greater since K WALKS IN ALGIERS. it was almost their first effort at colonization ; all the greater that the unsettled state of the mother-country failed to set the example of steady tranquillity, or to provide the African province with a firm and even government. A ball of contention and reproach between rival factions at Paris, Algeria was flung from one extreme to the other ; now committed to a policy of retrenchment and con- ciliation, now crowded with troops and urged to do " great deeds." While M. Thiers, the historian of the Revolution, was warmly advocating in the Chamber, war d outratice against the perfidious Arabs, a policy known at that time as the systeme agiie, M. Guizot, the historian of civilization, was loudly pleading the cause of moderation and native government. To the ferocious martial law of the Due de Rovigo, suc- ceeded in 1834, the feeble and indecisive government of the kindly but incapable D'Erlon. Just at the time when discontent was rife throughout the country, and a general insurrection threatened, the foreign legion was despatched to Spain, and various other regiments recalled to France. Clauzel, who in August 1835, succeeded M. d'Erlon, in vain pleaded for reinforcements. After a brilliant campaign, in which he had subdued the Hadjoutes ; at the head of five thousand men scoured tlie country about Algiers as far as the Tombeau de la Chretienne ; and successfully occupied Mascara, the head-quarters of Abd-el-Kader ; instead of more troops being sent him, other regiments were ordered home ; but when he failed in his attempt on Constantine, by reason of his insufficient army, he was dis- graced from his command. GOVERNMENT OF ALGIERS. The next governor, General Damr^mont, succeeded at the head of ten thousand troops, in covering the disaster of his predecessor, and gained Constantine for the French, though at the cost of his own Hfe. During the rule of his successor. Marshal Val^e (1837 — 40), the colony enjoyed a little peace, new roads were constructed, and new regulations for the better administration of justice put in force. Algiers was at this time made the seat of a bishopric, "for," said the French, in the petition which they pre- sented on the subject, " the Arabs reproach us that we have no religion— that we are Christians, but do not fulfil the duties of such, and, according to them, a man is no man who does not pray." In 1838 Marshal Valee occupied BHdah and Koleah. In October, 1839, the passage by the French of the mountain pass, Portes-de-fer, contrary to the spirit of the treaty they had made with Abd-el-Kader, led to the pro- clamation of the " Holy War " by that chieftain, and to a long and sanguinary struggle. CHAPTER VIII. ABD-EL-KADER. " Sans peur et sans reproche." BD-EL-KADER, whose career is the one harmony amid J~\. the jarring discords of the French occupation of Algeria, the one shining spot in a dark tale of bloodshed and mutual recrimination, was bom in the year 1807, in the plains of Ghris, in the province of Oran. He belonged to a family priding itself on its descent from the Prophet ; and he as well as his father, Mehi-ed-deen, was a Marabout, that is to say, member of a kind of aristocratic priesthood, Mehi-ed- deen, the father, being renowned throughout Northern Africa for the piety of his life and for his active charity; and Abd-el-Kader, we are assured, even as a youth, shared the unbounded respect, confidence, and affection which the Arabs of Oran had long extended to his father. At the age of nineteen he accompanied Mehi-ed- deen on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and after- wards to Bagdad, to the tomb of Abd-el-Kader-el-Djellali, the patron saint of Algeria, of whom the youthful chief was a namesake. Many stories are told about mys- terious indications given to Abd-el-Kader while at Bagdad, YOUTH OF ABD-EL-KADER. 133 of his future greatness; the angel Gabriel was said to have appeared to his father charged with the message, and declaring that the young man would be raised up as a champion and leader of his people. " And truly," says a French writer frankly enough, "the angel Gabriel, or indeed God Himself, could hardly have made a better choice." After two years' absence, part of which time they were detained prisoners by the jealousy of the Bey of Oran, Abd-el-Kader and his father returned home, to be received with rejoicings and thanksgivings, and a mighty sacrifice of oxen and sheep. This was in the year 1828. The conquest of 1830 at first inspired the Arabs with no great amount of anxiety or distrust. The Turkish yoke, though in truth, they had never thought it worth their while to throw it off, had been galling and oppressive. They were not sorry to see the ruling faction chased from Algiers, nor did the presence of the European on their shores, cause them any special annoyance. Times and again, the Franks had descended upon their coasts, and occupied one or other of their maritime towns, but after awhile the storm had blown over, the unbelievers had re- tired across the seas, and things had resumed their usual course. Very soon however, the proceedings of the French began to alarm the Arabs as to the future of their country. Not only did these invaders seem inclined to establish themselves on a permanent footing in Algiers, but they almost immediately began to extend their conquests inland. The advance upon Blidah (July 24, 1830) sounded the first note of warning, and the attitude of the Arabs on that occasion (page 123) showed very plainly what their feelings 134 WALKS IN ALGIERS. on the matter were. And this first defeat of the French inspired the natives with confidence in themselves. An enemy once beaten might be beaten again. "They ran away from Blidah," was the boast of the Arab warriors ; " soon we will make them glad to nm from other places." Meanwhile, in the province of Oran, affairs were be- coming more and more unsettled. The deposition of the Bey reduced the country to a complete state of anarchy. The bad government of the Turks was succeeded by no government at all, and robbery and violence were rampant. By the orders of Mehi-ed-deen, to whom the tribes all looked up, Abd-el-Kader and his brothers, mth efiective escorts, scoured the plains in knight-errant fashion, relieving the oppressed, protecting fugitives, and executing vengeance on the common enemies of order. At the same time a general feeling of indignation against the French was daily gaining ground, fanned not a httle by the extortions of which they were guilty, and by the savage policy of General Boyer, Governor of Oran. To fill up the measure of confusion, the Arab tribes, long united under a common oppression, now began to quarrel among themselves, and were literally as sheep having no shepherd. A head and ruler was felt to be necessary, and after an ineffectual appeal to the Emperor of Morocco, who was afraid of complicating matters with the French, they turned to Mehi-ed-deen, urging him strongly to become their leader and avenger — their elected Sultan. After considerable hesitation Mehi-ed-deen yielded to the demand made of him. " But if I do so," he said at length, " it is only that I may at once abdicate in favour of my son Abd-el-Kader — he whose courage and prowess you have YOUTH OF ABD-EL-KADER. 135 already had many opportunities of proving. He will lead you." For during the spring of 1832, Mehi-ed-deen had already led an army of natives up to the walls of Oran, in the attack on which, the young Abd-el-Kader had specially dis- tinguished himself. The decision of the aged chieftain was received with respect by the Arabs. On being informed of the choice of the tribes and of his father's command, young Abd-el-Kader replied with unaf- fected simplicity, " It is my duty to obey," and was at once proclaimed Sultan amid great rejoicings. That same afternoon, at the Mosque of Mascara, he, as his habit was, after reading and expounding the Koran, addressed the people. " Not for minutes, but for hours, and until the sun had sunk below the hoiizon, did the soldier-orator pour forth one continued stream of burning and impassioned eloquence. He expatiated in heartrending tones on the sins, iniquities, and horrors, which polluted the land. In \ivid tenns he depicted Heaven's judgments overtaking a godless and vice-abandoned people ; and now again he conjured up before the minds of his audience, in characters of flame, the appalling picture of their countrj' ravaged by the infidel, their domestic hearths violated, their temples desecrated. But when with outstretched arm and lightning glance he called on his countn-men, in words which glowed with the fire of inspiration, to stand boldly forward in the cause of God and the Prophet, to rally round the standard of the ' Djehad,' and then painted in vivid colours the liberated spirits of the slain entering the blissful mansions, they sprang to their feet, they shook their spears, they clashed their swords, they wept aloud, and \vith frantic cries yelled out, ' II Djehad ! ' ' II Djehad ! ' "—Life of Abd-el-Kader. Col. Churchill. The next day Abd-el-Kader was received by an immense concourse outside the walls of Mascara, among whom were ten thousand Arab horsemen, and that same evening he WALKS IN ALGIERS. issued a proclamation, claiming the obedience of his people, and declaring at once his intention of restoring order to the land, and of " driving back and overcoming the enemy " who had invaded it. The declaration was signed, " Defender of Religion and Prince of the Faithful, Abd-el-Kader-ihn- Mehi-ed-deen." Abd-el-Kader was at this time twenty-four years old. He is described as small of stature, delicate and pale in feature, with eyes of remarkable intelligence and hands like a woman's. He had already won renown as a soldier by his valour, and his extraordinary prowess as a horseman was proverbial, even among Arabs. The jealousy of tribe against tribe prevented the youthful Sultan from being at once acknowledged by the entire population, but his first successful engagement with the French garrison of Oran, though only a skirmish, assured him the allegiance of a vast number of tribes who had hitherto stood aloof He next attacked Tlemgen and took it, though, in consequence of his having no artillery, he was unable to hold it. A series of engagements followed, in which the fortune of the day was sometimes with one side and sometimes with the other, but the first overtures of peace came from the French, who were severely harassed by the system of blockade which Abd-el-Kader established about their settlements, stopping all supplies from the interior. On the 4th of February, 1834, a treaty between General Desmichels and " the Sultan " was drawn up, in which the position of Abd-el-Kader was clearly recognised as a sovereign prince, but which contained no recognition on his part, of the sovereignty of France in Africa. The two drafts of the treaty, that held by the French general and that held ABD-EL-KADER. 137 by the Arab chief, differed in two or three important items, specially as to one clause in which Abd-el-Kader had stipu- lated for a monopoly of commerce. The young Emir, however, not suspecting fraud, was well satisfied with his treaty, and had now time to turn his attention to the internal affairs of his kingdom. He appHed himself with earnestness and intelligence to the task of organization. He divided his possessions into certain portions, over which he put officers called KhaHfas. These he established at all his chief centres, in Mascara, Tlemgen, Medeah, Milianah, in Kabylia, and the Sahara. The Khalifats were divided into tribes commanded each by an Agha, who was held responsible for its peace and good order. Weekly reports were required as to the number of cattle, beasts of burden, and horses ready for service in each aghalik. A Cadi, paid by the State, was appointed to each tribe to administer justice. Abd-el-Kader abolished the arbitrary system of taxation which had existed under the Turks, and confined himself to the tithes enjoined by the Koran, which he levied with unfailing strictness, punishing such of the tribes as from time to time refused the tribute, with unyielding severity. With the resources thus obtained he maintained a large standing army, which he caused to be instructed by French non-commissioned officers, and established cannon-foundries, powder-mills, and manufactories of small arms, which were superintended by European artisans — for the present tran- quillity was felt to be rather an armed truce, than a lasting peace. In truth it was not long before hostilities broke out again, the matter of dispute being the protection by the French of WALKS IN ALGIERS. two Arab tribes, who had revolted from Abd-el-Kader's authority. This, Abd-el-Kader declared to be a violation of the treaty, which had provided that deserters from both sides were to be given up. The French refused to consider the two tribes who preferred their rule to the Emir's, to be deserters. Abd-el-Kader summoned them somewhat imperiously to give up the tribes or to take the consequences. In reply the Governor of Oran sallied out to attack the Arabs, whom he believed to be in small force. On the contrary, Abd-el- Kader had been rapidly bringing his troops to the front. In the battle which ensued, the French were routed, their retreat cut off, and the whole column literally annihilated. " The defeat of Macta," says a French writer, " was one of the most serious checks sustained by the French arms in Algeria." Immediately upon this, Marshal Clauzel, the new Governor of Algiers, marched upon Mascara and took it, but was quickly driven out again. He occupied Tlem9en, but was instantly blockaded by the indefatigable Emir. On every side, and without intermission, the French were harassed. In whatever direction they attempted to move, there was the ever-ready Abd-el-Kader waiting to receive them. Shut up in the towns they held, they were reduced to the verge of starvation, by the rigorous blockade whicli the Emir successfully maintained round each isolated station. While matters were in this condition. General Bugeaud arrived with reinforcements from France, but urged by the home Government by all means to make peace with this TREATY OF TAFNA. 139 redoubtable Arab chief, Avhose hostility seemed to menace the very existence of the French in Algiers. Especially was this course urged by the King, Louis Philippe, who earnestly desired peace, and believed that the best chance of it, lay in alliance and friendly relations with the native princes. The result of Bugeaud's negotiations was the celebrated treaty of Tafna (May, 1837), which secured to Abd-el- Kader the sovereignty of all Algeria, with the exception of the coast towns and the plain of Metidja. " In addition," says Abd-el-Kader's biographer. Colonel Churchill, " to the immense accession which this splendid triumph had added to his influence and power, he now carried along with him the advantage of appearing before the world, as the friend and ally of France." As soon as the terms of the treaty were agreed upon, a meeting took place between General Bugeaud and the young Arab, a meeting which has become historical, on occasion of which the triumphant Emir was not backward in asserting the superiority of his position, by making the French commander wait five hours for him at the appointed place of rendezvous. At length he was received by the young Sultan with all the dignity and grace of an Oriental potentate, backed by an army of fifteen thousand cavalry, and attended by an escort of two hundred chiefs, mounted on splendid Arab chargers, "with highly burnished arms that flashed and glittered in the noon-day African sun." " Abd-el-Kader, whose simple apparel offered a strildng contrast to the splendid appointments of his suite, was mounted on a magnificent black charger, which he handled with extraordinary dexterity, some- times making it spring with all fours in the air, and sometimes making it walk for some yards on its hind legs. Several Arabs ran by his 140 IVALKS IN ALGIERS. side, liolding his stirnips and the ends of his scarlet bumous." — Life of Ahd-el-Kader. The meeting, thanks to the good-nature of the French general, whose role was that of conciHation, passed off pleasantly enough, and ended with mutual assurances of friendship and fidelity. There can be no doubt that the terms of the treaty of Tafna were in every respect advantageous to Abd-el-Kader, securing to him as they did, absolute power over at least two-thirds of Algeria, and making the French entirely dependent upon him for supplies. It was altogether so hampering a treaty for them that it could only have been agreed to under pressure of extreme difficulties, or with the reserved intention of breaking it whenever convenient. But the obstacles with which they had at the moment to contend, were sufficient excuse for its being made in all good faith, added to which the unpopularity of the Algerian con- quest was at this time so great in France, that not only were troops and supplies most grudgingly granted, but the question was again mooted of abandoning the country altogether. By the Government, then, the alliance with Abd-el-Kader was rated as a master-stroke of policy. Abd-el-Kader himself was equally satisfied with the terms which he had exacted. Once more relieved from external pressure, he was free to devote himself to the work of consolidating his power at home. It was no light task. No sooner was peace con- cluded with the French, and the immediate danger, as they thought, past, than the jealousy of the tribes awoke, and disaffection and insubordination were rife among those, who AN ARAB SULTAN. 141 in the hour of danger, had gladly acknowledged the heroic young Emir as their chief. Allegiance was refused here, tribute withheld there. At the head of nine thousand men faithful to him, Abd-el- Kader marched against the disaffected tribes, conquered them, and, by a well-timed generosity, attached them most effectually to his cause and person. In a few months, not only was his sway acknowledged by the people of the plains and mountains, but the far distant tribes of the Sahara, into the heart of which he led his victorious Spahis, paid tribute to him, and furnished him with the required con- tingent of men and horses. He now turned the whole of his attention to the formation of a line of forts, which should, in case of attack from the French, defend the highlands of the lesser Atlas, and also to the building of a new capital and stronghold in the mountains, since the ease with which General Clauzel had obtained possession of Mascara and Tlemgen, had convinced the astute Arab chief of the impos- sibility of maintaining as places of defence the cities of the plain. The ruins of an old Roman town, called by the Arabs Tekedemt, or destroyed, existed sixty miles south-east of Oran. Here it was that Abd-el-Kader thought to found the chief city of a new empire, for on nothing less than the re-establishment of the old Arab supremacy was his heart fixed. For the present he was content that the French should occupy the coasts, " for," said he, " I have no ships, and the sea is not mine ; but if the French Sultan is king of the sea, I must be king of the land" ; but in the visions which 142 WALKS IN ALGIERS. he had of future Arab greatness, we may be sure that the French garrisons of Algiers and Oran found no place. Meanwhile the building of Tekedemt was carried on with energy. Streets and mosques arose on the old ruins, military stores and manufactories of arms were estabhshed, and a mint struck off silver and copper coins, bearing on one side the inscription, " It is the will of God, I have appointed him my agent;" on the other, "Struck at Tekedemt by the Sultan, Abd-el-Kader," In his other principal towns, manufactories of various kinds were established, under the superintendence of Euro- peans. A cannon-foundry at Tlemgen, a musket-manufac- tory and powder-mills at Milianah ; mines of iron, sulphur, and saltpetre were worked all over the country ; and not only were the exertions of Abd-el-Kader directed to the production of destructive engines, but various peaceful industries were promoted, and, above all, schools esta- blished in every centre, colleges in some, and a large library of valuable manuscripts collected by him at Tekedemt. Altogether the rule of this remarkable man was one of justice, order, and enhghtenment, and as such it has been recognised even by his enemies. " The greatest evil that Abd-el-Kader did us," says M. Pelissier in his "Annales," "was, that he put us in the position of representing brute force, a mere destructive power, while he represented moral force, order, and good government." But the position in which the French were placed by the treaty of Tafna was for them an absolutely unteuable one, and it soon became evident that the conflict of power be- tween them and the Arab " Sultan " must lead to fresh A FORGED PASSPORT. 143 hostilities, unless they were willing to be driven altogether from the country. In the same year as the treaty (1837), the French had beseiged and possessed themselves of Constantine. In this matter Abd-el-Kader had not interfered, but the treaty had not provided for the passage of French troops across the country under Abd-el-Kader's jurisdiction, and the march of a French force, from Constantine through Kabylia by the famous pass of the Portes-de-fer (October, 1839), was regarded by the Emir as an infringement of his rights. There can be little doubt that it was so, since the French commander. Marshal Valee, did not hesitate to secure the safety of his column on its passage through the Kabyle country, by displaying a permit sealed with Abd-el-Kader's seal. But the passport was a forgery ! It had neither been demanded nor obtained. Upon this hostilities threatened. The indignation of the Emir, which other infringements of the treaty had been gradually fomenting, was thoroughly roused. A series of letters, penned with remarkable straightforwardness, and touching in their simple earnest appeal for justice, were addressed to the King Louis Philippe and to Marshal Valee by Abd-el-Kader, but he was uncompromising as to his rights, and in the end, war — for which, perhaps, each side was only too eager — was declared. " Treason has burst upon us from the infidel," wrote Abd-el-Kader to his lieutenant, Ben Salem, and in a few hours after the declaration, the whole country, Kabyle and Arab joining, rose like a wave of the sea, threatening destruction to every outlying European settlement, and carrying fire and sword up to the very gates of Algiers itself. 144 WALKS IN ALGIERS. Once more the standard of the Djehad was waved, the Holy War preached in every hill-side koubba, and the Arab tribes, in their thousands rallying round their intrepid leader at Medeah, swore on the Koran eternal fidelity, through success or disaster, to the sacred cause of country and religion. Determined action was felt to be necessary by the French, and Marshal Val^e, concentrating his forces at the camp of Bou-Farik, prepared to attack Medeah. But to reach this place, the mountains, to be traversed only by narrow and rocky defiles, had to be passed. These defiles had been strengthened and, as he believed, rendered impregnable by Abd-el-Kader. It was here that he had dug, as he said, the grave of the French army. To the astonishment of the Arabs, the French, instead of defiling through the gorge, came vaulting over the steeps. Ravines, woods, rocks, all were equally mastered by them. They reached the entrenchments, they fought hand to hand with their enemy. Every rock, every stone, every inch ot ground was disputed foot by foot ; but the French gained, the Arabs yielded, and the passage of the " Col de Mouzaia," at which the youthful Due d'Aumale won his spurs, has ever been regarded by the French as one of their most brilliant exploits. They next occupied Milianah, upon which place Abd-el-Kader had retreated, but which he abandoned at their approach. The French army then marched back to Algiers, leaving garrisons in this place and in Medeah. But, so far from having accomplished its work, its task was but begun. The isolated garrisons of these and other towns were blockaded by the indefatigable Emir ; sudden and mysterious movements seemed to render him ubi- IVAR 2 OUTRANGE. quitous; on all points the Europeans were harassed and decimated, worn out by constant assaults, or caged as in a trap and destroyed by famine. The French Government was at length roused to the real dangers of the situation. General Pelet had written but a short time before — "If we do not take care, Abd-el-Kader will shortly be acknowledged Sultan of the whole kingdom, and we shall have destroyed the Turkish despotism but to raise up an Arab nationality. Who knows the extent of this man's resources among the distant warlike tribes .'' Who knows that he may not even now be meditating an attack on Algiers itself.'' To my thinking, it is not a coalition that the Emir is forming : it is a crusade which he is preaching against us, with all the power which his royal and sacerdotal character gives him. It is a terrible enemy that France has raised up against herself, and I believe that only a war d otitrance can be maintained between him and us. We must repair the mistake of the treaty, and that soon." These words, written shortly after the signature of the treaty, were now felt to be prophetic, and France acted upon them. War a outrance against the Arab chief was declared, and to Bugeaud, by whom the treaty had been made, was deputed the task of hunting down the man with whom he had sworn friendship. Abd-el-Kader hailed the appointment of Bugeaud as governor-general with satisfac- tion. But Bugeaud came a second time to Algeria with a stern and well-defined duty before him. The time for temporizing was past, that for action had begun ; it was a single combat in which one or other of the combatants must perish. Eighty thousand men were placed under General Bugeaud's com- mand. Taking a lesson from his Arab adversaries, he began an entirely new system of tactics. Instead of mass- ing his men he distributed them in flying columns all L 146 WALKS IN ALGIERS. about the country; he dispensed with heavy baggage and ammunition, carrying only a few mountain guns that, taken to pieces, were transported on the backs of mules. Thus unencumbered, the active French troops could pursue the Arabs into their mountain recesses, or chase them across the trackless desert. The Emir was now (1842) reduced to defend himself. He retired as the French advanced, and the difficulty became, not so much to defeat as to overtake him. It was like chasing a will-o'- the-wisp or the roll of a wave on the ocean. The French moved through the country, burning, destroy- ing, and devastating, harassed in front and rear, and yet never coming to close quarters with the enemy, suffering extraordinary privations, destroyed by thirst, heat, and fever to such an extent, that at the close of 1842, Bugeaud had to report that of his marching army of sixty thousand men, he had only four thousand fit for active duty, and yet without one " glorious action " to record. They occupied and razed the towns of Tekedemt, Boghar, and other strongholds of the Emir in the desert, finding in each but a few '• cocks, hens, and cats," by way of booty — not a living human being — and the houses for the most part in flames. In their march they would probably all have succumbed to hunger, had they not discovered, accidentally, the Silos, or underground granaries, of the Arabs, in which many years' harvests were stored, and which they rifled ; thus not only providing them- selves with bread, but literally cutting away the ground from under their enemies' feet. Now that the French had thoroughly roused to action, there could be no doubt as to the side on which the final victory would be, however protracted and disastrous the struggle. THE SMALA CAPTURED. H7 But Abd-el-Kader, in no way daunted by the turn which affairs had taken, fought bravely on. Abandoning the towns to the French, he established what was known as the Sma/a, a fortified movable city under canvas, in which were collected a vast amount of treasure and a large number of women and children, among whom were his own mother and wife; for Abd-el-Kader in this, as in all other relations of his life, a knight pur et sans repi'oche, was the husband of one wife only, to whom he had been married at the age of fifteen, and to whom he was tenderly attached. The smala, with its population of some sixty thousand souls, besides enormous flocks and herds, followed the Sultan's movements, advancing into the more cultivated districts or retreating to the Sahara, according to the fluc- tuations of his fortunes. It was arranged with military regu- larity— each deira, or household, had its place, and four tribes were specially set apart to watch over and protect it. In the centre was the tent of the Sultan's wife, guarded night and day by thirty negroes. The sudden attack and rout of this last stronghold by the Due d'Aumale and a small body of French cavalry, was the most disastrous blow that Abd-el-Kader experienced. The young Duke and his company came upon the encamp- ment by chance. With headlong courage the gallant six hundred dashed into it. Their impetuosity carried every- thing before it. As it happened the guard was inefiicient, the tribes scattered, and the smala only a vast crowd of helpless women, children, and wounded. " Had they known how small was the number of their assailants, six hundred against sixty thousand, the women might have strangled the invaders with their girdles," says 148 WALKS IN ALGIERS. a French writer. As it was, panic seized the whole com- pany, and in less than an hour the French victory was complete. A large number of persons were made prisoners — Abd-el- Kader's wife and mother only escaping by the happy chance of their being unrecognised, and through the faithfulness of a negro slave. The booty was enormous. It comprised thousands of animals — cattle, horses, camels, and sheep— Abd-el-Kader's library, valued at ;^5,ooo, his military chest, containing millions of francs, besides others deposited in the smala for safety, and filled with gold and silver coins and precious stones. Shortly after this crushing defeat, Abd-el-Kader retired across the frontier into Morocco, where the Emperor made him Caliph, and though he at first refused to assist him by force of arms, he was eventually drawn into a border-war with the French, who occupied some disputed territory at Lalla Maghnia. This war terminated in a great victory gained by the French over the Moors, known as the battle of Isly — a victory which finally secured their power in Africa. Morocco was thankful to make peace, and the French could afford to be generous. They claimed no territory, no indemnity for the war ; they only begged Sultan Abd-er- Rahman to deliver them from Abd-el-Kader. This demand the Sultan of Morocco was not altogether able, however willing he might have been, to grant; for there were not wanting those who said, that had he pleased, Abd-el-Kader, so great was his popularity throughout Morocco, might at one stroke have dispossessed Muley Abd-er-Rahman, and mounted the Moorish throne. Abd-el- BATTLE OF ISLY. BOU-MAZA. 149 Kader was not a man personally ambitious, and the stroke was not made. But he bore a charmed life. Proscribed alike by the French and the Moorish Governments, he was able to defy both. For some time, indeed, after the battle of Isly, he took no active steps, and reports of his death were circulated throughout Algeria. Meanwhile a new champion arose among the Arabs, a certain Bou-Maza, a hermit, and man of reputed piety — a miracle worker in short — who, rallying the scattered Arab tribes, professed himself Sultan by the appointment of God, raised up for the extermination of the foreign invader. He was after all but a vulgar charlatan, and those who would compare him to Abd-el-Kader surely, says M. Fillias, the historian of the conquest, " take the shadow for the light;" but at the time he had many partisans, and his personal bravery, added to his saintly reputation, gained him a measure of success. He was known as the " man of the goat," from his being supposed to possess a familiar, bearing that shape, through whom he received communica- tions from another world. He subsequently surrendered to Colonel St. Arnaud at Orleansville, in 1847. Abd-el-Kader, though not a participator in the agitation caused by this man, did not hesitate to take advantage of it. Added to which, a singular act of savagery on the part of the French, had excited all the Arab tribes to a degree of resentment almost unprecedented. The Ouled-Riah, a tribe who had never yet acknow- ledged French supremacy, and who had been implicated with Bou-Maza, were pursued by a French column under '50 WALKS IN ALGIERS. Colonel, afterwards Marshal, Pelissier. Being hard pressed, they retired with all their women and children into the cave of Frechich. Colonel Pelissier summoned them to surrender ; they not only refused, but fired at and killed the envoy. Enraged by this conduct, the French colonel ordered the mouth of the cave to be filled up with blocks of wood, and fired. Flames and smoke filled the cavern ; frightful shrieks rent the air. The French column, drawn up at the mouth of the cave, waited to despatch any fugitives who might break from their horrible tomb of fire ; but none came. Not a living soul escaped ! A cry of horror at this diabolical method of warfare rang through Europe at news of the deed, and the Arabs trembled with a desire to avenge the wrongs of their murdered brethren. Then Abd-el-Kader once more appeared on the scene, and revenged the murder of the Ouled-Riah by abso- lutely cutting in pieces a French column, only a few days after. With the handful of men still at his command, he yet contrived to inspire his enemies with terror, harassing them first on this side and then on that, passing unscathed through their thickest fire, and performing perfect prodigies of valour. But such an unequal contest could not last long, and at length the heroic chieftain, gathering the small remnant of his band about him, declared that the time had come when further resistance was hopeless, and absolving them from the oath which they had sworn, now nine years ago, begged them to tell him, could anything more be done. The sorrowful truth was too plain in the ragged group of spent and battered warriors who gathered about their chief. CONDITIONAL SURRENDER. On the night of December 21st, 1847, he sent to General Lamorici^re, commander of the French forces, a paper, in which he offered to surrender on the one condition that he, his family and followers should be permitted to retire to some other Mahomedan country. Lamoriciere joyfully acceded to the terms, and hastened at once, to receive with honour the redoubtable chief, who had kept the armies of France at bay for so many years. The promise of a safe transport to Alexandria or St. Jean d'Acre was afterwards confirmed in writing, and again by the mouth of the Due d'Aumale, then governor-general of Algeria. But no sooner was Abd-el-Kader actually in the power of the French, than the promise thus solemnly given and ratified was broken. From Toulon he was transferred to Pau. The Revolutionary Government of 1848 refused to consider itself bound by the engagements of that which it had overthrown, and in answer to the indignant remonstrances of the betrayed chief, declared " that it was under no obligation to Abd-el-Kader, and that it took him, as the previous Government had left him — a prisoner." In June, 1848, Lamoriciere was appointed Minister of War. Incredible as it may seem, this but ushered in a new season of persecution, for him, who by this time, had come to be known to the world as, the captive of Pau. He was removed from Pau Castle to the yet stricter confinement of the Chateau d'Amboise. " Let kings and people learn from my example," wrote Abd-el-Kader, " what confidence is to be placed in the word of a Frenchman." The honour of redeeming that word was left to Louis WALKS IN ALGIERS. Napoleon. Made President, almost his first act of power was to visit the illustrious prisoner, and personally grant the liberty of which he had been so long and so tyrannously deprived. 'l"he gratitude of the simple-hearted Arab was touching. " Others have overthrown and imprisoned me," he said ; " Louis Napoleon alone has conquered me." After a short visit to Paris, where he was received as an honoured guest by the President, Abd-el-Kader left for the East, and subsequently established himself at Damascus, where, in i860, he was the means of saving the lives of a large number of Christians threatened by the Druzes. So ended the public life of a man, whom destiny rather than choice, had forced into the front ranks of life's great battle-field. Few men, if any, of the world's great heroes have been less personally ambitious, less self-interested, more magnani- mous in power, and more resigned in misfortune. A fervent piety guided his life, a spirit of honour and humanity breathed in all his actions. Let it not be forgotten that he was the first Arab who gave quarter, who discouraged the cruel practice of beheading the wounded, and that so far as his power extended, he acted not only in a humane, but in a generous manner, to all who fell into his hands prisoners. In conckision, he was a man in whom both friends and enemies recognised the quality great. To quote a French writer : — " The Emir was undeniably a great politician as well as a valiant soldier. On another scene, with other men and means, he would have acliieved wonders. His great glory was his statesmanship. He sought to reconstruct the Arab nationality which the Turks had destroyed. CAPTIVE AND SET FREE. ^53 He failed, not from any fault in himself, but because, though it is possible to galvanise a corpse, it is beyond human power to reanimate it. As a warrior he displayed incontestable superiority. Without artillery or munitions of war, he held at check an army of fifty thousand men for fifteen years. He has been taxed with cruelty. This accusa- tion could more justly be brought against his opponents. War is at all times a savage game, but if ever war was legitimate, it was surely that wa<;cd by Abd-el-Kader, fighting in the name of God and his country." — Hisloire de la Conqiicte. M. Fillias. CHAPTER IX. AFTER ABD-EL-KADER.— THE KABYLE WAR— THE EMPIRE.— THE INSURRECTION OF 1871. S may be imagined, the nine years' struggle with Abd-el- ■ly. Kader had not done much to improve the position of Algeria as a colony. EveryAvhere farms had been ravaged, allotments abandoned in terrified haste, settlers massacred, or burned out of house and home. Even the plain of the Me- tidja, once for its fertility known as the " mother of the poor," had become a burnt and barren waste. Scarcely the walled and fortified towns afforded security to life or property ; dismay had more than once penetrated into Algiers itself. Bugeaud had come to Algiers in 1841 with the intention, which he lost no time in declaring, of being not only a conquering general, but also the father of the colony. He had himself, during some years of forced retirement under the late regime, turned his sword into a ploughshare, and was a successful practical agriculturist. As soon as the battle of Isly gave him a moment's breath- ing-time from more active duties, he set himself seriously to the task of carrying out the scheme of colonization which Each trained to arms since life began. Owning no tie but to his clan." Lady of ike Lake. COLONIZATION. 155 he had ah-eady planned. His notion was to form a great military colony, peopling the country with old soldiers, to whom free grants of land, together with a certain amount of capital and stock, were to be given, and who were bound to marry within six months after taking possession of their estates. This scheme was, at the time, combated with great energy by various other persons, who had all a special plan of colonization to propose, each of which was " warranted " successful. The qiiesiion algtrienne again became a very agitated one in France, and a full-grown and completely established colony was loudly demanded by French impetuosity, as the immediate result of Abd-el-Kader's first serious defeat. Bugeaud, in spite of opposition, having Louis Philippe's personal approval and support, managed to carry out to some extent, his pet scheme of military settlements. It did not prove on the whole very successful. Not many of his followers seemed to have possessed the versatile talents of their commander. To them the ploughshare was an infi- nitely more troublesome weapon to manage than the bayo- net. The difficulty, too, of finding respectable wives " to order " was not small. We read in the account given by Lieutenant Lamping of the foreign legion — " So the soldier usually takes to himself some profligate woman not at all lOcely to attach him to his home, then he neglects his farm, dissi- pates the small sum allowed him by the Government, and the end of it all is, that he seUs his oxen and plough, turns off his female companion, and enlists for a few years more. And now the old fellow who used to curse the service heartily, finds it quite a decent and comfortable way of living, and it is amusing to hear with what indignation he speaks of the life of a colonist." — The French in Algiers, translated from the German by Lady Duff Gordon. '56 WALKS IN ALGIERS. In truth, in a very few years the military colonists esta- blished by General Bugeaud had disappeared, no one knew where; but on quitting his command in 1847, the General was able to point proudly to the progress which the province had made during his rule, to roads opened, bridges built, and various other public works completed, as well as victories won ; and, in truth, though he was, perhaps, some- what headstrong in carrying out his own notions, he was an active-minded and able man, to whom Algeria owes a considerable debt of gratitude, nor was the least of his good deeds, the importance which he gave to the equitable work- ing of the bureau arabe. The Due d'Aumale's reign was a very short one, the one event of which was Abd-el-Kader's submission. On the breaking out of the revolution of 1848 there were not wanting among the old African generals, those who were willing to turn their arms to the defence of the throne. But both the Duke and his brother Prince Joinville, re- fused to allow the country to be plunged into the horrors of civil war on their account. In his farewell to the Algerians the Duke said — " Faithful to my duties as a citizen and soldier, I have remained at my post as long as I thought my presence could be useful to my country. That situation no longer exists. Submitting to the national will, I depart ; but from my exile, all my wishes ^vill be for the glory and prosperity of France." He then at once embarked for England, and was at first succeeded by General Changarnier; but during this troubled year of 1848, no less than four governors were successively appointed to the post of command. Meanwhile renewed efforts at extensive colonization were COLONIZATION. 157 made, at enormous expense to the mother-country, for the sake of getting rid of that uncontrollable scum of society, which, during times of political agitation, always seems to bubble up to the surface, coming no one knows from whence ; but again, through errors of administration, and under pressure of various difficulties, large sums were squandered, and great suffering and much loss of life occasioned among the unhappy colonists, who arrived in crowds in an unknown and unsettled country, to die of starva- tion and fever, before the elaborate machinery arranged for their aid could be got into working order. In truth the country was hardly ripe for colonization. The fall of Abd-el-Kader had scarcely aftbrded that tran- quillity to Algeria, which so important an event seemed to promise. When the news of his surrender reached Paris, " This," said the Moniieur of the day, secures the peace of the colony. At last, France may, if necessary, transport to other quarters, the hundred thousand men she has hitherto required to keep the native population in check." This in truth was not strictly so. Abd-el-Kader's submission was followed almost imme- diately by the flight of Louis Philippe, as the taking of Algiers had been by that of his predecessor — a strange fatality, surely, this which connected Algerian triumphs with the fall of crowned French heads — and the anarchy which afterwards prevailed in France, encouraged the Arabs to make fresh, though feeble efforts after liberty. In all the three provinces there were risings, which were put down by what were known as " timely severities," and in 1849, the French carried their arms into the heart of the 158 WALKS IN ALGIERS. Sahara, besieging and, after a most desperate struggle, in which cholera as well as Arab bullets thinned their ranks, capturing and destroying the town of Zaatcha, capital of the Zab country. At this time a vote of the Assembly granted universal suffrage to the colony. In the year 1851 there was a serious insurrection in the neighbourhoods of Milianah and Orleansville ; but the greatest difficulties which the French have from this, almost up to the present time, experienced among the native popu- lation, have come from Kabylia — or the country somewhat arbitrarily so called — at least from the Kabyle tribes, which, as distinct from the Arabs, have from time immemorial occupied all the mountainous country, which covers so large a proportion of the area of Algeria. In origin, in language, in government, manners and cus- toms, distinct from, and opposed to, the Arabs, they had maintained their independence intact for many centuries. Sometimes allied with, but never submitting themselves to, the various conquering races who successively passed over the northern shore of Africa, they had from their inacces- sible mountain eyries, seen the dwellers on the plains in the grasp of Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Spaniards, and French, and assisted now and then in the general mel^e, without endangering their own position, or modify- ing to the smallest extent, their ancient laws and regula- tions. They formed among themselves a republic, a federation of free tribes, which has been not inaptly called a savage Switzerland, and amid their mountain fastnesses, were ever glad to welcome those whom tyranny, oppression, or crime THE KABYLES. 159 made fugitives from other communities. Once within these inaccessible natural strongholds, the sanctuary was physi- cally as well as morally inviolable, and hither through a long course of ages, from the time of the Romans upwards, the persecuted had fled for refuge. But the existence of such a community in its midst, warlike and independent — the fact of such an asylum where its bitterest foes would be protected, and from whence perpetual attacks might be made — soon began to be a source of uneasiness to the French province. Moreover, the Kabyles, as a people, had actually taken the offensive against the French ; and, urged by the ex- hortations of their Marabouts, to whom, in spite of their independent character, they rendered the most implicit obedience, had warmly espoused the cause of Abd-el-Kader, himself a Hadji and Marabout. But his submission by no means involved theirs — or rather their acquiescence in the French ascendancy ; for up to the time of which we are speaking, there had been little or no talk of Kabyle conquest. The first expedition aimed against them was in the year 1 85 1, at which time a certain Marabout known as Bou- Barla, the man with the mule, was loudly preaching the holy war. At that time a force of nine thousand men was marched from Constantine upon Djidjelly, which was blockaded and captured ; whereon most of the neighbour- ing tribes sent in their submission, and those who resisted were punished with great severity — their villages burnt, their trees felled, and their crops destroyed. The following is an account of a Kabyle skirmish from the pen of M. Castellane : — i6o WALKS m ALGIERS. "As we neared the mountain, the distant buzzing noise of the enemy, like that of a bee-hive, ceased. Then suddenly as we advanced, from the ravines, the rocks, and woods, there arose mingled screams, yells, and bellowings, like those of wild beasts. The Kabyles, practised in ambuscades and retreats, glided among the thickets, and crawled rapidly along the chasmed ground to get close up to the enemy, when, firing off their pieces, they bounded away to avoid the corresponding shots. The scene was sufficient to strike terror into the stoutest, witnessing for the first time, so confused and frantic an uproar. They were not men, they were wild animals let loose, that environed us; and the formidable Kabyle sword, or Jiissa, dealt in close fighting many an ugly wound." — Military Life in Algeria. Holding possession of Djidjelly, the French for this time, retired upon their laurels, leaving the Kabyles of the more distant mountains undisturbed in their fastnesses. In this year, 1851, General Randon was made governor, and at the close of the year an extraordinary political revolution, converted the President of the French Republic into Napoleon III. The Coup d'Etat, the facts of which are sufficiently well known, sent a new wave of population to the shore of Africa. Algiers had for some time past, been used rather extensively as a military penal settlement, but it now became the peni- tentiary of all those whose political creed differed from that of the Emperor, or who were believed to be dangerous to his interests. On the night of the 2nd of December, while France, and Paris with it, unconscious of new destinies, peacefully slumbered, the Republic died and the new Empire awoke to being. When morning dawned, proclamations of the new reign were posted on every wall in Paris, and all the prominent men, to the number of seventy-eight, who repre- sented .any shade of opinion other than the Imperialist, THE COUP D'ETAT. i6i found themselves within the walls of a prison. Nor were these the only victims. Arrests were made throughout the country, and vast numbers of persons who were prominent as Republicans, or who showed an inclination to resist the new order of things, were shipped off either to Cayenne or Algeria. In the latter case the proscrits on landing were despatched to camps, which were being established in distant, and as yet uncleared districts. There, formed into gangs, they were, under the superintendence of the military, set to the task of road-making, bridge-building, and other public works. The ill-usage experienced by these unhappy exiles has been largely dwelt upon by Republican pamphleteers. It is to be hoped that their accounts are exaggerated; but as among the number of political offenders, were to be found many men of culture and refinement, totally unused to manual labour, it will readily be understood that the hard- ships of this kind of life were very great. After awhile some were permitted to return to France, many died, and great numbers having been torn away from the niches which they had occupied in their native country, settled down to begin life anew on the shores of Africa. Whether the sentiments of these men have, in spite of all efforts, per- meated Algerian society it is hard to say, but it is certain that at the present moment — this year of grace 1878 — there is not to be found a more anti-Napoleonic community than the African colony. \Vhat the next turn of the wheel will produce, who knows ? To return to the early days of the second Empire. When the war in the East broke out, a large number of troops left Algeria, among which were several native regiments. The M WALKS IN ALGIERS. cause was popular with the Arabs, who in the defence of their co-religionists, for the first time found a bond of real sympathy between them and their French conquerors ; added to which the Emperor's honourable and generous treatment of Abd-el-Kader, had attached him personally to them. The Kabyles, less interested possibly in the fate of the Turks, with whom they had never had any relations, did not share the general feeling of satisfaction. They were, on the contrary, rather disposed to take advantage of the com- parative poverty of the French resources. In 1853 the fanatic Bou-Barla had again appeared, and an expedition to Kabylia was organized and commanded by Marshal MacMahon. In this, Bou-Barla was killed and the insurgent tribes subdued, but scarcely had the troops retired, when fresh troubles arose. The tribes, excited by the preaching of the Marabouts, and too often by the severe and indiscriminating measures of the French, rose in retaliation, murdering and pillaging all the Europeans upon whom they could lay hands, to be ravaged and massacred in their turn by the next French column, which found its way to their mountain fastnesses. This unsettled and unsatisfactory state of things continued until 1857, when, the Crimean war over. Marshal Randon found himself in command of a large reinforcement. A complete conquest of the Kabyle country was now resolved upon. The fort of Tizi-Ouzou was at this time the French frontier-post. It occupies a little isolated hill at the foot of the Djurdjura Mountains, separated from them by a broad but shallow river. THE KABYLE WAR. 163 Here, the French troops, to the number of thirty thou- sand, concentrated in the month of May, 1857. Marshal MacMahon was at the head of one division. General Yussuf of a second, General Renault of a third — Marshal Randon, the governor-general, himself holding the chief command. "The fort of Tizi-Ouzou was well supplied with provisions and material of every kind, while strings of camels, mules and waggons toiled along the road from Algiers, making good the inroads caused by the daily consumption of so large a force. " The three principal ridges of the mountains, were crowned at every available height by populous-looking villages. The rugged sides of the mountains ran down to the plain, often in abrupt precipices ; and as the eye ranged upwards towards the distant snow mountains, ravine and hill clothed with noble forests of fig, olive, and lance-wood, met the view. Thickets of impenetrable cacti and aloes covered the lower parts of the hills, and enormous blocks of rock roUed down from the mountains, were scattered here and there. "Upon these apparently impregnable strongholds the French troops made their attack. The fire became heavier and heavier as the troops scrambled up the sheer face of the mountain, now leaping from rock to rock, now tearing through the prickly underwood, perfectly unconscious of the wounds received from it, and men fell fast as the defenders' fire flashed from every bush and rock. In the rear came the mules picking up the wounded, and carrying them away to the hospital tents. Last of all followed strong working parties, who with spade and mattock proceeded at once to trace out a rough road for the advance of the baggage of the column." — Sketches during the Kabyle War. Lieut. -Col. Waimsley. But the resistance, however brave and determined, and however aided by natural defences, of a body of badly armed villagers, could not but in the end, prove ineffectual against the determined assault, of such a powerful body of well-trained and thoroughly equipped French troops. In spite of heavy losses, the enthusiasm, the elan, the blood-thirst of the Zouaves, carried them on. Height after 164 WALKS IN ALGIERS. height was escaladed, and village after village sent up, each from its crested height, a broad beacon of flame into the still night air, as a token of deadly vengeance accomplished. Again to quote Col. Walmsley : — " The history of one was that of all. The dash up the mountain height on the edge of which was built the Kab\'le village, whose rude walls had in peace crowned the mountain for ages ; the fall of a few men as they struggled forward, and were swept down by the fire of its defenders ; the hand-to-hand fight ; the rolling volleys of the attacking corps, as the Kabyles after a sharp and energetic resistance retired steadily and undismayed, generally taking with them their wounded and dead. The butt-ends of the muskets had hardly driven in the splintered doors, before a red jet of flame would shoot from the interior ; how lighted, or by which of the blood-stained smoke- begrimed figures, who were busily engaged in rummaging the poor hovel from end to end in search of hidden treasures, it is impossible to say." At length the Beni-Raten, the most powerful of the Djurdjura tribes, submitted, receiving from the French, con- siderably to their surprise, easy and generous terms. Their local government was left undisturbed ; they were to be disarmed, but with permission to sell their weapons ; and a certain annual tribute was imposed. On their side they pledged themselves to offer no further annoyance to the French — a pledge which they most honourably kept throughout the campaign ; but many other of the more remote tribes remained unconquered. An advance yet farther into the mountains was pro- jected. In the meantime the whole of the French army set to work, began, and in seventeen days completed, one of the most remarkable pieces of military engineering in Algeria — a road through seventeen miles of mountainous country, from Tizi-Ouzou to the very centre of the Kabyle THE KABYLE WAR. Djurdjura, where the stronghold now known as Fort National stands. When, on the 14th of June 1857, the first stone of the new fortress was laid by Marshal Randon, it was destined to be called by another name — that of the then popular Emperor, for whom, as the ceremony concluded, vivas and loud huzzas rang from thirty thousand throats, waking the echoes of the rocky ravines. Very soon after the foundation of Fort Napoleon, Icheriden and other Kabyle strongholds yielded ; and after altogether sixty days' fighting, the tribes put down their arms, and Marshal Randon had the satisfaction of being able to report the Kabyles, as at length, and for the first time in the course of their long history, entirely sub- dued. This General's government was altogether a brilliant and a useful one in Algeria. In his time, not only was Kabylia conquered and the French dominion extended in the desert as far as Touggourt, but many public works were under- taken, railways begun, telegraph lines established, schools built, roads opened out even in the Sahara, and artesian wells sunk. In 1858, however, the constantly changing poHcy of the home-Government with regard to Algeria, created quite a new order of things. The office of governor-general was abolished, and the affairs of the colony were to be in the hands of a minister, the first to take the office being Prince Napoleon. He remained in office barely a year, and sub- sequently the military rule was re-established. But the changes introduced into the administration in 1858 almost amounted to a revolution. " Not only," says M. Fillias, " was there to be no more governor-general, but WALKS IN ALGIERS. the bureaux arabes were also abolished. There was to be no more native aristocracy ; the tribes were to be no longer responsible for crimes committed by the natives — indeed the tribes themselves were done away with." The country was divided into communes governed by civil functionaries ; but the changes of all kinds were so sudden as to create much practical inconvenience, and loud com- plaints arose on all sides, from both Europeans and natives. In the middle of all this agitation the Emperor Napoleon, accompanied by the Empress, paid his first visit to Algeria in i860. As the result of his observations during this journey, the Emperor declared that he found the natives oppressed, and ruined by taxation and usury, and he at once set his im- perial machinery to work, to remedy some of the abuses from which he found them suffering. They were declared French citizens, and the collective property of the tribes was secured to them. Two new laws were also made at this time, having regard to the administration of justice among the natives. The native courts were subjected to the surveillance of the French magistrates, with appeal from the native to the French tribunals ; and the marriages of the natives were permitted to be contracted under French law — a measure specially intended for the protection of the native women, and for the suppression of polygamy. Other results beneficial to the colony, followed the Emperor's visit. Algiers was made a free port, and free trade was established between it and France ; 100,000,000 francs were voted for expenditure on public works ; the commune was enfranchised ; institutions of credit were established. VISIT OF NAPOLEON III. 167 General Pelissier was appointed governor-general in i860, and Marshal MacMahon succeeded him in 1864. In this year there was an attempt at a native insurrec- tion, which was quickly put down ; and at the same time an important measure was passed, which secured to the Arabs individual property instead of tribal tenure, by which they had previously held the land. In 1865 the Emperor Napoleon again visited Algiers, and ttiade addresses both to the Europeans and natives, urging the former to conciliation towards the natives, and hopefulness in the future of their adopted country ; while pointing out to the latter, the benefits which would accrue to them from a civilized and just rule. The years 1866 and 1867 presented new and unlooked- for difficulties in the Algerian colony. No sooner did a few years of peace and security seem to promise a hopeful future for both natives and Europeans, than fresh causes of anxiety arose in the unprecedented drought, which in these years successively produced a failure of crops all over the country, and even dried up the sources of the springs. These misfortunes, though materially affecting all classes, were most severely felt by the Arabs, who having been for the most part despoiled of their stores of corn, were lite- rally left without any means of subsistence, while the use of impure water for drinking purposes, was a fruitful source of disease. Too passive to make any strong exertions against what was, according to their creed, so evidently ordered, they for the most part resigned themselves to their fate, and perished unmurnmringly of famine and cholera, in thousands and tens of thousands. In addition to the scourges of pestilence and scarcity in WALKS IN ALGIERS. 1866, an extraordinary plague of locusts devastated the country, devouring what the drought had spared — though they in their turn were used as an article of food, the Arabs of the desert considering them delicacies, and consuming them, we are assured, " with the zest of a Londoner for shrimps." Another visitation at this sad time was a severe earth- quake, which in January, 1867, destroyed several villages in the Metidja, and injured many others. Altogether, in spite of the strenuous exertions of the French, and more particularly of the clergy, it is estimated that at least two hundred thousand persons perished from the effects of these combined disasters. Some of the noblest and most hopeful charities of Algiers, notably the orphanages, took their rise through the benevo- lent exertions of Monsgr. Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers at this time. The last tragical chapter of Algerian history is the revolt of 1871. At the time of the breaking out of the Franco-German war, the African colony was in a state of perfect tranquillity. The government of the Empire had always been, and deservedly so, popular with the natives. Native troops marched willingly to the front in defence of their French fellow-countrymen, and so secure was the country believed to be, that under pressure of circumstances, more and con- tinually more regiments were withdrawn from it, until it might be said to have been left practically undefended. Possibly as an extra precaution, and one which it was beheved would be quite unneeded, the word of Mokrani, a powerful Arab chieftain of the province of Constantine, REVOLT OF 1871. 169 holding important office under the French Government, and decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honour, was demanded and given, that during the European struggle, he and his tribes would remain faithful. This promise, given by Mokrani to General Durrien, the governor-general, and kept to the letter — that is up to the signing of the treaty of peace between France and Germany, but not a moment longer — probably saved Algeria to France. The disaster of Sedan and the fall of Napoleon, produced a marked change in the disposition of the Arabs towards the French in Algeria, and a certain inclination showed itself, to take advantage of their momentary weakness; added to which the impolitic naturalization (at this time) of the Jewish population, and the enrolment of the Jews in the army, gave serious umbrage to the Mahomedan body. The wandering tribes of the desert, relieved of the pres- sure of French troops in their midst, broke out into revolt ; and, under pretext of putting down the insurrection, one tribe made war against the other, and a general state of disorder ensued. In the province of Constantine a squadron of spahis mutinied, and some Bedouin tribes attacked a French set- tlement. A certain uneasiness, therefore, began to be felt throughout the colony ; and the peace which would release the mass of troops from other duties, was eagerly looked for. That event, curiously enough, precipitated the catas- trophe. Mokrani, released from his word, formally declared war, resigned his functions, gave up his cross of the Legion of Honour, and permitted forty-eight hours to elapse before beginning hostilities. He then, collecting his tribes around 170 WALKS IN ALGIERS. him, marched to the attack. He was subsequently killed in a battle, fighting heroically to the last. It was in Kabylia that the most serious events occurred. Excited by the news of Mokrani's revolt and partial successes in the plain, and urged on by the preach- ing of a famous Marabout, Shiekh-el-Hadded, a paralyzed fanatic, the whole country lighted as with a torch. Bougie, Dellys, and Djidjelly, on the coast, were completely cut off from the interior. The isolated Fort Napoleon sustained a severe two-months' siege. The village of Tizi-Ouzou was destroyed, and the gan ison shut up in the fort. Everywhere farms, settlements, and factories were destroyed, while Palestro, a solitary village among the mountains defended only by a handful of gendarmes, was the scene of a deplor- able tragedy. The French population, under a hundred in number, entrenched themselves within two buildings, which they hastily fortified and held against a strong force of Arabs. The one, surrendering on honourable terms, its occupants, to the number of fifty-four, were immediately massacred with circumstances of great cruelty. The beleaguered garrison of the second building, being burnt out of their refuge, were also forced to capitulate. These, of whom a large proportion were women and children, were made prisoners, but after enduring great hardships were eventually released. Another outbreak took place to the west of Algiers, in the mountainous district between Milianah and the sea. Cherchel was invested for a whole month ; and Zurich, a village of recent creation, was gallantly defended until relief came, by a small force of seventy men, forty of whom were military prisoners. In this district the Kabyles did REVOLT OF 1871. 171 not succeed in their attempts on a single village, though they burned and ravaged all the outlying farmsteads. The return of the troops to the colony quickly restored order and security. Since that time all the efforts of the Government have been directed towards the advancement of the colony. All the lands of the insurgents in the insurrection of 187 1 were declared forfeit 3 this, in addition to a fine of 30,000,000 francs, and the incarceration of the heads of the rebellion. The confiscation of property has not been carried out to its fullest extent, but from the fine, liberal allowance has been made to the sufferers from the insurrection, and on a portion of the forfeited lands, numerous immigrants from Alsace and Lorraine have been established. Already various villages, peopled entirely by these volun- tary exiles, have sprung up in different parts of the colony with a promise of success — the Teutonic nature of these people standing them in better stead as colonists than their French predilections would be likely to do. But, in truth, the hard days of the colony seem now to be over ; order is established throughout the length and breadth of the land ; the submission, if not the good-will, of the native population is secured ; and as prejudices wear away and old scores are wiped out in benefits received and given, the good-will between the races, will, it is to be hoped, increase and strengthen. A French writer says — " The Algerian question is a double one, at once of honour and of interest. On the first point there can be no discussion or doubt. France has received of God the mission of civilizing Northern Africa. However hard the task may be, however gieat the sacrifices it im- 172 WALKS IN ALGIERS. poses upon her, she must persevere in this course ; it would be a disgrace to her to do otherwise. There are, indeed, certain writers in France, who, either from ignorance or the pure love of contra- diction, still protest against the conquest and colonization of Algeria; some only thinking of the matter from an economical point of view, and counting every penny that the country has cost, as though these great questions of humanity could be treated as merely commer- cial speculations ; others, on the contrary, taking a sentimental view of things, continually groaning over the sad fate of the Arabs. We have, they say, robbed them of their country, confiscated to our own profit their nationalit)', liberty, and fortunes ; at every step we violate their deepest feelings. "But in this argument there is an error which it would be well to correct. God has not given the earth to man that he may leave it a wild and trackless desert, and the man who does not cultivate the land committed to him, is rightly dispossessed of it. And it is the duty of all civilized nations, not only to point out to the savage the way in which he should go, but by ever)' means in his power to make him walk in it. "In short, nothing is less true than that pretended philanthropy, which would make out the Arabs to be oppressed patriots deprived of their just heritage." — M. A. Joanne. At the same time the commercial prospects of the colony should now be bright. It should no longer be, as it has more than once not inaptly been called, " a great quagmire in which the treasure and the blood of France have been swallowed up." To quote another French politician on the subject, M. de Broglie : — " Whatever sceptics may say to the contrary, Algeria is a fertile country, and the experience of every year goes to prove it. She may not possess those exceptional treasures which attract capitaMsts, she may not bear on her bosom nor beneath it, mines of untold wealth to inspire the cupidity of the adventurer. It is not, after all, the land of the thousand and one nights. Its rivers do not flow with gold. But it is a country which, with moderate efforts and expenditure, will largely yield the chief elements of life and wealth — bread, oil, \vine, and provender for cattle. Let good labourers but come with hands ready for toil and pockets fairly furnished, and they will find the land yield them back a steady and increasing return." COLONIZATION. Indeed, when we remember what has already been accompHshed by the French in the forty-seven years of their occupation ; when we remember the difficulties of all kinds they have had to surmount ; when we consider the state of utter barbarism in which the whole country was wrapped not half a century ago, and see it now, peaceable, secure, already cultivated very largely, and beginning to prosper — instead of being surprised at what is left undone, we may justly admire that which has been achieved, while we heartily wish for our neighbours across Channel, success in their first serious attempt at colonization. CHAPTER X. THE FRENCH TOWN.— THE MARKETS.— THE MOSQUE DE LA PECHERIE.— THE GRAND MOSQUE. " Towered cities please us then, And the busy hum of men." Milton^ IT is almost certain that the first impression of Algiers on landing will be one of disappointment. Seen from the sea, the appearance of the town is so extremely pic- turesque, that the traveller, who at the end of his long and fatiguing journey finds himself in, as it seems, an ordinary modern French town, is driven up a sloping carriage-drive bordered with French warehouses, and constructed, he hears with some disgust, by an English company, to a row of four- storied modern houses, with arcaded fronts, which might just as well be a piece cut out of the Rue de Rivoli as anything else, feels naturally aggrieved and resentful, and is inclined to ask peevishly whether he has come so far, only to see — this. It is still early morning when he lands, but he has been so many hours awake and stirring, that it does not seem so to him, and as he stumbles out of the bright sun- shine into the dim hotel, he is surprised to find all the persiennes fast closed ; to be greeted by sleepy-eyed waiters in every variety of undress costume; to see the salie i FIRST IMPRESSIONS. manger just being turned out and swept ; while his humour is by no means improved by the fact, that unless he have secured his apartments well beforehand, he is pretty sure to be conducted up endless staircases to the worst and least convenient rooms in the house. But when, in defiance of all Algerian notions, he has thrown wide the windows, to let in the glorious golden sunshine, and feasted his eyes on the wondrous beauty of the scene that lies before him — the grand bay with the snow-capped Djurdjura Mountains standing out of the blue sea far to the right, the harbour gay with shipping at his feet, and the boulevard already beginning to swarm with its motley crowd of strangely-clad figures, then already his mood changes, and he inclines to think his journey niari terraque has not been all in vain. For the sake of effect, if not of convenience, it is cer- tainly a pity that the French have, during the forty-seven years of their occupation, so completely transformed that part of Algiers which looks upon the sea. Formerly, the quaint fiat-roofed Moorish houses extended without break to the very water's edge in one long slope, as may be seen in an interesting picture of Algiers at the time of the French conquest, in the Bibliotheque. These Moorish dwellings, to the number, it is said, of eighty thousand, together with a fine double row of palm- trees which extended for miles along the shore, were destroyed for the construction of the boulevard which now fronts the town. The first stone of this, was laid in Septem- ber, i860, by the Empress, and bore her name. It has since, following the progress of events, been changed into the Boulevard de la R'epiiblique. The road is built on a series 176 WALKS IN ALGIERS. of double arches at a height of about forty feet above the quay and harbour, with which it is connected by various flights of stone steps, and by two incHned carriage drives. The work, a fine piece of engineering, was constructed by Sir Morton Peto, at a cost of about ^^300,000. Some of the arches are utilised as barracks, which hold the com- mand of the port, and others as warehouses and offices. The boulevard extends over a frontage of 3,700 feet. On this boulevard, which is still incomplete, are situated the Banque d'Alg'erie and the Hotel d' Orient, from which, to the right, past the garden of Place Bresson and a wide open space, on which an imperial residence was to have been built, but which is now appropriated to a new hotel, is the General Post Office. From the Hotel d'Orient, a few yards to the left, is the Place du Gouvernement, a large open paved square, planted on three sides with a double row of plane-trees, and bordered also on three sides with shops and cafes, as to the brilliancy and charms of which, French guide-books are enthusiastic. On the fourth side, the Place du Gouvernement is open to the sea, and commands a splendid view. Towards this side is a handsome equestrian bronze statue of the Due d'Orleans, by Marochetti. It was cast from cannon taken in the siege of the town, and has some bas-reliefs on its marble base, representing on the north side, the siege of Antwerp, and on the south the passage of the Col de Mouzaia, one of the most signal victories gained over Abd-el-Kader. In front of the Hotel de la Rege7ice, which looks upon the square, is a group of palm and orange trees ; close to these is a clump of bamboos, with a pretty fountain. THE FRENCH TOWN. 177 It is here that the miHtary band plays three times a week, and the scene is then an animated one, from the variety of costumes of all nations which are displayed upon the sunny pavement. Chairs are then arranged for visitors, and there are also numerous permanent seats upon the " Place," but these are chiefly appropriated by Arabs, and are therefore not serviceable, except as centres of strikingly picturesque groups. The Place du Gouvernement, with some of the adjoining streets, occupies the site of the famous old palace of the Djenina (or little garden), the private residence and harem of the Deys. " The most beautiful house of Algiers is that Of the Bashaw or Vice- roy, which is in the centre of the town, the most remarkable feature about it being the two galleries, one over the other, upheld by double rows of white marble and porphyry columns, with mosaic enrichments." — Histoire de Barbarie. Pierre Dan. " In this palace there are a multitude of chambers, large and small, lofty and low, aU very well built, and some of them panelled with cedar- wood and oak, painted and adorned after the Moorish style." — Topo- grqfia de Argel, 164(5. Haedo. The palace was certainly one of the most interesting historic monuments of Algiers, and its complete destruction is to be regretted. The policy of the French seems to have been to efface as much as possible the Algiers of the past, and to substitute in its stead a commonplace and utterly uninteresting French town. They have, happily, as yet not altogether succeeded in this ; but the constant demolitions and so-called im- provements, are a source of serious concern to the small minority among the French-Algerians, who are possessed of a taste for the antique or the picturesque. We quote a N 178 WALKS IN ALGIERS. passage on the subject from the pen of the late M. Ber- brugger, the talented conservator of the Bibliotheque in Algiers : — "Mussulman Algiers, such as we found it in 1830, is disappearing bit by bit under the indifferent eyes of the European invader. Public improvements sweep it away wholesale, public safety demands that it should be pulled to pieces in detail. The overwhelming wave of our French population, ^\-ith its natural distaste to the native style of archi- tecture, destroys it, or at least completely transforms it, whenever possible. In a quarter of a century, a Moorish building will be as great a curiosity to the native of Algiers, as to the European traveller. " This work of destruction is justified in the main, by the triumph of a superior civUization. We will not attempt to contest nor even to criticize it in principle, but it seems only fair to admit, that there should be exceptions to this general demolition ; certain buildings deser\'e to escape the common fate, by reason of their architectural value, or for their interest as historical monuments. Why then, are they not pre- ser%'ed Is it to be desired that a few years hence, no trace whatever shaU remain of the Mussulman city on the site of old El-Dje-zair ? This would be a Vandalism dishonouring even to a barbarous nation. Civilized France surely does not desire that posterity should have the right of reproaching her for such a deed. She will preserve from the destructive pickaxe those remaining monuments — unhappily too few — which merit the honour of being spared." The special object of the appeal, however, the old palace of Djenina, did not meet with a better fate than that of its less important surroundings. It had already been divided amongst a variety of occupants, part of the building being used for barracks, part turned into shops and warehouses. Fire, the work of an incendiary, destroyed a considerable portion of it. At last, after long discussion, in 1854, it was doomed to make way for the march of modern ideas. From the Place du Gouveniement various streets diverge. That which runs parallel with the boulevard at the back of the Hotel d' Orient, the Rue Bab-Azoun, is by far the best THE FRENCH TOWN. street in Algiers. It has an arcaded pavement in its whole length, and some excellent shops. It was, until the con- struction of the boulevard, the main artery of the town, and the site of a street in the old Roman town of Icosium. The name of this street, Bab-Azowi, means in Arabic " Gate of Grief," and was so called because it led to the place of public punishment and execution, the Gate Bab- Azoun, with its cruel spikes of torture. This spot of melancholy memories, where under the despotic barbarian rule, so many unfortunate people suffered a miserable death, is now covered by the large garden or " square," as the French are learning to call such intramural plantations, of the Place Bresson. Here is the Theatre, the best French building in Algiers, close by the Hotel (FEurope. The houses of the " Place " are not yet finished, but it is even larger than the Place du Gouvernement, and bids fair to rival it. On Place Bresson was also the tomb or koubba of the celebrated Marabout Sidi Betka, he who happily predicted the defeat of the Spanish invasion under Charles V. It was con- sidered a specially sacred spot, and for centuries, no pirate galley left the port without saluting, for good luck, the ashes of the holy man, by whose intercession it was believed the storm had been raised, which rid the country of the foreign foe. The Place Bresson is the centre of a great deal of new building. A broad arcaded street. Rue Constantine, is being formed at the southern end of it. The ground be- tween it and the boulevard is laid out into roads, and the names, Rue de la Libert^, Rue de la Paix, &c., are con- spicuously posted up, but the streets are as yet in the i8o WALKS JN ALGIERS. bosom of the future, so that the houses on the Place Bresson (Hotel d'Europe and others) are for the present actually facing the sea. On the south-west side of Place Bresson, a whole modern suburb of Algiers creeps up the steep hill-side ; but leaving this for awhile, let us retrace our steps under the shady arcades of the Rue Bab-Azoun, until we come to a flight of stone steps on the left. This leads into the Place de Chartres, the chief market of Algiers, which is well worthy of a visit, not only for the picturesque groups which may often be found there, but actually for the sake of seeing the things exposed for sale. The bushels of green peas, the piles of French beans, the forests of fresh salads, the myriads of eggs — these, all in the midst of what should be winter, to say nothing of the flowers, brilliant in tint and odorous, which one must come early in the morning to see, or they will all be gone. Naturally, the Algerian housewife does her marketing early, before the heat of the day — which by nine o'clock makes a sunny market-place unpleasant. It is then that great bouquets of roses — January roses, worth half-a- crown each, in Covent Garden — may be bought for a franc, enormous bunches of violets, as big as a plate, for half that sum, and vegetables, to those who know how to buy them, at proportionate prices. It need scarcely be said that an Englishman or English- woman purchasing, pays the price of his or her nationality, yet even so, the cost of nearly all articles of food in Algiers, is, compared with England, extremely low. The moment a stranger enters or approaches the market- place, he is surrounded by a number of little bare-legged, THE MARKET. i8i bright-eyed Arab boys, each with a soft palmetto basket, or, perhaps, two or even three slung on his arm and over his shoulder, " Porter quelq'chose, porter quelq'chose. Anglais 1 " they cry in chorus, recognising one's nationality in a moment ; and it is difficult to select one from among the number of eager little applicants. These boys are proverbially honest. The present writer was accompanying a French lady on her marketing expe- dition, one morning during the past winter. A small Arab was already well laden with poultry, fruit, and other deli- cacies. The housewife stopped at a fresh stall to make purchases, the bargaining taking some considerable time, as it seems always to do in sunny southern lands. All at once the stranger, ignorant of the ways and manners of the natives, observes with some alarm, that the small Arab has disappeared. " Oh," says the French lady, smiling, " there is no fear ; he will come back ; we shall see him again pre- sently." A curious fact which actually takes place. " They are quite to be trusted, these boys," adds the habituee of the place. " Often I have given them their four sous and sent them home with my purchases quite alone, while I pay visits or go to some other part of the town, and I have never found the least thing to be missing." It is to be feared that a like confidence could scarcely be placed in the integrity of a London street boy ! We turn back again down the steps, and by the Rue Bab- Azoun find ourselves once more in the Place du Gouverne- ment. A flight of broad steps, upon and over which, Arabs, wrapped in their white burnous, lounge and bask in the I82 WALKS IN ALGIERS. brilliant sunshine, leads, at the spot where the tramways start, from the higher level of the boulevard, to the quay. Without quite descending we turn to the left, and find ourselves under the arches in the Pkherie, or Fish-market. This also is a sight worthy to be seen by those curious in such matters, especially in the early morning or late after- noon, when the hauls of fish have just been brought in. It is a most extraordinary collection of monsters, and impresses one vastly with the sense of being in strange lati- tudes. All the fish — from the great sea-wolf, which, cut into slices, looks like very coarse beef-steak, and tastes, we are told, like pork, to the tiny sardine lying in silver heaps on the ground — are unfamiliar to our northern seas, and in taste, we must admit, very inferior. We turn from the Pecherie into a small passage lined with oyster and fruit stalls. A few steps bring us to the door of the mosque Dja-7na-el-Djedid (the new), more com- monly known as the Mosque of the Pecherie. It is a building, which from its prominent position and peculiar style of architecture, has attracted us from the first moment of setting foot in Algiers, or indeed even before, since its gleaming white cupola close to the water's edge, forms one of the most striking and picturesque objects, in the view we have of the town from the sea. It is whitewashed to a dazzling whiteness, and has scarcely any exterior windows, and those of the very smallest size, after the true Eastern style ] but it is built curiously enough, considering its purpose, in the shape of a Latin cross, with one central dome, a smaller one at each of the four corners, and a tall, graceful minaret rising from the north-west side. With THE FISH-MARKET. regard to its form, a legend is extant. It is said that the architect was a Christian slave, a Genoese, forced by his Moslem tyrants to a work uncongenial to him. He re- venged himself by perpetuating in the Mahomedan temple the symbol of his own faith, and suifered death by impale- ment in consequence. Mosque de la Pecherie. The interior is extremely plain, and those who enter a mosque for the first time, will certainly be struck, not only by the severe simplicity of the building, but also by the evident devotion of the worshippers. The whole atmosphere of the place is intensely solemn and quiet, and impresses the beholder very much more than many Christian places of WALKS IN ALGIERS. worship, as a house of prayer — a building set apart and dedicated to God. Here, at least, are no gaudy effects, no tinsel-covered images, nothing to offend, nothing to prevent the prayer of the most Christian soul from ascending to the footstool of the Maker. The chief glory of Mahomet lay in this, that he was an iconoclast, a breaker-down of idols ; the strength of his teaching in his constant proclamation of the " one God." And there can be no doubt that it is this grand and never-forgotten principle, which has not only proved the vitality of the Mahomedan faith, but which makes Christianity, in the form in which it is so often encountered by Mahomedans, an offence and a stumbHng-block. The Algerians make no objection to strangers entering their mosques ; but it should be distinctly understood that it is not permitted to walk on the matting or carpet with which the floors are covered, without removing the shoes. In Mahomedan countries the Divine command given to Moses still holds good. Nor may the visitor set his shoes down on the floor except with the soles put together, as the Arabs do. A breach of these rules is considered not only sacrilegious, but is also an offence against good manners, since no Eastern thinks of entering a matted or carpeted room, without leaving his shppers at the door. The Mosque de la Pecherie is covered only with matting, which does not extend quite to the end of the building, so that it can be seen tolerably well without this process, which to European notions has certainly something of discomfort about it. Mats are also hung round the lower part of the columns supporting the gallery of painted wood- MOSQUE DE LA PECHERIE. work, which alone breaks the severe monotony of the build- ing. This mosque is frequented chiefly by Arabs of the lower orders, of the sect of the " Hanefi ; " for among the Mahomedans, as, unhappily, among the Christians, are numerous divisions, although the rancour between the sects is by no means so strong as among Christians. The Hane- fites, or followers of reason, do not consider themselves bound by the traditions of Mahomet, as are the other sects. Their founder was one Abu Hanifa, who was much perse- cuted on account of his opinions. At the entrance of the building is a constantly flowing fountain, used for ablution before prayer, the Mahomedan rule on this point being very strict. " He who prays to the Lord cannot be too pure." " Cleanliness is one half of faith and the key of prayer," declared the Moslem Prophet. And at all hours of the day, a group of tawny bare-legged Arabs may be seen clustered about the fountain, busily employed in their labours of washing head, hands, and feet — no work of supererogation — before proceeding to worship. On leaving the mosque, ascending the steps, and turning to the right, a little door, apparently in the blank wall of the mosque, will be found standing invitingly open. The visitor who enters will be startled to find himself suddenly in the presence of three or four extremely dignified turbaned personages, who sit cross-legged in great state all in a row, on a strip of matting. Black-lettered, learned-look- ing books are scattered here and there about the floor. It is an Arab court of justice ; and those to whom fate in such matters is propitious, may often come here upon curious little " bits " of Eastern home-life, especially in the matter i86 WALKS IN ALGIERS. of matrimonial exchanges. The Mahomedan law of divorce is a tolerably lax one, and although a follower of the Prophet is not allowed more than four wives at a time, there is no limit to the number of partners whom he may repudiate. Women, when they appear as witnesses in the court, do not enter it, but give their evidence through a small — a very small — window in the wall. The open " Place " facing the mosque was the old slave- market. In the Rue de la Marine, which we have just entered, is situated the mosque Djamaa-el-Kebir, or the Grand Mosque. Before the French conquest there were no less than a hundred Mahomedan temples in Algiers. There are now only five, the others having been pulled down, or con- verted into churches, or used for other purposes. Of these the Grand Mosque is the largest and handsomest ; it is also the most ancient in Algiers, dating from the eleventh cen- tury, if not from an earlier period, which is considered probable by the peculiar structure of the red-tiled roof, from which the universal dome of later Mahommedan mosques, is conspicuously absent. The striking fagade in the Rue de la Marine, with its handsome marble columns and fountain, is a recent addition to the building, the pillars having been removed from a mosque which stood on the site of the Place du Gouvernement, and which was destroyed at the same time as the old palace of Djenina. The entrance to the mosque is by a fine arcaded court, in the centre of which is a fountain shaded by orange-trees. The interior, which is extremely plain, is divided into numerous arcades by pillars supporting the picturesque THE GRAND MOSQUE. 187 horse-shoe arch. The columns are wrapped round to the height of several feet with matting, and the floor is com- pletely covered with rich old Moorish carpets ; but with the exception of a few lamps suspended from the roof, the mihrab, a small niche in the wall indicating the east, or the direction of Mecca, and the pulpit, which has a kind of gallery attached to it, the place is absolutely bare. The general effect however, with its subdued light let in through tiny coloured windows, and its fragrance of Eastern incense, is extremely impressive; and the picturesque cos- tumes, and the dignified gestures of those who may at any time of the day be found at their devotions here, form themselves into pictures on the mind's eye, not easily to be effaced. The postures of the Mahomedan at prayer are very striking and reverent. His face to the East, he stands or kneels upon the ground, with his hands held up, as though the palms were a book from which he is reading. At the name of God he prostrates himself in such a manner that seven parts of his body — his head, hands, feet, and knees — touch the earth together. These genuflections form a part of every act of prayer, which as a rule begins with the introductory words of the Koran — " Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures, the most merciful, the Lord of the day of judgment ! Thee do we worship. We implore Thy aid. Direct us in the right way." The Grand Mosque is used as a place of worship by the Maleki sect, to which the Moors and the wealthier Arabs chiefly belong. This is, according to Dr. Sale, the second orthodox sect of the Mahomedans, whose founder was Malec Ebu Ans. i88 WALKS IN ALGIERS. " This doctor is said to have paid great regard to the traditions of Mahommed. In his last iUness, a friend going to \isit him found him in tears, and asking him the reason of it, he answered, ' How should I not weep, and who has more reason to weep than I ? Would to God that for every question decided by me according to my own opinion I had received so many stripes ! Then would my account be easier.' Al Ghazali thinks it a sufficient proof of Malec's directing his knowledge to the glory of God, that being once asked his opinion as to forty-eight questions, his answer to thirty-two of them was, that he did not know ; it being no easy matter for one who has any other view than God's glory, to make so franlc a confession of his ignorance." — Dr. Sale's Prelimi7iary Discourse to the Koran. It would perhaps, not be out of place to state here briefly the chief points of Mahomedan doctrine and practice. They have seven fundamental principles of faith : i. Belief in one indivisible God ; 2. In angels and demons ; 3. In the inspiration of the Koran ; 4. In the prophets, under which name they include both Mahomet and Christ. 5. In the resurrection and the day of judgment ; 6. In heaven and hell ; and 7. In God's absolute decree and predestination. They also believe in the doctrine of original sin, holding the theory that each child at its birth, has a little black spot in its heart, which either increases or diminishes with years ; the tradition with respect to Mahomet being, that when God chose him as His prophet. He sent an angel to open his breast, and take out from his heart the natural stain. The chief points of Mahomedan practice are: i. Prayer, which is enjoined five times a day; 2. Ablution before prayer ; 3. Almsgiving ; 4. Fasting. The annual fast of the Mahomedans is during the whole month of Ramadan, lasting thirty days, because it is said Adam wept thirty days after his expulsion from Paradise before obtaining God's pardon and favour, added to which it was the time when THE MAHOMEDAN FAITH. 189 the Koran was revealed from Heaven. As the Mahomedan months are lunar the fast is movable, and when it occurs in the summer, its hardships are considerably increased. It is kept very strictly. From daybreak to sunset nothing must pass the lips of a Mussulman, not even a drop of water, some, it is said, being so cautious, that they will not open their mouths to speak, lest they should breathe the air too freely. The Ramadan is announced by the firing of a cannon in Algiers as in other Mahomedan countries, and at sunset each day, when the fast is broken, the same sound heralds relief to the fainting population. "After so many hours of total abstinence, it may be imagined how welcome to the ears of the hungry people is the report of this gun. The town seems to awake, the scene changes at once from a state of sulky obedience to animation and joy. The minarets are lighted up, while from the highest gallery the Muezzin, in a loud and solemn voice, calls the faitliful to evening prayers. After hastily reciting a verse from the Koran, every one begins to eat. Many of the lower classes carry bread, or a few dates, or the hke, about with them. At such a moment they become demonstrative and are too excited to stand on ceremony." — Algeria as It Is, None are exempted from the fast except children, the sick, or the very aged, and the time of fasting is defined in the Koran as " so long as it is possible to distinguish a white thread from a black one." The strain of this long abstinence upon the physique is naturally a very severe one, and it is said that during Ramadan more quarrels and fights take place among the Arabs, than during any other month in the year. A pilgrimage to Mecca, the birth-place of Mahomet, is also enjoined on his followers at least once in a life-time, and many Arabs make numerous pilgrimages to the holy spot. WALKS IN ALGIERS. The moral teaching of the Koran inculcates the practice of just dealing, of patience under trial, humility, truthfulness, and forgiveness of injuries. It appoints Friday as a day to be set apart for special prayer, since on that day God completed his work of creation, but a cessation of labour is not commanded. It concerns itself very minutely in the domestic affairs of the faithful, encouraging both polygamy and slavery, but otherwise providing for a tolerably fair administration of justice, borrowed in a great measure from the Jewish model, a? are also many rules of personal conduct, which Mahomet impressed upon his followers. The use of intoxicating liquors and games of chance are forbidden. Altogether, there can be no doubt that the religion which Mahomet taught, was an infinitely purer and better one than that which prevailed among the Arabs before his time, while at the same time we cannot forget that under his laws, murder is accounted no great crime, that hatred against all un- believers is expressly commanded, and that purity of life, and charity, such as the Gospel preaches, are unknown. In conclusion, we quote a summary of the effects of Islamism, from Sir W. Muir's " Life of Mahomet : " — " What have been the effects of the system which Mahomet left behind him ? We may freely concede that it banished for ever many of the darker elements of superstition. Idolatry vanished before the battle-cry of Islam ; the doctrine of the unity and infinite perfections of God, and of a special all-pervading Providence, became a living prin- ciple in the hearts and lives of the followers of Mahomet, even as in his own. An absolute sun-ender and submission to the Di\'ine vill (the idea conveyed by the \ery name of Islam) was demanded as the first requirement of the religion. " Nor are the social virtues wanting. Brotherly love is inculcated towards all within the circle of the faith ; infanticide is proscribed ; EFFECTS OF ISLAMISM. 191 orphans are to be protected, and slaves treated with consideration ; intoxicating drinks are forbidden, and Maliometanism may boast of a degree of temperance unknown to any other creed. " Yet these benefits have been purchased at a costly price. Setting aside considerations of minor import, three radical evils flow from the faith in all ages and in every country, and must continue to flow so long as the Coran is the standard of belief, (ist) Polygamy, divorce, and slavery are maintained and perpetuated, strildng at the root of public morals, poisoning domestic life and disorganizing society. (2nd) Free- dom of thought, and private judgment in religion, are crushed and annihilated. The sword still is and must remain the inevitable penalty for the renunciation of Islam ; toleration is unknown. (3rd) A barrier has been interposed against the reception of Christianity. They labour under a miserable delusion, who suppose that Mahometanism paves the way for a purer faith. No system could have been devised with more consummate skill, for shutting out the nations over which it has swayed, from the light of truth. Idulatroiis Arabia (judging from the analogy of other nations) might have been aroused to spiritual life and to the adoption of the faith of Jesus ; Mahometan Arabia is to the human eye sealed against the benign influences of the gospel. Many a flourishing land in Africa and in Asia, which once rejoiced in the light and liberty of Christianity, is now overspread by gross darlmess and barbarism. It is as if their day of grace had come and gone, and there remained to them no more sacrifice for sins. That a brighter day wiU yet dawn on these countries we may not doubt, but the history of the past, and the condition of the present, are not the less sad and true. The sword of Mahomet and the Coran are the most stubborn enemies of civilization, liberty, and truth which the world has yet known." Attached to the Grand Mosque is the superior court of the Muphti, where appeals are made from the lower court — that of the Cadi. In the Rue de la Marine is one of the great casernes, or barracks, formerly occupied by the janissaries, and now devoted to the use of their modern representatives, the Turcos. With regard to these barracks we read in Pierre Dan's history — " There are in the city nine large houses called casernes, serving for the dwellings of the janissaries, and though they have such numerous inhabitants, the houses are so clean that no manner of dirt is to be 192 WALKS IN ALGIERS. found in them, several slaves being continually occupied in cleansing them, as the Turks are very particular on this point." Each janissary, we are told by another writer, had a Christian boy as slave, to wait on him and keep his arms and dwelling in order. At the end of the Rue de la Marine, where it joins the Boulevard, is what French guide-books designate as a pdie, of beautiful old Arab houses, the last remains of the lower Moorish town. Some of them are used as government offices, while others are wrecked and hanging in mid-air almost by a thread — soon to make way for modern French buildings. CHAPTER XI. THE ARAB TOWN. " Lasciate ogni speranza voi che 'ntrate." Dattie. IT is scarcely possible to imagine a greater contrast than exists between the new and the old town of Algiers — the French and the Arab ; the difference in truth, being only a type of the vast gulf that lies between the life and thought and manners of the two races — the one all excite- ment, bustle, and show, the other as opposedly solemn, silent, and Self-contained. A turn of a street turns the page of history back a thou- sand years ; and but a dozen paces separate the life of the pushing, driving, money-making nineteenth century, from the romantic, half-savage, wholly mysterious world of Haroun-Al-Raschid. In the French town the Arab certainly is. He forms the picturesque item in the commonplace picture. He walks the broad pavement before the long rows of many- windowed houses ; he jostles the Parisienne in her jauntiest bonnet, and elbows the trim French soldier ; he patronizes the modern invention of the omnibus, and possesses himself of the sunny corners of the street as lounging-places ; but o 194 WALKS IN ALGIERS. in all he is an anomaly and a stranger — he has no real part in the life which is lived amid open squares, and in streets of plate-glass-fronted windows. But cross the road. Make your way but a dozen yards up the steep incline on which the city leans, and you will find yourself in a new world — in a world in which you, with your modern ideas and in your modern dress, feel yourself to be the anomaly — in a world where you will find the Arab at home, such to all intents and purposes as he was in the days of Moorish grandeur or Turkish tyranny — such as he will never cease to be while his race and religion endure. " Between the two towns there is no barrier other than that of defiance and antipathy, which exists between the two races. But that suffices to separate them. They touch, they live in the closest neigh- bourhood, without associating or having anything in common but their vices." — Une Annie dans le Sahel. The Arab town will be found intensely interesting to all lovers of the picturesque, and especially to those to whom this strange Eastern life is a novelty. It possesses besides, another advantage in the perfect security with which strangers, even ladies, may penetrate into its mazy laby- rinths, and the respectful politeness with which they will at all times find themselves treated. At every turn the most charming little pictures, the most taking coups d'ail present themselves. " There sits Alnaschar, dreaming in the sun over his basket of trumpery glass-ware, with his arms out at elbows, his grey cotton pantaloons in rags, and his shabby slippers hanging oif from the heels ; he looks a good-for-nothing fellow enough, and quite answering to the account of his immortal brother the barber. In a moment he wUl rouse THE ARAB TOWN. 195 himself, kick his imaginary wife — the Vizier's daughter— and one feels tempted to wait and see the amusement of his industrious neighbour. " He is no dreamer, that taUor, it is certain. Ashe sits cross-legged in his httle shop, built like an oven in the wall, no machine works quicker than his nimble fingers with needle and gold thread ; and if he gossips now and then, it is only to take breath. And, lo ! there is the shop of poor Bedreddin Hassan, the brother-in-law of Noureddiu Ali and the bridegioom of the Queen of Beauty, who, by the force of mys- terious circumstances, became an alien and a pastrycook. He is hand- some, prince-like, and melancholy, as we imagine him ; but a pleasant smell of hot cheese-cakes reaches the nose — those very cheese-cakes by which he is restored to his dignities and his bride. "A step farther, and we meet Morgiana bound to the apothecarj's — a well-knit, superb woman, half negi-ess, half Moor. What a digni- fied gait she has ! what a self-possession ! what a look of resoluteness in her handsome black eye ! She is wrapt from head to foot in a bright blue cotton shawl, having a single strip of crimson sUk embroi- dery inserted across the shoulders ; and in this simple dress she has something of Greek statuesqueness. A profusion of silver chains, bracelets, and anklets, adorns her fine limbs, thus testifying to the liberality of the master she serves so thoroughly. " Surely the leader of those mischievous young urchins must be Aladdin ! There are half-a-score of them playing around a fountain, all as ragged, as impish, and as dii'ty as can be ; they cover you with dust, they splash you with water, they drive you against the wall — yet there is something in their frolicsomeness that forbids anger. " It is a comfort to think that the sinister old man watching them over the way may be the African magician, whose wonderful lamp will lead to Aladdin's wealth untold, and liimself to destruction." — A Winter -with the Swallows. We pass from the gay French town, always upwards, through the Jewish quarter, which lies as a kind of neutral ground between the two worlds, " and from thence " says Fromentin — " One can glance into the hidden life of old Algiers, to be reached by that maze of strange steep alleys, which are like so many mysterious staircases leading to silence. " Streets like defiles, dark and often vaulted ; houses without windows ; doors which you must stoop to enter ; shops like cupboards, 196 WALKS IN ALGIERS. where the merchandise is heaped pell-mell, as though the vendor feared to expose it ; industries udthout use ; mosques hidden away out of sight ; baths which are entered mysteriously ; a confiised, compact mass of masonry, built like a sepulchre, where life seems stifled and laughter would be out of place — such is the strange city where dwell, or rather perish, a people who, though never so powerful as some assert, were at least rich, active, and enterprising. But it is a sepulchre, and nothing more^ The Arab thinks that he lives in his white city. He but buries himself there, shrouded in an inaction which e.xhausts him, overwhelmed by the very silence in which he delights, enveloped in reticence, and dying of languor. " His town is a sigiiificant emblem of himself. He is immovable. With all possible inducements to innovation, he has retained his customs, his superstitions, his dress, and his religion. Pressed on aU sides by an invading European colony, strangled, one might say, by military and police regulations, but voluntarily shut out from the movement of events, an enemv to all progress, indifferent even to the destiny which may be awaiung himself, without commerce and almost without industr)-, he subsists in \irtue of his immobility on the very verge of ruin." — Une Annie dans le Sahel. The picture so drawn is a melancholy one, but it is cer- tainly true that both the Arab himself and his city do pro- duce a peculiarly sad impression upon the mind. The personal dignity of the Arab, his solemnity of manner, his courageous piety, his poverty, his very impas- siveness, touch us with a feeling of admiration for him, of compunction at his changed estate. We come to look upon him, almost in spite of ourselves, as a dethroned and outraged prince. We seem inclined, momentarily, to for- get that his good days were days of barbarism, of lawless- ness, of all manner of cruelty and wanton oppression — that the evil days upon which he has fallen are days of civiliza- tion and good government — we can only remember that strangers, whose race and religion he hates, are masters of his land, that he is conquered and despoiled. And this feeling is peculiarly present with us, as we climb ARAB LIFE. 197 the steep and narrow alleys of the old Moorish city, where behind whitewashed walls and grated loop-holes, the Arab lives liis hidden life. We see a veiled figure standing before a low, brass-studded door. We linger as we pass, hoping for some revelation of the inner life of the house's occu- pants ; but the jealous door opens but a few inches, dis- closes but a momentary glimpse of marble-pillared court- yard, and falls back again of its own weight ; and only the blank whitewashed wall stares into our faces. " The private life of the Arab is lost in impenetrable mystery. All is shadowy in these singular dwellings, where the master of the house plays the role of jailer, and behind whose barred %vindows and closed doors, lie the two secrets of this strange country— women and native wealth. Of the one as of the other, we know actually nothing. Money can scarcely be said to circulate ; women are scarcely ever seen ; a muslin curtain before a lattice that the wind raises — a curiously formed flower-vase filled with blossom that bespeaks a woman's hand — these vaguest hints are all we have of the beauties of whose mysterious charms we dream." — Une Annee dans le Sahel. It is excessively difficult to find one's way about the Arab town. It is built so very irregularly, \yith so many twists and turnings and blind alleys, that a straight course is an absolute impossibility. " Suppose for a moment that a new Daedalus had been charged to build a city on the model of his famous labyrinth — the result of his work would have produced the old town of Algiers." — L'Algerie. Berbrugger. The architect of the Moorish city, whoever he may have been, certainly had sympathy with dame Nature in this, that he did not love straight lines ; but though in making one's way about it, one is almost sure to be after a few moments irretrievably lost, as in a maze, one simple rule 198 WALK'S m ALGIERS. holds gootl : go up, and in time you will surely find your- self at the Kasba ; go down, and you will as certainly regain the quay. Meanwhile, wander up and do^\'n and in and out of the strange, quaint, crooked, silent alleys — you Arab Street. will scarcely go amiss, for at each turn you will come upon some new object of beauty or interest, though it may only be an Arab woman carrying her pitcher Rebecca-like to the well, or a doorway quaintly carved and moulded. A little " bit," which is recommended to invalids or those THE ARAB TOWN. 199 to whom mounting is a fatigue, is to be found by passing from the Place du Gouvernement through one of the arcades, where Moorish goods are exposed for sale, crossing the Place Malakoff, and taking the small street which ascends left of the cathedral. On the left, you will pass one or two handsome old entries worth observing, and turn- ing immediately to the left by a narrow passage, will reach the Impasse of St. Vincent de Paul, one of the prettiest and most characteristic streets of old Algiers. The tall houses projecting story above story, almost but not quite touch- ing, fit into one another like the pieces of a Chinese puzzle ; the low doorways are delicately carved and moulded, and the doors themselves, of cedar-wood, enriched and ornamented with ancient brass-work. This passage leads directly upon the broad flight of stone steps at the top of which, on Place Randon, is the syna- gogue. Cross the Jewish quarter, pass in front of the synagogue, and follow the windings of the narrow and steep httle street to the right of it called Rue Staoueli. At No. 20 of this street is a picturesque Arab cafd well worthy of a visit. Turn left into Rue Sidi-Abdullah. You are now in the heart of the old Arab town, and find a dozen objects on this side and that, to attract your interest and attention, but it will be well, perhaps, if, resisting manifold temptations to wander, the traveller who is taking his first walk through old Algiers, should turn out of the Rue Sidi- Abdullah, down beneath a narrow gateway named above i'*^'* Impasse Rue Kleber. This, after one or two twists and turns, will bring him through a curious Moorish bazaar into the Rue Kleber, and is, perhaps, altogether the most striking route that he can follow. 200 WALKS IN ALGIERS. The charm of the place must be felt to be appreciated. On one side the M'zabite's shining black face looks out from a bower of vegetables and fruit, on another the Moor sits gravely cross-legged on his shelf, busied with the gold embroidery of slippers and waist-belts ; here is a cupboard- shop filled with dates, oranges, and crockery of such shapes as the old Etruscans or the buried Pompeian people might have used, moulded of coarsest earthenware ; there a group of Arab tailors embroidering the bernous, each with the silk thread wound round the outstretched great toe of the bare brown foot ; here a couple of Arab women haggling under their veils over the price of a string of beads ; there a cafe tuaure, where rows of grave turbaned Moors sit cross- legged on matted shelves or languidly play draughts upon the floor. All is picturesque, strange, and Eastern, and has for the European new to such surroundings, a marvellous fascination. In Rue Kleber, besides a grand Arab caf^, is a mosque, and in the adjoining street another — the only ones in the Arab town — not very different in character from those on the quay, but much smaller, and frequented apparently by the poorer sort of people. Attached to one of these mosques is a large Arab school, such as may be met with in various parts of the old city. The open door, and the ceaseless sound of monotonous chanting that reverberates in the deep silence of the streets, make you at once aware of it. Looking in, a grave turbaned man will be seen seated cross-legged on a mat, surrounded by a congregation of little boys, each cross-legged too, with a small board held before him on which is written the lesson for the day. The pro- ARAB SCHOOLS. 201 cess of teaching is somewhat pecuHar. The master first reads the lesson in a loud voice, the scholars repeat it after him, and go on repeating it, as it seems, indefinitely in a monotonous sing-song, their bodies swaying to and fro the whole time, in measure to the chant. The education given at these schools consists chiefly in learning to read, but more often stops short of this accomplishment, and is con- fined to the commital to memory of certain passages of the Koran. This education is of course enjoyed only by boys —the women are utterly ignorant. There was formerly some provision for the higher education of the Arab in Algiers. Old writers, Dan and Peyssonnel, speak of the Arab colleges which existed in their time, in which such abstruse sciences as grammar, rhetoric, logic, theology, metaphysics, astrology, medicine, aritlimetic, and divination were taught. The late curator of the Bibliotheque tells us — " In the full tide of Algerian power these establishments were nume- rous, rich, and well provided with manuscripts. Our military expeditions have put an end to them by destrojdng the greater proportion of the books which enriched them. Some remains of these literary treasures, saved from destruction by the friends of science, are in the Bibliotheque at Algiers, but the greater number are for ever lost — used, probably, to light the camp fires of our soldiery." — UAlg'erie. Berbrugger. The revenues of these higher schools have also been absorbed by the Government, and go towards the support of the excellent French and Arab college for the joint education of French and native lads. It is curious to read the description given of Algiers by travellers of the olden time, and to observe how in almost every particular their accounts still hold true. 202 WALKS Z.V ALGIERS. " All the streets are narrower than the narrowest lanes of Grenada or Lisbon — wide enough for a man on horseback to pass, but not two persons side by side. In short, the houses of this town are so crowded and pressed together, that they resemble more than anything else a loaf of kneaded bread." — Topografia de Argel, 1612. Haedo. " Xo one is allowed to wear a sword in Algiers (1642), on account of the narrowness of the streets, which makes such a custom dangerous. — Captivite de M. d'Arandn. " The streets are so excessively narrow that in some, two persons can scarcely walk abreast each other. This strange style of building is thought to arise from its affording a better shade, and more protection in case of earthquakes. From the streets being concave and rising on each side, the greatest inconvenience arises both to men and animals, and when a Moor passes on horseback you are obliged to get close up to the houses to prevent being trampled under foot." — Pananti. Residence in Algiers, 1 8 12. The description thus given, applies equally well to-day tO' that quaintly beautiful part of the city which is known as the Arab town, within which charmed enclosure, though its boundaries are circumscribed day by day, the hand of the innovator has as yet made no very glaring impres- sion. Two modern improvements, however, there certainly are in the old-world spot : one of them the introduction of gas,, ^vith which the whole town is now well lighted, and which seems at once to drag it from barbarism into the pale of civilization; and another the naming and numbering of the streets. That this is to some extent a benefit may be gleaned from the description given by a French traveller of Tunis- at the present day : — " The streets having no names, the houses no numbers, and all parts of the city forming labyrinths with ten times as many blind-alleys as there are thoroughfares, great practice is necessarj- not to lose oneself in the inextricable network. If this is the case by day, it may be imagined how difficult it is to find our way in the unlighted streets at OLD ALGIERS. 203 night. A traveller must provide himself with a guide when he wishes to penetrate into the remote arteries of the city." Svich until the French occupation was Algiers, and an evening walk through the streets, was a matter not only of difficulty but of danger. In the old days of the Regency the streets, we read, were — " Shut with gates at night, and any one found walking in them after dark, unless he is able to give a very good account of himself, is seized and put in prison. The next day he is taken before the Divan or Cadi, and if the captive is not able to pay a tolerably good sum for his ran- som, this encounter is likely to cost him from one to two hundred lashes, which he can only avoid by emptying his purse, so true is it that here, as elsewhere, gold and silver are powerful advocates." — Histoire de Barharie. Pierre Dan. The Streets have been named by the French authorities with more zeal than discretion, and the nomenclature is such a wonderful jumble of tongues, that it seems as though the task had been allotted to the original inhabitants of the tower of Babel. The bright blue mottoes of modern names on the old white houses look curiously out of place, having almost the effect of a mummy adorned with a stylish Parisian coiffure; and they are also apt to be somewhat misleading at times, since the impasses are as often as not quite passable, while the rues and the passages sometimes lure the unwary into a cul-de-sac, or blind alley. " In Arab times very few streets possessed any names at all. It was sufficient to an Arab to know his own house, as a bird his nest or a beast his lair ; he had no special desire that others should be acquainted with the place of his dwelling. At the same time some of the larger and more important streets had gradually come to have certain titles, or diflereut parts of the same street were known by the names of the various trades which were carried on in them, as, for 204 WALKS IN ALGIERS. instance, from a baker's oven, kouchet ; a gate, hah ; a vnndmiH, /eiim ; a mosque, Djama ; a fountain, ain ; a market, foudouck ; a bath, hammam ; a house, dar. " European customs, ver\' soon after the conquest, modified and ahered this state of affairs, and a few of the Arabic names were retained or were attempted to be retained, but thev have been for the most part so utterly travestied, that but ver)' little of the original appel- lation remains — for instance, the street El Ackdar, the Green, has become Rue Locdor ; Souk-ed-Djama, the ^Market of the ilosque. Rue Socgemah ; Ain es Sabath, the Fountain of the Arch, Rue du Sabbat." — Itineraii e de lAlgei'ie. Fksse. The Arabic names thus ingeniously Europeanised, have the double advantage of presenting equal difficulties to both natives and strangers, and the European names are, of course, a dead letter so far as the natives are concerned ; so that any attempt at asking the route or finding any par- ticular street in the Arab town is a work of difficulty. Very few of the residents in the upper town speak any French ; a smattering of Italian is, indeed, more likely to be found useful among the Arabs, since it approaches more nearly that lingua franca, or medley of European tongues, which before the French conquest, was the ordinary medium of intercourse between the natives and the civilized world, and which is not yet wholly forgotten. Besides which it seems as though the Arab had an instinctive preference for anything tiot French. Leading out of the Rue Kleber is the curious and pic- turesque Rue Sydney Smith — why so named it would be difficult to say. Indeed, the nomenclature of the Arab streets is altogether remarkable. "Mythology has contributed the names of Hercules, Medea, the Hydra, Sphynx, and Sagittarius ; history the names of Hannibal, Cleopatra, Pompey, Scipio, Juba, Belisarius, together with Ximenes, ARAB STREET NAMES. 205 Charles V., Doria, Napoleon, Kleber, Philippe d'Orleans, and other sovereigns and generals. After these come the historians SaUust and Marmol, the geographers Ptolemy and Bruce, and the poet Cervantes, who was himself a slave in Algiers." — U Itineraire deV Algerie. Piesse. " Will posterity," asks M. Piesse, " imagine that these worthies were the builders and founders of the Arab streets and lanes, or will they find insoluble enigmas and found wild theories on these curious complications ?" Not only does history furnish its contingent of names for the Arab labyrinths, but geography and natural history are equally called upon for contributions, and the celebrated cities of the modern and ancient world cross angles with " the cat," " the lion," "the gazelle," "the panther," " the lizard," " the eagle," " the swan," and " the bear." One street, as curious as its name, is the Rue du Diable, which leads out of the Rue de la Casbah, and with its vaulted roofing and deep shadows is a favourite " bit " for artists. The last-named street. Rue de la Casbah, which goes through the Arab town from the Rue Bab-el-Oued to the citadel, is the most direct, though by no means the most interesting road to the Kasba. It climbs the hill in a tolerably straight line of four hundred and ninety-seven steps, and was at one time the chief thoroughfare of Algiers. Several glaringly French houses have been built in it, and it is interesting rather from the charming costumes, and groups of figures which may be seen clustered here and there, at the cafes or before the fountains, than for any special beauty of its own. A word must be said about the fountains, which form so many centres of Arab street scenes. 2o6 IVALKS LV ALGIERS. In the early days of the Moorish city the water was suppHed only by great cisterns attached to each house, where the rain-water was stored, and which are mentioned by nearly all old travellers as curiosities ; but Pierre Dan, writing in 1640, says — " There are more than a hundred fountains in the citj-, all made during the last twenty-five years, and supplied wth water by means of an aqueduct. It may well be believed that these works have caused much sweat and suffering to the poor captive Christians, who through aU the violent heat have been compelled to labour at them, as well as at the mole of the port, as they still do." These aqueducts, four in number, at which the Christian slaves toiled, are still in use, and supply the numerous fountains at which the people congregate with their classical copper jugs. There used to be an old law in Algiers that every one who came to the fountain must take his turn, except the Jew, and he was compelled to wait until all present — Turks, Moors, or Christians — were served, so that it sometimes happens, we are told, " that the Jew has to wait a full half- hour before he can dare to fill his vessel." At length, after many turnings, twistings, and strayings, we, who are taking our first walk through old Algiers, emerge from the network of silent white-walled lanes on to the open space — the space which French devastation has made open and very ruinous-looking — in front of the ancient Kasba. Just outside the gateway is a pretty little mosque, now converted into a Roman Catholic church — the Church of la Sainte Croix. The Kasba itself — the historic citadel of Algiers — is now used only as a barrack, and has suffered considerably at the hands of the French, a road having been made FOUNTAINS. THE KASBA. through the centre of it, and its fortifications demoHshed, while numerous ungainly-looking official and military erec- tions, cover the garden once sacred to the ladies of the Day's household. This fortress, situated on the highest The Kasba. point of the city, dates back to the time of Barbarossa, who, in 1 516, began the works on this spot on the site of a still older building. Haedo, giving a description of it in 16 12, mentions its defences as not being very formidable, the fort 208 1VALKS IN ALGIERS. being at that time furnished only with eight guns of small calibre, and guarded by sixty janissaries, who, most of them married, had separate establishments for their women within the precincts. At this time the chief residence of the Dey was in the low er part of the town, in the palace of Djenina, destroyed since the French occupation. But gradually the fortifications of the Kasba were strengthened, its buildings extended, and finally it was separated from the town by a solid rampart, which exists to the present day. In fact it became a formidable stronghold, and in 1818 Ali-ben- Ahmed, then Dey, was thankful to retire within it, from the intrigues and rebellions of his troublesome corps de garde — the janissaries — who were in the habit of assassinating one day the unhappy ruler whom they had set up the pre- ceding. It is said that the treasure transported by Ali to the Kasba amounted to upwards of twelve millions sterling. From this time till 1830 the Kasba continued to be the royal residence of the Deys, and almost their prison, since Ali's successor, Hussein, the last of the Algerian potentates, never ventured more than on two occasions during his twelve years' reign, to leave the sheltering walls of the citadel. Here the Dey would sit for several hours every day cross-legged on a scarlet-covered bench, with an umbrella held over him by way of insignia, and surrounded by his Divan, to administer the affairs of the State. Here he would hear causes, decide quarrels, and deal out justice, or injustice, as the case might be, in patriarchal style. Any one in the land might make an appeal to the supreme ruler from the tribunal of the Cadi or Muphti ; the form of which appeal was to seize the great chain which still hangs over the ancient iron-plated door of the Kasba. Any THE KASBA. 209 criminal or worsted suitor who laid hold of the chain obtained an audience of the Dey, but if unable to establish his right or innocence, the bastinado was added to his other pains and penalties. High above the old doorway is a carved wooden Moorish gallery, where, in the time of the Regency, the banner by day and the beacon by night were displayed, and where the Dey would occasionally show himself to his loving subjects. In the place of the modern gateway was a great aviary of pigeons. The walls to the right of the old door, which enclosed the private apartments of the Dey, still preserve their double rows of small prison-like windows. Indeed, the palace altogether must have been a terribly gloomy place, if we may judge by the description given of it in 1830 by a French officer (Baron Denniee) who was with the troops when they entered : — " The citadel of the Casaubah, residence of the Dey, and the place where he stored away his treasure, is at the summit of the triangle formed by the town which the fortress dominates. It seems as if the spirit of the Algerine Government was imprinted on the very walls of its stronghold. The Casaubah menaced Algiers more than it protected her, and formed a fortress within a fortress in the form of a triangle, like the city itself. " Outside, the Casaubah presented to the astonished gaze of our soldiers, an irregular enclosure fonned by walls of astonishing height and of excessive whiteness, without doors or windows, with battlements of the Moorish fashion, from which protruded, from deep irregular embrasures, long cannons pointed in every direction and painted red. The entrance is by a dark archway, in the centre of which is a marble fountain. This porch, roughly decorated with red and blue lines, was the advanced post where the negroes who latterly formed the body-guard of the Dey were posted. " The door passed, a narrow lane conducted on one side to the powder-magazine, and on the other to the inner court where the Dey resided. This court, paved witli marble, was square, and had on three sides of it galleries supported by spiral marble columns. Under one of P 210 WALKS IN ALGIERS. these galleries was a kind of throne or bench covered with scarlet cloth, where the Dey sometimes sat. " It was in this court that merchants were obliged to deposit the cargoes of their vessels, so that the Dey should be able to choose for himself the percentage in kind which was his due and custom. This primitive fashion of levying taxes caused the courtyard to be constantly heaped up with all manner of goods, so that it had the appearance of an old curiosity shop. In one of the galleries on the first storj' was a sort of pavilion in which the Dey would sit to hear music, and at the back of which were three or four little rooms, furnished apparently only with horse trappings. On the first siory was a long gallery looking over the town, and from this a kind of ladder staircase led to the upper gallery, out of which opened four long chambers, whitewashed, and without either mirrors or hangings. These were the private apartments of the Dey. "From the upper gallery a door incredibly low led to the women's quarter, which consisted of six small rooms, shut in by very high walls. " These apartments had no light except from an inner court, the soil of which was up to the level of the first floor. " This melancholy abode, which suggested a \Tilture's eyrie rather than a lady's bower, was protected on the one side, by cannon which commanded the mountains in the direction of the Fort de I'Empereur, and on the other — that is to say on the side of the principal courtyard — by a very thick wall. This wall had been in one or two places slit diagonally, so as to form a sort of loop-hole, through which a glimpse of that portion of the upper gallery- where the Dey was accustomed to sit might be caught by the captives, and a passing glance now and then obtained of the being who was, or was supposed to be, the sole subject of all their thoughts. " In the neighbourhood of this gloomy and unsanctified cloister was an open space, or rather pit, dignified by the name of garden, which could only be reached by a pathway twisted into a kind of labjiinth, and by descending a flight of sixty to eighty steps. This garden, dug out between high walls of dazzling whiteness, was the only breathing- place permitted to the ladies." — Precis Historique de la Campagne (VAfrique. From this description of the Dey's private apartments, it is to be imagined that the clocks and mirrors with which the Dey's rooms were chiefly furnished, had been removed before the entrance of the French troops into the citadel. THE KASBA. 211 The interior of the Kasba can be visited on application. Enter the gate and ring a bell under a portico to the right. Permission to look over the citadel will at once be granted, and a soldier appointed as guide. It is well worthy a visit, even under present circum- stances. The old Mosque of the Dey, a large and hand- some building, is now used as the artillery barracks, and the minaret which formerly adorned it has been pulled down. The hall of audience is a military store-room ; the private apartments are used as kitchen and mess-room by the officers ; but all are willingly shown to strangers, and are not only interesting from their historical associations, but rich in marbles and sculptured doorways. The curious pavilion mentioned by Baron Denni^e, and which was the scene of the momentous slap in the face given by Hussein Dey to the French consul, is still to be seen. It is lined with crimson and adorned with small mirrors, and has somewhat the appearance of an old family coach without wheels. The view from the Dey's apartments, and, indeed, from any part of the Kasba, is very beautiful. The whole of Algiers down to the shore is spread out to the view, and the peculiar construction of the houses gives to this bird's- eye prospect, a very much more pleasing effect than is usually obtained over a city. Here are no tiles and gaunt chimney-pots, no irregular blocks of dingy rod and greyj nothing but a succession of gleaming white teiraces, that descend like a broad flight of marble step 5? mto the blue water of the bay, while beyond, the two jetties clasp the port like a pair of embracing arms. The flat roofs give to Algiers a peculiarly Eastern appear- 212 WALKS IN ALGIERS. ance. They were, and are still to a certain extent, appro- priated by the female portion of the inhabitants. Indeed, during the Dey's rule, it was forbidden, under pain of death, for any man to go on the terrace of even his own house during daylight. From this rule the consuls of the friendly nations were alone excepted. " But out of courtesy they never availed themselves of this privilege, or at least not during the hour before sunset, when the Algerine belles take their evening promenade, and exhibit themselves and their jewels to their fair neighbours, until the instant when the evening prayer at the mosque ceases; then, their noisy leave-taking, and the clattering of their half slippers as they hurry down to welcome home their lords, may be heard from one end of the city to the other. "These terraces are all surrounded by walls higher than people's heads. They are provided with one or two sets of portable steps or ladders, and offer no impediment to the neighbourly intercourse of ladies residing in the immediate vicinity of one another ; nor is the division of a street of much more consequence in preventing their near approach, as there are, I should think, but very few spots in Algiers where even a child could not shake hands across the street from one house to another." — Six Years in Algiers, 1806 — 12. Mrs. Broughtoii. The sanctuary of the roof is no longer inviolable, but it is still the resort of the Algerine women, and towards sun- set, glimpses of pretty faces and gay costumes may yet be had, by those who wander up to the top of the old town. The Algerian women, moreover, are not, as a rule, careful to conceal their charms from the eyes of the European if Arabs are not present; whether the feeling that prompts them is a kindly consideration for the stranger's prejudices, a struggle towards liberty, or utter contempt, it is hard to say. Any way, a walk through the Arab quarter is strongly recommended towards the hour of sunset, when the rich afternoon lights are very beautiful, and the native population at their gayest. ALGIERS BY MOONLIGHT. 213 But, above all, a visit should be paid to the old town in the evening — if possible by moonlight, when the effect of the whole is simply bewitching. Weird and ghostlike in its alternate gleam and gloom, in its utter stillness, it is like some shadow-city of enchantment, whose life has been lived out centuries ago, and is peopled only by pale shades clad in white and glistening garments, who glide mysteriously through the mazy defiles, ana disappear suddenly in the black darkness. CHAPTER XII. THE MUSEUM.— THE HARBOUR.— THE FORTIFICA- UST beneath the flight of stone steps which lead from the Place du Gouvernement to the Fish-market, is a modest entry adorned with a somewhat high-sounding title. It is " L'Exposition permanente des produits de I'Algerie." It occupies a series of vaults beneath the Boulevard, and is open to the public on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. This museum is, as it professes to be, a collection of all the products of Algeria, and though somewhat neglected, will be found well worthy of one, if not more visits. It is well arranged in its different departments, and conveys a good idea of the richness of the Algerine soil both as regards minerals and vegetable life, the variety of climates which may be found within the boundaries of the country, and the various possibilities open to enterprise and capital. In the mineral collection will be found copper, iron, plum- bago, lead, manganese, rock-salt, gypsum, slate, antimony, marbles of the most varied and beautiful shades, onyx, &c. The vegetable kingdom offers specimens of magnificent cedar-wood, cork-oak — with which valuable tree it is said TIONS.— THE GATES. " Cooped in their winged sea-girt citadel." Byron, L' EXPOSITION. 215 that more than a milHon acres in Algeria are covered — and other varieties, including the evergreen and the chestnut- leaved oak, the pine, cypress, olive, ash, juniper, elm, carouba, &c. The zoological department contains stuffed specimens of all the principal wild animals of the country — the lion, panther, hyaena, jackal, wild cat, monkey, &c., together with an interesting collection of birds, among which the ostrich holds a prominent place. The specimens in the " Exposition " of the native indus- tries are no less interesting than the natural museum. The Kabyle pottery and jewellery are especially attractive, and some of the gold embroidery is extremely beautiful. There are some very good specimens of Moorish carpets and all varieties of stuff used for native clothing. In the entrance- hall of the museum was originally placed a pedestal of Algerian onyx, supporting a bust of Napoleon III., but this has been removed. In a glass case, there is still pre- served the trowel used by the Empress for the foundation- stone of the Boulevard, which no longer bears her name. The Harbour of Algiers possesses a small history entirely to itself, or rather plays a very important part in the history of the town. Some kind of a port doubtless existed here in Roman and Berber times, although no trace of ancient masonry has been found ; but the harbour offered, until comparatively modern times, very insecure anchorage for the pirate galleys, and in rough weather they had to be dragged out of the water on to the shore. The works of the harbour, such as we see them at present, were not begun until the sixteenth century by the pirate chieftain, Kheir-ed-din Barbarossa. The name by which the town 2l6 WALKS IN ALGIERS. of Algiers was known in the Middle Ages, and by which it is still called by the Arabs, is El-Djezair (the islands). It is curious that not only has the name become, in the course of ages, so modified as to be scarcely recognisable, but the islands themselves which suggested it, have disap- peared. They were four in number^ lying closely together in front of the city, at a distance of about two hundred yards from the shore. In the year 1302, the Spaniards becoming uneasy at the depredations of the Algerine pirates, sent four vessels to reconnoitre this part of the coast, and they then took pos- session of one of the small islands which faced the city ; but it was not until nearly two hundred years later, after the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, that the Count de Navarre with his Spanish soldiers, sweeping over the country from Oran, dictated terms to the Algerines, and in order to hold them in check, built the famous fortress on the island at the mouth of the harbour, which was afterwards known as La Penon (page 86). " This was so near the walls of the town that with their arquebuses the Spaniards could reach those within ; and with their field pieces they could actually make breaches in the fortifications."— Z'i'j'<-/T]^//o« of Africa hy Giovanni Leone, 1556. From this rocky stronghold the Spaniards for twenty years overawed the Algerines, depriving them of the use of their harbour, and keeping them in a state of humiliating subjection — a very thorn in their side. It was for the pur- pose of relieving himself of this incubus, that the unfortunate Emir, Selem-ben-Teumi, asked the good services of the Lesbos pirates, the brothers Barbarossa, and so lost both his kingdom and his life (page 84). THE PENON. THE MOLE. 217 After the capture of the Penon, Kheir-ed-din Barbarossa •set himself seriously to the task of forming a safe riding for the Algerine galleys. He began what in his day and country were certainly enormous undertakings, and which were probably regarded by the pious Mussulmans as a very tempting of Providence. He undertook to alter the face of nature for his convenience ; the islands, he decreed, that had so long given shelter and support to the infidel, should no longer exist. They should become a part of the mainland. Setting to work the thirty thousand unfortunate Christian slaves whom he held in his power, the pirate-king conceived and executed the grand idea of uniting the four islets, and joining the island thus made, to the mainland by a great mole, which should protect the galleys from the north. For the construction of the mole, materials were at hand. Besides the Spanish fortress, the old Roman city of Rus- gania strewed the shore near Cape Matifou with great blocks •of stone and marble. These were all brought into requi- sition, and in the space of three years El-Djezair, the island city, was but a misnomer — the mole, with the group of islets to which it was attached, lying out on the blue sea in the form of a gigantic anchor, as though it grappled the city of the rovers to the shore. Kheir-ed-din did not attempt to fortify his harbour ; he thought only of securing his ships from the power of the sea. Possibly it did not occur to him, now that the vantage- ground of the islets was removed, that a foreign enemy would dare to beard the beast of prey in his den. With his good ships at safe anchorage, he, the pirate-king — admiral too, of the Turkish fleet — would willingly have set the outer world at defiance. 2l8 WALKS IN ALGIERS. His successor, Hassen, however, judged it advisable to strengthen the seaward defences of the town ; and he erected the first batteries on what was then, and still is, known as " the island." The lighthouse-tower is part of the old fortification, built by this pasha in 1544. It is octagonal in form, about one hundred and twenty feet above the level of the sea, and can be seen at a distance of fifteen miles. In the reign of Salah-er-Rais the work of Kheir-ed-din received some important additions ; a new wall, built of enormous blocks of stone, was laid all along the mole to protect the port still further from the severe northern tempests. But during the winter of 1592-3 a severe storm not only destroyed many of the vessels, but also broke away a con- siderable part of the works of the harbour. "This disaster furnished an excuse for the rapacious Pacha Kader to satisfy his cupidity at the expense of his predecessor. Being elected pacha at Constantinople, and sent to replace Mustapha, he obhged the disgraced governor to pay a sum amounting to four thousand pounds, on the pretext of the port ha\'ing been allowed to fall into disrepair. It need scarcely be said that, after the fashion of Eastern officials, he pocketed the money." — L'Algerie. M. Berbrugger. Twenty-three years later Mustapha was lucky enough to be appointed governor in the place of Kader. A fine opportunity for the settling of old scores had come. Mustapha lost no time in representing, that the money paid for the repair of the harbour had not been used for the purpose, that it was still in a dilapidated condition, or rather that it was in so much worse case than he had left it a score of years before, that it would require a much larger sum to be expended upon it, than would have restored THE HARBOUR. 219 it at that period. Mustapha consequently seized upon the person and goods of the deposed pasha, and eventually only released him, on his payment of a sum just double that of which he had mulcted Mustapha, on his accession to power. The following is a description of the harbour of Algiers, written by M. de Braves, who in 1605 was sent on a special embassy to protest, on the part of the French, against the lawless proceedings of the Algerine pirates, and to settle the terms of a treaty between the Dey and Henri Quatre : — "There is no port, a half-ruined mole suffices to shelter the galleys. Ships anchor at the foot of the town walls, and if this harbour is not sufficient in time of storm, they are dragged up on to the shore." Another traveller in the seventeenth century writes — " The mole is a great mass of stone piled up so as almost to form ai half-circle. It is from six to seven paces wde and three hundred paces long. By this enormous structure is formed the port, which usually contains more than a hundred vessels of one land and another, but they are so badly protected against the Greek wind, or tramontana, that in the year 1619 more than twenty-five were wrecked here in a single Any."-^Histoire de Ba?-ba7-ie. Dan Pierre, 1649. In spite, then, of the enormous amount of labour and. treasure that had been expended in the construction of the famous mole, it offered at the best but a very uncertam protection to the pirate-fleet. "Algiers was indeed provided with a port, but the shelter wa»far from being worth the sacrifices which it had cost. On the one hand it wanted breadth and depth, on the other it was exposed to the north- east winds, and to the furious seas which they raised. Then was begun, in the hope of terminating this unsatisfactory state of affairs, that famous jetty which takes its rise from the southern point of the island — a gigantic work begun by the Turks two centuries ago, continued 220 WALKS IN ALGIERS. since 1830 by the French, and which is still slowly advancing into the open sea, where to stop, it is impossible to say. "Every year vast numbers of unhappy Christian slaves died of ill- treatment and hard work on this mole, and every year storms carried away a portion of the cruel holocaust. Enormous sums of money were swallowed up by the mole, which, however, during the Turkish rule, only extended to a distance of a hundred and forty yards ; and every autumn, when the Turkish fleet was fitting itself out for sea, it was compelled to quit this dangerous anchorage, and take its winter station in the roadstead of Bougie." — L'Algerie. M. Carette, 1850. Every winter the shipping continued to suffer great