Chapter II: Part 2

The romantic story of this king of robbers supplies a curious picture of the times. At the beginning of the sixteenth century Lesbos, in Mytilene, was the head-quarters of Turkish piracy in the Eastern Mediterranean. A simple potter, or fisherman, as some say, of the island had four sons, of whom two, Baba Aroudj and Kheir-ed-Din, rose to fame. Aroudj was in particular of a soaring spirit. Marking the avenues to fortune which the staple industry of the island presented, he became “apprenticed to a pirate.” An early disaster seemed like to blast his promising career; he was captured by a vessel of the Knights of Rhodes and condemned to the galleys. But such checks are to the really great only stepping-stones to higher things. Having, as was inevitable, effected his escape, he betook himself to Tunis, determined in the freer air of a new country to wipe out the memory of his early failure, and to find a fresh theatre for his energies. His professional knowledge stood him in good stead. He proposed to the Sultan of Tunis that they should enter into a partnership, in accordance with which he should conduct the active part of the business, and the Sultan receive half the profits, in consideration of his countenance and support. The Sultan, with that discernment that has so often characterized sovereigns, saw that he had to deal with a man of mark, and jumped at the proposal. A pirate station on the most approved lines was established at Djerba, where Aroudj was shortly joined by his brother, Kheir-ed-Din. The enterprise met with more than the success it deserved. Besides the ordinary dividends of the business, the brothers were able to make many very handsome presents to their partner and patron. On one occasion, it is recorded, they offered to him fifty Spanish youths holding in leash hounds and hawks of the rarest breeds, and four young ladies of noble birth, attired in splendid garments and mounted on magnificent horses. Mulai Mohammed, the Sultan, however keen a hand in purely business matters, was not the man to turn a deaf ear to the appeal of a brother in distress. The plight of his fellow-monarch, the Emir of Algiers, moved him deeply. With a quite distinguished disinterestedness he proposed to his associates that they should abandon for a time the ordinary course of their duties and proceed to Algiers to turn the obnoxious Spaniards out of their eyrie on the island. Baba Aroudj arrived at Algiers with 5000 men, and was hailed as a deliverer. But the instincts of his trade were too strong for him. Instead of attacking the Spaniards on the Penon, he put the Emir to death, proclaimed himself King, and gave the town to pillage. Master of Algiers, with his vessels dominant at sea, he set himself to win an empire. He occupied Medea and Tlemçen, and menaced the Spanish position at Oran. This was too much, and Charles V sent thither a powerful force to check him. He retired on Tlemçen, and fell in an obscure fight at Oudjda, on the frontier of Morocco, a town of some significance in recent history, and now in the occupation of the French.

“He left a name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral and adorn a tale.”

His brother, Kheir-ed-Din, assumed the reins of power at Algiers. Lacking the vaulting ambition of the terrible Barbarossa, he seems to have possessed a sounder business head. His first care was to assure his position; and with this object he offered his African dominions to Selim I, Sultan of Turkey. The Turk accepted the offer, and named Kheir-ed-Din his “Captain-pasha.” So arose the Turkish domination of Algeria, which lasted for three centuries, and inflicted on Europe unnumbered woes. If Europe had only known it, now was the time to cut off the serpent’s head; but Europe, as usual, was busy with its own quarrels. Charles V did indeed conduct an expedition in person in 1535, but it was half-hearted and proved abortive. No native prince arose to repel the Turkish pretensions, which were consolidated by the capture of Tunis and the occupation of Kairouan, the holy city.

Kheir-ed-Din next turned his attention to the Spanish garrison on the Penon. Having procured heavy guns, he bombarded the position for fifteen days with an incessant fire. The garrison of 150 men made a heroic resistance, but when all save twenty-five were killed, the island was captured and the survivors put to death.

The brave commander, Martin Vargas, was offered the alternative of embracing Mohammedanism and a Mohammedan wife or execution. He chose the latter, and was beaten to death with sticks, his body was dragged through the streets, cut into pieces, and thrown into the sea. So did the corsair treat a gallant foe.

It was then that Kheir-ed-Din conceived the project of uniting the island and the city, with the double object of preventing any repetition of the Spanish occupation and of providing a harbour for his fleet. Thirty thousand Christian slaves supplied him with labour, and materials lay near to hand. The ruins of the old Roman city of Rusgania strewed the shore at Cape Matifou; and countless blocks of Roman hewn stone and marble lie buried beneath the floor of the mole. The work, a very big work for the period, was finished in three years, and henceforth for nearly three centuries the corsair fleets lay within, safe from the storms of the Mediterranean and the attacks of their enemies. Kheir-ed-Din’s son mounted batteries on the Penon, and built the lighthouse tower in 1544. It is of octagonal shape, nearly 120 feet high, and visible for a distance of fifteen miles. A band of gleaming tiles below the summit happily relieves the monotony of its elevation.

The present great harbour, covering 222 acres, was commenced by the French in 1836. It was formed by continuing the line of Kheir-ed-Din’s mole to the south-east, and building another of irregular form from a point to the south of the city. In these works blocks of concrete were used for the first time in such operations,—an experiment which has had important results. In the making of this great harbour, as in so many other constructive matters, the French have risen to the level of their opportunities. Their genius in such large matters is unquestioned; and if anyone doubts their pre-eminence in minor arts, let him compare their coinage and their postage stamps with those of any other nation.

The French have done many great things; one thing they have omitted,—to provide an adequate service of passenger steamers between France and North Africa. They have generally fallen behind in the race of maritime improvement in recent years; but the insufficiency of this particular service may be due to the fact that trade between Marseilles and Algeria is held to be French coasting trade, and therefore reserved to vessels sailing under the French flag. The stimulus of foreign competition is absent. But nothing can prevent the indirect competition of the superior steamers of the North German Lloyd to Genoa, which are securing much of the tourist traffic. This company is gradually establishing a network of steamer lines in the Mediterranean. And a service of fast steamers covering the voyage between Barcelona and Algiers in twelve hours is now mooted. This may prove a further nail in the coffin of the Marseilles route. But the French have it in their hands to retain the trade by running adequate steamers properly equipped.

In spite of the heavy hand of the destroyer a few fine houses of the Turkish domination survive, and some are put to public uses and are accessible to the stranger. They exhibit a usual characteristic of the Eastern house; they are insignificant, sometimes even squalid without, but like the princess they are all glorious within. Christendom builds its houses for the public eye. This is not entirely altruistic; not wholly due to a desire to please the neighbours; a man’s credit and importance (even, it is said, the amount of his doctor’s bill) bear some relation in the opinion of his world to the outward appearance of the house in which he lives. And in the northern view, at any rate, a man’s house is a consideration prior to his equipage, his retinue, and his personal adornment. And some value attaches to what is called “a good address.” Wherefore our note-paper headings often contain a _suggestio falsi_; and Glenalmond Villa or The Elms strive to conceal the banality of a mere terrace.

All this is unmeaning to the Mussulman. He fulfils Bacon’s dictum that “houses are built to live in, not to look upon, wherefore let use be preferred before uniformity.” A bare wall with narrow and barred windows facing a mean alley;—such is his house’s exterior. It seems rather to desire to escape than to court observation. It has more the air of a fortress than of a dwelling. The doorways are an exception to the prevailing plainness. They exhibit a great variety of detail, but mainly follow a Roman or Byzantine scheme, of a round arch supported on columns, the whole copiously decorated. The doors themselves are generally of simple woodwork, often heavily studded with iron, and sometimes retaining their fine old handles and knockers. To the wanderer in the Arab town they offer a never-failing source of interest and study. The elaboration of the doorway when all else that is external is plain would seem to be thoroughly congruous with Oriental taste and tradition. The door of the house and the gate of the city stand for much in private and public life, for the line that divides the intimate and the stranger, the friend and the foe. Our fathers had some sense of the dignity of the door, a sense which in our careless acceptance of decadent conventions we have almost lost. We may strive to recover it in contemplating these Arab portals. The charming drawings of Mr. Thoroton, here reproduced, accurately represent their general scheme and the variety of their ornament. A common decorative feature appears to be based on the artichoke; the precision of its symmetry doubtless appeals strongly to Mohammedan prejudices.

When you have passed the portal the very contrast of the squalor without heightens the effect of the splendour and refinement within. The usual type of house is one which the Arabs owe to the Romans, or both to an earlier source. The doorway opens on to a long vestibule, with a row of marble seats on either side, divided at regular intervals by columns, often twisted and generally suggesting the Ionic order. From this you pass into the main dwelling, a square marble court open, or partially open, to the sky, round which are grouped the chief rooms. Marble columns support the gallery of the first floor, the walls are a blaze of tiles, a fine dark balustrade of open woodwork surrounds the gallery; and in the centre of the court-yard perhaps the pleasant plash of a fountain emphasises the pervading peace. It is all very splendid, and yet most dignified. Such a beautiful house is used as the Bibliothèque Municipale, a library with 35,000 volumes, many Arabian and Persian MSS., and an up-to-date card catalogue. Another is the residence of the Archbishop. This is said to be a fragment of the ancient palace of the Deys. It is a pleasant touch of humour which lodges the Archbishop in the last remnant of the harem. To these may be added the Governor’s Winter Palace, with a modern front and rich interior decorations; and a few other houses occupied by officials, and not open to inspection without an introduction.

A mere civilian must bow before the requirements of the military authorities, but he may be permitted to regret that they should have seen fit to turn the Kasbeh, the ancient fortress of the Deys, into a barrack. As may naturally be expected, the decorations and many of the original features have disappeared; marble columns have been replaced by wooden posts, tiles have been picked off,—and the Dey’s pavilion has been repainted! Worse than all, a public road has been driven right through the centre of the old compact mass of buildings surrounded by their embattled wall. The visitor will turn away with disgust from this reckless spoliation, which will some day no doubt be bitterly regretted.

Of the mosques of Algiers, that of Sidi Abd er Rahman, adjoining the tomb of the saint, is the most picturesque. The great mosque of Djama el Kebir has a very handsome exterior, notably a magnificent colonnade fronting the Rue de la Marine. The entrance is pleasing, but the interior rather bare. The mosque in the Place du Gouvernement, known as the New Mosque, was built in 1660 to the designs of a Christian slave, and is in the form of a Greek cross. The Catholic Cathedral was formerly a mosque, and is now an eclectic monstrosity.

The interest which Algiers has for the traveller is closely bound up with the hideous story of the Christian captives. Our literature, especially of the seventeenth century, is full of allusion to their miserable condition. Their numbers were prodigious. In 1646 it was reckoned that there were not less than 20,000 such slaves. During our Civil War the Channel was full of Algerine pirates, and their operations extended to the North Sea. The Long Parliament passed an Act “whereby they did manifest unto the world their resolution of undertaking that Christian work of the Redemption of the Captives from the cruel thraldom that they lay under,” and established a tax on merchants’ goods, called “Algier duty,” to provide funds for the purpose. Many distinguished men were at one time or another slaves in Barbary. Cervantes was in captivity for five years, and has related some of his miseries in the story of “The Captive” in “Don Quixote.” He who went to sea in those days had to face the chance of “being taken by the insolent foe and sold to slavery.” It will be recalled that before he set forth on his immortal voyage Robinson Crusoe was captured by a Sallee-rover, and worked as a slave. Samuel Pepys records (February 8th, 1660-1) a conversation on the subject: “At noon to the Exchange to meet Mr. Warren the timber merchant, but could not meet with him. Here I met with many sea commanders, and among others Captain Cuttle, and Curtis and Mootham, and I went to the Fleece Tavern to drink; and there we spent till four o’clock, telling stories of Algiers, and the manner of the life of slaves there. And truly Captain Mootham and Mr. Dawes (who have been both slaves there) did make me fully acquainted with their condition there: as, how they eat nothing but bread and water. At their redemption they pay so much for the water they drink at the public fountaynes, during their being slaves. How they are beat upon the soles of their feet and bellies at the liberty of their padron. How they are all, at night, called into their master’s Bagnard [prison]; and there they lie. How the poorest men do use their slaves best. How some rogues do live well, if they do invent to bring their masters in so much a week by their industry or theft.” Other accounts give far more harrowing details of the sufferings of the slaves and of the tortures they endured.

When a prize was brought in, the crew and the passengers were forced by torture, generally the bastinado, to declare their quality and condition. The Dey selected one in eight for himself, generally preferring skilled workmen. The remainder were sold by auction for the benefit of the owners and crews of the pirate vessels. The European Powers maintained consuls at Algiers, and through them, and other agencies, those of the captives whose friends could find the ransom demanded, were, after much delay, redeemed.

That such an iniquity was more or less tolerated for centuries is one of the curiosities of history. It can only be explained by the fact that European nations found it a convenient scourge for their enemies. France and England especially were continually intriguing to make infamous treaties with the Dey to the benefit of each against the other. All nations, including the United States of America, after they obtained their independence in 1783, paid tribute to the Dey in one form or another to secure the exemption of their vessels from capture; but the Algerines never respected any treaty when they could violate it with advantage or probable impunity.

The close of the Napoleonic wars gave England not only undisputed command of the sea, but leisure to deal with the open sore of Algerian piracy. She was not slow to use it. At the beginning of 1816 Lord Exmouth was ordered to visit the Barbary States and obtain the release of such slaves as were British subjects—chiefly Ionians—or subjects of Great Britain’s allies. At Algiers the Dey readily released the Ionians, and also the Neapolitans and Sardinians, on payment of a ransom. Lord Exmouth proceeded to Tunis and Tripoli, and concluded treaties with the Beys, who agreed to abolish the institution of Christian slavery altogether. He then returned to Algiers and endeavoured to get the Dey to make a similar treaty. The Dey declined to accede, but finally consented to treat at London and Constantinople. Lord Exmouth took a high hand; he told the Dey that he evidently had little idea of the power of a British man-of-war, and that he would engage, if hostilities became necessary, to blow the place to pieces with five line-of-battle ships. Shortly after he had sailed for England matters were brought to a climax by an attack by Turks and Arabs on a large number of coral-fishermen, sailing under French and English colours, who had landed at Bona on Ascension Day. About two hundred were massacred in a church and hundreds more wounded. The British consul was killed, the houses of Christians pillaged, and the British flag trampled under foot. The British Government considered that the cup was now full, and that strong measures must be taken against these barbarians. On Lord Exmouth’s arrival a fresh fleet was fitted out. He was offered any force he required, but he determined to rely on the five battleships he had mentioned to the Dey. To these were added five frigates and some smaller vessels. At Gibraltar he found a Dutch squadron of five frigates and a corvette under Admiral van Capellan, who asked and obtained leave to co-operate.

After some vexatious delays Exmouth arrived off Algiers on August 26th, 1816. His despatch, dated August 28th, is very interesting reading. He had previously sent on the _Prometheus_, to endeavour to bring away the British consul, Captain Dashwood. A landing party brought off his wife and daughter, disguised in midshipmen’s uniforms. The surgeon was following with the consul’s infant child concealed in a basket. As he was entering a boat the child, unfortunately, cried, with the result that the surgeon, three midshipmen, and others, in all eighteen persons, were seized and confined as slaves in the usual dungeons. “The child was sent off next morning by the Dey, and as a solitary instance of his humanity it ought to be recorded by me,” says his lordship. Captain Dashwood was closely confined in irons.

The _Prometheus_ brought word that energetic measures of defence had been taken; that additional works had been thrown up, and a large army assembled. The whole Algerine fleet was collected within the mole. On the morning of the 27th the fleet was lying in sight of the city becalmed, and Exmouth sent ashore a flag of truce with the demands he was instructed to make. Receiving no answer, and the day breeze landwards having sprung up, he moved his fleet in towards the mole, the _Queen Charlotte_, the flagship, leading. The shore batteries opened the engagement with a tremendous fire, whereupon the leading ship commenced action. Before nightfall the enemy’s fleet was completely destroyed, his batteries abandoned, and half the town in ruins. At midnight the ships and parts of the town were still burning. Thus did Lord Exmouth demonstrate to the Dey the power of five English ships of the line. The battle was of quite an unprecedented nature; it was a new departure to bring a fleet up close under the guns of formidable batteries. The fleet had poured 50,000 shot, weighing over 500 tons of iron, into the town, and used 118 tons of powder. A little touch illustrates the close quarters of the combatants. A vast crowd of Arabs was collected on the shore, and before he opened fire Lord Exmouth called out and waved to them to depart. The warning had no effect, and thousands were killed.

The English losses were considerable, 123 men killed and 690 wounded. The Dutch had 13 killed and 52 wounded. Lord Exmouth himself was struck three times, but escaped unhurt. It was pointed out at the time that, in proportion to the number of men in the English ships engaged, the casualties were far higher than in any of Nelson’s victories.

The Dey must have passed an uncomfortable night, and morning found him in a very humble mood. He agreed to all the English demands; these were, the abolition of Christian slavery for ever, and an undertaking to treat prisoners of war according to the usage of civilized nations; the immediate delivery of all slaves; the repayment of the ransom of the Neapolitan and Sardinian captives; an apology and reparation to the English consul. Having accepted these comprehensive and ignominious terms, not as regards the apology to the consul with a very good grace, the Dey consoled himself by beheading his prime minister.

It has been given to another nation to break down for good and all the Turkish tyranny, and to restore these fair lands to Europe and civilization, but we may congratulate ourselves that the gallantry of our own navy dealt the first serious blow, and exposed the hollowness of the game of bluff which the corsairs of Algiers had played against Christendom for centuries. Yet nothing can quench our wonder that the hand was held up so long, even into the lifetime of men still living and vigorous.

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_III—NEW ROADS AND OLD CITIES_

Rome’s successors—The Road and its influence—Algerian highways—The
motor-car and modern travel—An aqueduct—Cherchel—Cleopatra’s
daughter—Tipasa—The French as Colonists—Viticulture.

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“Among the ruins of old Rome, the grandeur of the
Commonwealth shews itself chiefly in temples, highways,
aqueducts, walls and bridges.”—ADDISON.

From many points of view the modern French may be regarded as representing most fully among the peoples of Europe the Romans of the Empire. The sturdy physique and unrivalled endurance, the unsurpassed gallantry and devotion to duty of their soldiers, recall the qualities of the legions. Their absorbing pride in and love for their native land is an echo of the tremendous sentiment of Roman citizenship. The logical coherence of their legal system is frankly based on the jurisprudence of Rome. Their faculty, for producing the most perfect work in the more refined forms of engineering and the manufacture of delicate tools and machines is a natural development of Roman thoroughness in constructive matters. And like the Romans they are the slaves of convention. Everything Roman was according to a settled plan. The empire was a vast aggregation of cities which aspired to be little Romes. From the borders of Scotland to the fringe of the Sahara, from Portugal to Asia Minor, cities were raised more or less, as circumstances permitted, fulfilling the conventional design; conventional not only in town-planning, and in the scheme of public buildings, but in the architecture of private houses and the most minute details of decoration. We grow weary in the museums of to-day of the repetition of the same motives in sculpture, in mosaic and in bronze-work. The only variety is in the quality of the execution. So, too, must a French town, a French house, a Frenchman’s manners and a Frenchwoman’s clothes be in accordance with a sealed pattern deposited in the temple of the great goddess Comme-il-faut. The French are the most law-abiding of nations, but their laws are _les convenances_. The occasional licence exhibited in their art and literature and morals is but the effort of a few eccentric individuals, not always of unmixed French breeding, to break through the trammels in which the mass of the race is bound.

In this country the French have set themselves from the first to carry on the Roman tradition in the making of roads. In a land which for twelve centuries has known little but destruction and decay they have built, as the Romans built before them, solid, uncompromising, inevitable highways, roads on which armies may march secure of ambush, and almost regardless of the hostility of natural forces;—roads which create not only peace, but prosperity in their course. The road is one of the most effective as it is one of the most permanent works of man. In England quite a large proportion of our main roads still follows the lines laid down by the Romans. We are ourselves rather road-menders than road-makers. Our genius finds its work in other directions. We have been in South Africa far longer than the French in North Africa, and what have we to show there at all comparable with the Algerian roads?

In one of the most notable books of our generation, Mr. Hilaire Belloc has set before us the uses, the influence, the interest, and the fascination of the road. In the course of an exploration of one of those ancient highways which we English have permitted to fall into decay and in part to disappear, he has taken occasion to impress on us the part which the road has played in the spread of civilizing influences. Algeria—roadless and anarchical for centuries, orderly and webbed with roads to-day—may add point to his argument. “More than rivers and more than mountain chains, roads have moulded the political groupings of men. The Alps with a mule-track across them are less of a barrier than fifteen miles of forest or rough land separating one from that track. Religions, which are the principal formers of mankind, have followed the roads only, leaping from city to city and leaving the ‘Pagani,’ in the villages off the road, to a later influence. Consider the series, Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Athens and the Appian Way; Rome, all the tradition of the Ligurian Coast, Marseilles and Lyons. I have read in some man’s book that the last link of that chain was the river Rhone; but this man can never have tried to pull a boat upon the Rhone upstream. It was the Road that laid the train. The Mass reached Lyons before, perhaps, the last disciple of the apostles was dead; in the Forez, just above, four hundred years later, there were most probably offerings at night to the pagan gods of those sombre and neglected hills. And with religions all that is built on them: letters, customs, community of language and idea, have followed the Road, because humanity, which is the matter of religion, must also follow the road it has made. Architecture follows it, commerce of course, all information; it is even so with the poor thin philosophies, each in its little day drifts, for choice, down a road.”[2]

Footnote 2:

“The Old Road,” 1904, p. 5.

The making of the Algerian highways has been no light matter. They have frequently demanded much engineering skill. Their repair is a difficult and expensive business, the heavy winter rains and the fierce summer sun have a rapidly disintegrating effect on the friable materials available. Algeria is not only an exceedingly mountainous country, but its physical conditions are very peculiar, and, except by those who have explored them, not as a rule very fully understood. The common idea of a fertile belt, more or less hilly and of varying width, between the sea on the north and the Sahara on the south, is imperfect and incorrect. As a very rough generalization, subject to innumerable variations of mountain and valley and plain, Algeria may be said to consist of two parallel ranges of mountains running north-east and south-west. The northern range slopes very gradually to the sea, often in a series of plains, providing with its copious rainfall that fertile tract known as the Tell, once the granary of Rome, and now again developing a great export trade. The Tell itself contains numerous ranges of lesser hills, called Sahels. The southern range faces the desert, in the east, in the great rocky mass of the Aures, with steep cliffs; in the west less abruptly. Between the two ranges is contained a lofty plateau, of convex form, in the main barren and sandy, but covered here and there with scrub. In many of its features it imitates the true desert. It has its shallow depressions filled with brackish water; and its inhabitants dwell in rare oases where fresh water occurs. The mountains attain no great elevation, their summits seldom exceeding 6000 feet. This is a pity. A lofty range treasuring copious stores of eternal snow would perhaps have made of the high plateau a veritable garden; and its influence would have been felt far southwards into the Sahara. The direction of the mountain lines causes the Tell, the land of tilth and colonization, to be wide at the western end of the Colony, in the province of Oran, and narrow at the eastern end, in the province of Constantine.

Where the desert breaks in waves of shifting sand against the southern range, where the streams run southwards and lose themselves,—there and not on the seaboard of France and Spain would seem to lie the destined boundaries of Europe; this the proper limit of European enterprises. The sea is to-day less than ever a barrier, _dissociabilis_; it is rather a link. The Mediterranean may lash itself in rage, but its rage is impotent to check the progress of the great steamers. The southern frontier of the Roman Empire is once more the southern frontier of Europe. The burning sands of the great Sahara are the true divide. Yet French enterprise is loth to admit this. The indomitable spirit of adventure, of adventure however profitless,—the spirit which led their Crusaders to the Holy Land, the army of Napoleon to Moscow, and Marchand on his interminable desert march to anticipate Kitchener at Fashoda,— this spirit is still at work. Further into the Sahara the outposts are continually being pushed; a railway is projected to Timbuctoo, now a journey of three months for caravans; and the connection of the French Colonies in North and West Africa has long been mooted. We may admire this spirit and its manifestation, but in all deference may ask, Is it business?

At the time of the French invasion, eighty years ago, there was not a single road in the interior of Algeria. The Roman roads had disappeared. The Arab paths only permitted the passage of horsemen, and wheeled vehicles were unknown. In the Tell transport was by mules, in the south by caravans. The army no sooner landed than it began to lay out roads, and for some time afterwards their construction was in the hands of the military engineers. They are now in the care of a special department. The system which has been evolved consists of a great artery running east and west from the frontier of Tunis to the frontier of Morocco, united by branch roads to the chief ports on the coast, and sending forth great feelers southward to the Sahara. These are the great national trunk roads constructed and maintained by the state for strategic purposes, and they have a total length of about 2500 miles. Besides these, the state has assisted in the making of a great number of roads partly strategic, but for the most part designed to open up new regions to colonization. These, with the ordinary country roads, make up a total of nearly 10,000 miles.

It would almost seem that in the design of the great highways running east and west, and north to sea, and south to the desert, the French had some prescience of the invention of the motor-car. The roads are, in fact, most admirably adapted to its use, often from their open character and long straight stretches (a part, no doubt, of their military intention), at almost any possible speed. And their surface is commonly excellent. Remote places formerly only to be reached by painful journeys in jolting diligences are now within easy reach. And although the automobile is still the luxury of the few, it may not be long before popular “omnibus” vehicles will extend its advantages to the many. The railway train is becoming the inferior beast of burden,—crawling wearily along at its African pace of fifteen or twenty miles an hour; while the sprightly motor-car flies past, perhaps at a speed of fifty. It is true that Article 14 of the _Règlements_ for Algeria provides that “en aucun cas, la vitesse n’excédera celle de 30 kilomètres à l’heure en rase campagne et celle de 20 kilomètres à l’heure dans les agglomérations,” but there seems to be no disposition to enforce this; and there are no police traps, and no A.A. scouts. The really important provision is, “le conducteur de l’automobile devra rester constamment maître de sa vitesse.”

We may take it therefore that travel in Algeria is entering on a new phase; that this most beautiful and interesting country has at a blow become accessible to the traveller who has neither time nor inclination for primitive methods of journeying; and that in the matter of country hotels French enterprise will surely rise—it is already rising—to the new opportunities. There are motorists and motorists; to one class the car itself is all-important, the country traversed a minor matter, the surface of the road on which “she” is to display her powers being the first consideration. Such enthusiasts will bring their own cars, and will perhaps not regret doing so. But there are also persons of grovelling mind, who cannot rise to any enthusiasm over carburetters and petrol consumption, who, in fact, regard the motor-car as merely a very agreeable means to a very desirable end. Such lowly souls will perhaps be satisfied with hiring a car in Algiers. They will find no difficulty in selecting an adequate vehicle at a reasonable rate; no Black Care will sit behind them,—if a breakdown occurs they have only to study the scenery until it is repaired; and they will have the advantage of a chauffeur who knows the country, and will not forget the rule of the road at a critical moment. He may have other qualities;—ours was a sportsman, and would produce a gun and shoot thrushes for our dinner while we photographed Roman temples. Our murmured pity at their death missed its mark; he regarded them simply as very good—to eat. And so they are.

Before he sets forth on more ambitious journeys, the master, temporary or permanent, of a motor-car may make several interesting expeditions in the neighbourhood of Algiers. The guide-book will suggest his objective, the excellent maps of the “Voies de Communication” will point out the way. If his tastes run in the direction of visiting historic sites, he may spend a very interesting day in motoring to Cherchel, the ancient Julia Cæsarea, situate on the coast about seventy miles west of Algiers. He has a choice of routes; he may proceed inland to Blidah, and thence to Marengo, and so to Cherchel, and return by the coast road, or vice versa. We chose a middle course. We followed the Blidah road as far as Boufarik and then turned westwards by country roads to Marengo. With occasional interludes of roughness, especially where the marshy nature of the country renders their maintenance difficult, these roads are very good. They traverse a well-cultivated district of the great plain between the coast-hills and the Lesser Atlas, of which the snowy summits are brilliant in the morning sun. On a hill to our right we catch a glimpse of the curious Tombeau de la Chrétienne, so called;—in all probability the mausoleum of Juba II and Selene his wife, the founders of Cæsarea. It is placed on the summit of a hill 756 feet above the sea, and is a circular building of about 130 feet in height. Like most Roman buildings it has been used as a quarry by subsequent peoples; perhaps the solitary capital of a column which I noticed on a farm gateway came from this source.

Between Boufarik and Marengo the country is fairly well cultivated; substantial farmhouses, surmounted by groves of eucalyptus trees, stand amid great fields of vine and corn. It is difficult to realize that, in spite of its long history, this is essentially a new country, far newer than the Colonies of South Africa, newer than a good deal of Australia. At Marengo we join the main road from Blidah to Cherchel and descend rapidly by the side of the newly-constructed railway. From a contemplation of the enterprise of modern France, we are taken back at a bound to the works of ancient Rome by the appearance on a hill to the left of a portion of the aqueduct of Cæsarea. At this point it spans a lateral valley in a triple series of arches, rendered perhaps more impressive by a breakage in the middle. Leaving the car we scramble up by the side of a stream and reach the great watercourse itself. Passing beneath its arches we ascend the valley a little, and turn to look down on its immense proportions. Amid the rough mountain scrub we have passed from all evidence of modern cultivation, and are alone with this mighty fragment of the past. It is difficult to find a reason for the feeling, but few of Rome’s monuments impart a fuller sense of her magnificence than the aqueducts which survive at so many different points of her Empire. They are a symbol perhaps of her relentless power over nature and man, of her determination to have what she wanted at all cost. Sometimes, as in the Campagna, it is the long lines of interminable arches which impress us; here it is rather their soaring height. Many modern peoples would have carried the open watercourse by a circuitous cutting on the hill-side round the head of the little valley; such a proceeding was alien to the directness of Rome.

“See distant mountains leave their valleys dry,
And o’er the proud arcade their tribute pour,
To lave imperial Rome.”

The city to whose fountains and baths the aqueduct brought copious streams of fresh water from the hills has disappeared. A squalid little port fills some of its site, and entombs its marbles, but the aqueduct, situate too far from the habitations of subsequent man to serve his purpose as a quarry, and too threatening with its mass to encourage any hasty attempt at demolition, has survived.

A mile or two lower down are a few arches of a branch of the same aqueduct; perhaps more picturesque in their greater ruin, but less impressive in their situation and height. All around as we enter Cherchel are evidences of its ancient glory. The fashioning of the ground, the great squared stones which are built into the walls, the marble columns lying about in the town square, and the huge masses of shapeless brickwork on the shore prepare us for the collection of statues and other objects gathered together in a well-arranged museum.

The city of Cæsarea, renowned for its magnificence in the splendid Roman world of the first century, rose under the hand of a woman, as Carthage under Dido’s. To the loves of Antony and Cleopatra was born the Princess Selene. In her veins flowed the blood of the Ptolemies,—perhaps of the Pharaohs,—and of the paramount family of Rome. Truly, to adapt the language of the turf, was she bred for building. Possibly with the idea of providing for this inconvenient young lady at a safe distance from Rome, Augustus mated her to Juba, a descendant of that Masinissa, King of Numidia, who had been the staunch ally of the Romans in their long struggle with Hannibal. Juba, educated at Rome, had developed literary tastes. He is lauded by Pliny for his erudition, and we learn from Plutarch that he merited a place among “Royal and Noble Authors.” Save perhaps for the dark blood of his ancestry, he was a fitting match for Cleopatra’s daughter, especially as he was restored to the Numidian throne of his family, with all the power of Rome behind him. Retiring to the ancient Phœnician town of Iol, the Royal pair set to work to raise a noble city, which perhaps with a punning reference to its former name they called Julia Cæsarea; and to gather around them a circle representing the best culture of the time. Marble colonnades and porticoes, baths and theatres and temples sprang into being on the fair curve of the bay beneath the wooded hills. Great libraries enshrined the literary labours of the monarch and the learning of the age. The scholars of Greece found a comfortable and inspiring home at the court of the pedantic king, and the existence of a hundred thousand citizens attested the material wealth of the new city. Juba and Selene lived here in peace to old age. The king died in A.D. 19, and was succeeded by his son Ptolemy, who inherited none of his father’s good qualities. A debauched tyrant, he plunged his kingdom into anarchy and was summoned to Rome. He was received with every mark of honour, but was put to death by Caligula, because, as it was said, the splendour of his attire unduly excited the attention of the populace.

Ptolemy’s sister Drusilla was the wife of that Felix, Governor of Judæa, before whom Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, so that Felix trembled, and answered, “Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season I will call for thee.” Drusilla is described in the Acts of the Apostles as a Jewess, which she was not, by birth at any rate.

It is sad to learn that as late as 1840 much of the Roman city was still to be seen. The theatre, now marked by a mere depression in the ground, was almost perfect. Here we have a genuine grievance against the French conquest; but 1840 was in the dark ages. So Cæsarea has passed; the Vandals, the Arabs, the earthquakes, and the French have all done their worst: and between them they have made an end of it. Perhaps even a systematic excavation would not yield us much of value. The statues to be seen in the museum are for the most part copies of statues already found at Rome, and suggest that there was little originality in the artists employed by Juba and Selene. But nothing can impair the beauty of the site, and not even the presence of a banal Franco-Arab town can forbid us to dream of a white marble city beneath a deep blue sty and facing a purple sea.

So we turn homewards. For a while we follow the Marengo road by which we came; pass the great aqueduct again; but shortly turn to the left to reach Tipasa and the seaside road to Algiers. As we approach the coast traces of the Roman past are everywhere;—on every mound great shaped stones, “the splendid wrecks of former pride,” lie in confusion, and here and there a portico suggests the existence of a suburban villa,

“While oft some temple’s mouldering tops between
With memorable grandeur mark the scene.”

When we reach Tipasa itself the great stones lie in heaps, in most admired disorder. The ruins in their extent seem to indicate the existence of a greater town than the historians admit Tipasa to have been. It is said to have been founded by Claudius as a colony of veterans, and to have contained 20,000 inhabitants. It is rich in memories of the great Arian controversy which played so important a part in the history of North Africa after the triumph of Christianity. In A.D. 484 the Vandal king, Huneric, imposed an Arian bishop on the Catholic inhabitants. A great part fled to Spain; those who remained and refused to accept the heresy had their right arms lopped off and their tongues cut out. It would seem that different branches of Christendom have often been inclined to treat their erring brethren with more severity than they meted out to the unregenerate heathen. Perhaps the heathen has ever been a more likely convert.

The situation of Tipasa belies the opinion that the ancients had no eye for natural scenery. It stood on a fair promontory sheltering from the east a little cove which is protected from the west by the great mountain mass of Djebel-Chénoua, which lies between Tipasa and Cherchel. The country around is singularly picturesque, and the _tout ensemble_ very beautiful, even for this beautiful coast.

Thence we start for a run of fifty or sixty miles by the seaside road to Algiers, a road which has been splendidly engineered, and is kept for the most part in a condition beyond praise. In front of us stretches the coast-line past the Bay of Algiers to Cap Matifou; on our right are the wooded hills of the Sahel. Here and there the land between the road and the sea is laid out in gardens formed in small rectangular plots divided by hedges of a tall reed to break the force of the wind. Even so the Dutch nurserymen erect screens to protect their tulips on the wind-swept lowlands of Holland. In these enclosures we particularly note frequent plantations of the tall “silver” banana. And so in due time we reach Algiers, conscious of a well-spent day.

Travel gives the death-blow to many illusions. If there is one tenet to which British self-complacency has clung with more desperate energy than another, it is that our people are the only successful colonists. We are ready to admit that the German has hardly had a fair chance. He is relegated for the present to desert tropical lands which failed in the past to tempt even Portugal. That France owns colonies of a different class we have been dimly aware, but the oracles of the club and of the Press have consistently pictured to us the French colonist as a miserable being who passes his time sipping absinthe in a café, and longing for his return to _la belle France_. Possibly in the purlieus of Algiers such a being might be discovered; at any rate, he is certainly not more in evidence than the “remittance men” and bar-loafers are in our own colonies. And a motor drive for twenty or thirty miles through the rich plain which encircles Algiers will send our long-cherished belief a-packing to the limbo of dead British prejudices. We have recently discovered that the home-staying French, at any rate, know something about practical gardening, and the raising of vegetable crops for market; that their scientific methods and untiring energy combine to get more out of the ground than we do; and we have even been led to pocket our pride and to import certain practical French gardeners, at a fancy wage, to show us how the thing is done. In this we are only following the example of our ancestors, who acquired most of their arts and crafts from French and Flemish refugees. Yet it was quite a shock when one of these new-comers, looking round him at the fair fields of the home farm on a great estate in a southern county, ingenuously remarked, “But why is not this country cultivated?”

Of this great plain between the sea and the mountains no such question could be asked. Some corn is raised, and some vegetables, such as artichokes, but most of it is devoted to the culture of the vine. It is all in the highest state of cultivation, and not an inch is wasted. The vines are planted in open fields, with the precision of the hops of Kent. Now is the time of pruning, and they are all being cut back to within a foot or so of the ground. To an eye accustomed to the hill-side and rocky vineyards of the Rhine, of Italy, or of Madeira, to the vines which in Southern Europe throw themselves in reckless abandon over trellises and wayside trees, these flat fields, which suggest turnips or beet, have a very unromantic appearance. But it is easy to see that the cultivation is conducted on the most scientific and business-like lines.

It was our privilege to be invited to visit a French gentleman and his family at their residence about twenty miles from Algiers. Our host has purchased a large tract of land, the whole of which he has turned into a great vineyard. He has built a pleasant country house, and filled it with treasures of Arab art, and the trophies of travel in other lands. He has planted a garden of palms and sub-tropical shrubs—a garden not kept up to the standard of English trimness, but rich in shade, and pleasantly suggestive of a jungle. Not only are his vines planted and pruned with mathematical precision, but all his machinery for the extraction and treatment of the grape juice is of the latest and most practical character. A long building lined with huge vats gives an idea of the greatness of his undertaking, and is designed to enable him to hold the produce of two vintages in the event of a bad market:—a very important advantage to a producer. There is nothing of the model, or pleasure, farm about the place; it is all intensely practical. “It is an industry,” said our host; and indeed it is; a fine example of industrial intelligence applied to agriculture. The presence on the farm of two motor-cars and an aeroplane is evidence that he is otherwise abreast of the movement.

It may be that our host is exceptionally gifted, both in enterprise and resources, but at any rate his example must be of great value. And the vistas all around of similar properties with pleasant houses bowered in trees and gardens suggest that it is followed. It is agreeable to learn that this industry meets its due reward. In 1910 it has been exceptionally profitable. The chief buyers of Algerian wines are the wine-shippers of Bordeaux and Macon, from whose cellars they emerge as claret and Burgundy. The complete failure of the vintage in Europe has caused a rise of fully fifty per cent in the price of the produce of Algeria. In this happy climate, sure of its winter rain and its summer sun, a failure of the vintage is unknown and almost inconceivable. Viticulture has become the most important of the industries in which Europeans in Algeria are engaged, and its prosperity is of great importance to the Colony. Before the French conquest, the use of wine being forbidden by the Koran, the vine was only grown to a small extent for its fruit; the _raisin sucré_ of Khabylia was especially esteemed as a sweetmeat for dessert. The first colonists made experiments in the production of wine, but with insufficient knowledge and inadequate equipment. Wine-makers are an aristocracy among agriculturists; a high intelligence and inherited traditions count for much. The ravages of the phylloxera in France created the opportunity of Algeria. The wine-growers of the South thrown out of work were ready to emigrate, and the deficit in the mother country’s production offered a great market for the Colony. Since that time the industry has made steady progression. In 1850 2000 acres were under cultivation as vineyards; in 1905 about 450,000 acres. The production of wine, which amounted to 370,000 gallons in 1878, is now over 150,000,000 gallons. The price obtained for wine exported is subject to very wide fluctuations. In 1903 the 100,000,000 gallons exported realized £4,000,000. In 1906 110,000,000 gallons realized only £1,600,000.

Algeria has managed to keep comparatively free from the phylloxera; the provinces of Oran and Constantine, west and east, have suffered somewhat, but the central province, Algiers, has so far escaped. Energetic measures are taken to guard against the extension of the plague, and owners of vines which it is found necessary to destroy are compensated by the State. The policy of the Government is now not to encourage the extension of the vineyards, but to improve the quality of their produce. An effort should be made to find other outlets than the French market, and thus counteract the wide fluctuations in value which arise from its varying demands. Some attempt has already been made to produce rich dessert wines similar to those of Portugal and Madeira, of which there is a considerable consumption in France, and it would appear that there is no obstacle to its success. A delicious Muscat is already made, which might conceivably obtain a great vogue.

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_IV—A GARDEN AND SOME BUILDINGS_

Jardin d’Essai—A lost opportunity—Some suggestions—The villas of
Mustapha—A model museum—Arab art—Its origins—Its limitations—Its
significance.

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“There is an art to which I hold no key,
A tangled maze of curve and line I see;
Do you, my brother, keener-eyed, discern
A silent symbol of infinity?”