Chapter IV: Part 4

At the period of its greatness Tlemçen was a large and populous city, containing 100,000 to 150,000 inhabitants. The enceinte constructed by the French encloses a much smaller area than the old walls, of which at least two series can be traced. The present town has about 30,000 inhabitants, for the most part Arab or Jew. It does a considerable trade, especially in olive oil; but it has lost its position as the terminus of the caravan routes from the south, since the construction of the Saharan railways; it is cheaper to unload the caravans at the southern stations, and forward the goods to Oran by rail. Apart from the mosques the streets present little of interest. It is said that the French found the town almost in ruins; to-day it is a shabby fifth-rate French town. The inevitable boulevard has been constructed, and even where the old houses remain they are hidden behind a hideous modern front. The old palace of the bey has unhappily been turned into a barrack. The commercial value of antiquities as an attraction to tourists was not realized in time; it is hardly understood now. Tlemçen occupies an important strategic position, close to the Moroccan frontier, and is garrisoned by French troops. At the Hôtel de France, a somewhat ramshackle but not uncomfortable hostelry, with very obliging hosts, breakfast many officers of the garrison. The variety of uniform is great; not less great the variety of human types:—from the fair, and apparently frail, young exquisite, whose physique suggests rather the counting-house than the Sahara, to the grizzled veteran of many campaigns.

Yet the native inhabitants lend colour and interest to the mean streets. The Arabs of the better class wear a dark blue overcoat and hood, which shows off their proportions to great advantage. The women are very closely veiled, only exhibiting one eye. The children, especially the little girls not yet come to the age of veiling, are cheerful and pretty, their rosy cheeks bearing witness to the cold and bracing qualities of winter at this elevation. The Jewesses affect bright colours; and red is the colour of their mourning. An occasional stranger of fierce aspect and unusual dress attracts your attention, and your guide murmurs “Marocain.”

Some handicrafts survive in Tlemçen. The rubbishy trinkets dear to the Arab woman and the Christian tourist are laboriously turned out by Jews in the street of the goldsmiths. It is something to know that they are not made in Austria. Here and there you will catch a glimpse of an old Moor bending over a carpet loom. A good deal of leatherwork is done, and there is a brisk business in harness and saddlery. Tlemçen is no longer the terminus of the railway which runs to the frontier, but many frontiersmen come here to trade.

It is in vain to look in Tlemçen, as in other towns of Algeria, for the pure-bred Arab. Those who pass by the name are the result of a continual mixture with the indigenous races; they are Berberized Arabs or Arabized Berbers. But in many ways they compare favourably with their compatriots elsewhere. Tlemçen has preserved some of its traditions as a city of learning. Even to-day it contains a large number of educated Mussulmans and a few savants. You may see here, as often you may see in Cairo and the cities of the East, a tradesman seated in his little shop poring over an Arab text. In Algeria generally the standard of education among the natives is very low; only a small fraction of one per cent can read and write. The religion of the Tlemçen Arabs is naturally of a somewhat higher type than that of those who, knowing nothing of the law and the prophets, are content with the observance of fast days and a cult of saints mixed with all sorts of survivals of fetishism. The Arabs of Tlemçen are said to eschew fanaticism, as becomes men of learning, to regard those who are not of their faith less with hate than with pity, as having missed the true way of salvation; an attitude not uncommon in other lands. But their religion is incrusted with intense superstition. They live in constant terror of the influence of evil spirits, the Djinns, to which are attributed almost all human ills. A madman especially is said to be possessed of evil spirits, and he cannot be cured till they are cast out of him. This fear of evil spirits influences every action of their daily lives; it is the chief stimulus to devotion, for the Djinns are kept not away save by prayer and fasting.

To-day the French are masters, but the Arab in his centuries of decadence has grown used to masters. They come, and pass, and he remains. It is the will of God. The French are lenient and just masters; they provide many material advantages,—security of property, means of communication, avenues of trade. God is good. But the Arab is always waiting for something to turn up; he will be sustained in almost fruitless labour on his barren plot in the hope of finding a treasure; he will waste his scant earnings in buying favourable horoscopes from his sorcerer; and if no treasure is unearthed, and no fortune arrives, he will put it all down to some flaw in the incantations. If all fails he has at any rate said his prayers five times a day and is sure of Paradise.

Yet in his heart he is ever looking for the advent of a Messiah, of a _deus ex machinâ_ who shall overthrow the infidel, and restore the Arab to his own again. Let France be involved in difficulties elsewhere and the events of 1870 may repeat themselves. The preaching of a holy war, the announcement that God’s good time has come—such are the conditions to raise a wave of religious fanaticism strong enough to sweep away all considerations of prudence and self-interest. As long as his religion remains a compelling force, this is his danger and Europe’s. In its present state Arab civilization, greatly fallen from its high condition of culture and learning in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, may be compared with that of Europe in the centuries following the destruction of the Roman Empire. The Arab is now in the Dark Ages. The forms of his faith remain all-powerful, but the spirit is dead. A thousand years separate him from the Europe of to-day. Perhaps the best hope lies for him in a revival of his religion on the spiritual side; from which may spring in turn a germ of those ideals of citizenship, toleration and benevolence which are the basis of our civilization; ideals flowing from the teachings of Christianity, but not confined in their influence to the orthodox of any section of Christendom.

A very cursory view of Tlemçen suggests that those enthusiastic writers who have described it as the equal, or almost the equal, of Granada are somewhat extravagant in their praise. It occupies indeed a fine situation, and it looks down from its height of 2500 feet over a rolling country of hill and vale to the sea thirty miles away. But it has none of Granada’s grandeur and it lacks the noble background of the Sierra Nevada. It has no great building like the Alhambra, although its mosques contain magnificent work, which is unsurpassed and perhaps unequalled elsewhere. Excessive praise which raises expectations destined to be disappointed is to be deplored. Tlemçen has enough of beauty and interest to stand on its own merits. In one respect it has an advantage over the Moorish cities of Spain. It is indeed held by an alien race, but its mosques are still for the most part put to the purpose for which they were built, and the worshippers are the present representatives of those who built them.

The Great Mosque, the most notable building within the walls, was not built all at one time, but grew, like a Gothic cathedral, under the hands of different monarchs and dynasties. These dynasties of Tlemçen were continually changing; their outlandish names cumber the guide-books, but they have less interest for us than the vicissitudes of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. The first stone of the mosque was laid in the year 530 (you must add 605 to bring it to the Christian era), as a contemporary inscription obligingly records. The minaret was built by Yar’morasen, the great Berber monarch who raised Tlemçen to its pitch of power in the thirteenth century; and in the fourteenth various auxiliary buildings, including a hospital for the aged and incurable, were added. The interior of the mosque is impressive, with its forest of pillars— there are seventy-two in all—and its dim religious light. The mihrab, the holy of holies, the shrine which looks towards Mecca, is finely decorated with leaves of acanthus and Arabic inscriptions. The large court is charming; it is surrounded by arcades, and two basins of running water provide for the ablutions of the faithful. The material of the whole was originally onyx, and much remains. It is truly a noble building, and it has escaped any serious restoration.

Unhappily the same cannot be said of the neighbouring mosque, known as the Mosque of Aboul Hassan, an eminent lawyer and saint; a combination which seems unusual. On this delightful little building the hand of the restorer has lain heavy. He has seen fit to plaster it with modern tiles, suggestive of the bath-room; and in order to throw more light into the building, which is now used as a museum, has made several openings in the walls. It is poor comfort to find in a distant land that we English have no monopoly of ecclesiastical vulgarity; even our church restorers could hardly have done worse than this. It is not easy to formulate the ethics of restoration; the right course can only result from intelligent and instructed effort,—but this may be said of almost everything. The ignorance and indiscretion of those who add poor modern ornament to a grand old building passes understanding. It happens that this little mosque, charming otherwise within and without, enshrines a masterpiece, its mihrab. The mosque was erected in A.D. 1298, according to an inscription on one of its arches, and presumably the interior decoration is of the same date. The dates of the world’s few masterpieces are important. The decoration of the mihrab is executed in plaster. I am not competent to describe its details; they follow the conventional scheme of leaves and scrolls, but with quite unusual refinement. This mihrab has been highly praised; but no praise can be too high for it. It has been described as the finest example of Mohammedan art in existence; it is very likely that it is. An eye that has enjoyed any training will see at a glance that it is on a par with the greatest decorative works of man; it exhibits all the characteristics of the finest periods, especially the combination of exuberant fancy with dominating restraint. Its exquisite delicacy and its small size give emphasis to its unique distinction. I cannot refrain from quoting a French writer who fitly appreciates its qualities: “Cette décoration est le comble de la richesse et du goût ornamental. Elle réunit en effet les qualités les plus diverses; homogénéité de l’ensemble, variété infinie du détail, netteté et fantaisie, largeur et minutie dans l’exécution. Elle est empreinte d’une sorte d’_atticisme_ oriental, d’une beauté atteinte sans efforts et naturellement. Capter la lumière sans grands reliefs, l’emprisonner dans les réticules d’une ténuité extrême, la forcer de se jouer dans ses méandres idéalement fins, donner à des murailles toutes unies un vêtement de dentelles; un encadrement de rubans historiés qui les aggrandit et les rend pour ainsi dire immatérielles; entraîner le regard et l’éblouir par la complication, le rassurer par l’ordre et la paix, voilà le problème que d’obscurs ouvriers out résolu à la fin du treizième siècle de notre ère.”[5]

Footnote 5:

Ary Renan, “Paysages historiques.”

Another pleasant little mosque, that of Sidi-el-Haloui, lies outside the walls in a squalid native suburb, which is nevertheless a better frame for it than the banal French houses of the town itself. It has a very fine portal and a pleasant court. It commemorates a very extraordinary character, who from being Cadi of Seville became in disguise a confectioner at Tlemçen. He was put to death apparently for spreading seditious doctrines, but his ghost having given some trouble he was canonized.

It is said that Tlemçen was built on the site of a Roman camp called Pomaria. The name happily expresses the abundance of orchards by which it is surrounded. In February only a few almond trees are in blossom, but the ground is beginning to put forth its wild flowers. A diminutive iris is everywhere, and gives a blue tinge to the wayside, as the bluebells to an English copse. In April, when the trees are bursting into leaf and the whole country-side is full of flowers, Tlemçen must be set in a very bower of delight. And it is in the environs that the most interesting, picturesque and romantic of its antiquities are to be found.

Just outside the Fez gate of the city lies a great artificial basin or reservoir, now dry, which is said to have been constructed by a king of the fourteenth century to give his wife the pleasure of witnessing miniature sea-fights. It is related that Barbarossa drowned in it the descendants of the ancient kings whom he found at Tlemçen, and watched their struggles with glee. A short distance further on is an arch, ruthlessly restored, which was part of the wall of circumvallation built around Tlemçen by Abou Yakoub, Sultan of Fez, who besieged it from 1299 to 1307 A.D. A little further on are the extremely picturesque walls of Mansoura, the city which during the siege he built for himself. The story of this siege and of the building of Mansoura is very curious. It is told at length by the Arab chroniclers. Perhaps the following abbreviation of their account will suffice.

And it came to pass in the reign of Othman, King of Tlemçen, that Abou Yakoub, King of Fez, gathered all his host together and went up and besieged Tlemçen seven years. And he built towers against it round about, and a wall so strong that the people said one to another that not even a spirit might pass through from within to without the city. And forasmuch as the city was not yielded unto him, but held out against him for seven years, did Yakoub the King of Fez set up for himself in the camping-place of his host a great palace wherein to dwell; and all about the camp he built a great wall with towers so that he made of it a fenced city, and within he built palaces for his wise men and his mighty men of war, and great houses, and fair gardens wherein were streams of water running continually. And he caused to be set apart also a dwelling-place wherein might be tended they that were sick, for that he was moved to compassion of their sickness; and to the strangers he gave inns to lodge therein. Moreover he built a mighty temple with a tower of exceeding height so that it might be seen in all the land; and he bowed himself therein before his God upon the seventh day. And many merchants of that country did gather themselves together in the town which Yakoub the King had builded, and the kings of far countries sent unto him ambassadors with gifts. And Yakoub called the town which he had builded Mansoura, which being interpreted signifieth “The Victorious.”

And in the fifth year of the siege Othman, King of Tlemçen, was gathered to his fathers, and his son Abou-Zeiyan reigned in his stead. And the people of Tlemçen were in sore distress for that no food could be brought into the city by reason of the wall which Yakoub the King had builded round about it. So when the siege had continued for the space of three years more, the King Abou-Zeiyan and Abou-Hammon, the King’s brother, called unto them the captain to whom was given charge over the stores of food in the city and said unto him, “How long may we feed the people with the food which is left?” And he answered, “For the space of three days.” And there came in unto the King Dâd, the servant of the Queen-Mother. And Dâd said unto the King, “Let not, I pray you, the princesses and the women of your house fall into the hands of our enemies, but rather let them be put to death.” And Abou-Hammon, the King’s brother, answered, “What Dâd hath spoken is good counsel.” But the King said, “Nay, we have yet three days, perchance God will come to our aid. And if it be so that we must deliver up the city, then we will cause the Jews and the Christians to kill the princesses and the women of our house, and we ourselves will sally forth and fall upon the host of our enemies.” And the King wept. But lo, while they yet spake, a man of the host of Yakoub the King lifted his hand against him and smote him so that he died. And Yakoub the King’s brethren and his sons, and his son’s sons strove among themselves who should be king in his stead. And the son of one of his sons, who was called Abou-Thabet, obtained the mastery over them. And Abou-Thabet made peace with Abou-Zeiyan, King of Tlemçen, and led back his host to the country of Fez, whence it came. And Tlemçen had peace thirty-three years.

So runs the tale of the Arab chroniclers, and the walls and towers of Mansoura stand to-day in witness that they lied not. Their entrancing story is full of the elements of Oriental romance:—the fairy city springing into being almost in a night; the fearful proposal of the aged servant that the women should be killed; the long years of the siege reaching their tremendous climax in the assassination of the aggressor at the very moment when the besieged were preparing to sell their lives dearly; the struggle of the dead Sultan’s brothers and sons and grandsons for the succession. Such a struggle is a commonplace of Mohammedan politics; we have seen it in our own day in Afghanistan and Morocco; we may see it in Turkey to-morrow. It may plunge the country where it occurs in civil war, but in a South American republic even a change of party groupings will do that. As a system it can claim some merit in that it tends to place on the throne the strongest or the most astute member of the royal house.

Of the dream city of Mansoura nothing remains but the square of the ramparts enclosing a space of 250 acres, and the great minaret of the mosque. The city itself was destroyed by the Tlemçenites after the departure of the Moroccan army. The walls are about 40 feet high, and the towers 120 feet apart. They are all built of concrete, and though broken in places, are marvellously preserved. Weathered to a delightful tint of rich brown, they contrast admirably with the sombre monotony of the olive trees; and they lend to the pleasant mountain landscape a unique spice of romance.

The minaret, of which the inner portion has fallen while the outer remains standing, is a very noble tower, and the finest architectural work of Moorish times in Algeria; it would be difficult to match it anywhere. It stands about 130 feet high, and is built of hewn stone. Its front was decorated with coloured tiles, of which many are left. Legends have gathered round it. It is said that in his haste Abou Yakoub employed not only Mohammedan but Jewish and Christian masons, and that it is the work of the infidels which has fallen, while that of the faithful survives. It seems to have been also a starting-place for an early experiment in flying. A certain Jew imprisoned therein made himself wings, and setting forth on the occasion of a great service, fell lamentably at a spot called to this day “Le Col du Juif.” Such is the fate of pioneers.

The status of Tlemçen as a holy city, which draws to itself pilgrims not only from the countries of North Africa, but from the very confines of the world of Islam, rests on its connection with the saint Sidi Bou Medine. It has long ceased to be the capital of an African empire; it is no more a university of Mohammedan learning; its very name is almost unknown to the present generation of European men; but in the eyes of the faithful it is ever honoured. It is a little difficult for an unbeliever to comprehend what constitutes peculiar eminence in a Mohammedan saint, and there is nothing in the recorded life of Bou Medine to throw light on the question. It is related that he was born at Seville in A.D. 1126, that he was an ascetic and a mystic, that he travelled through various Mediterranean countries performing miracles, preaching the vanity of earthly things, and emphasizing the beneficence of God and the authority of his prophet. Accused of heresy by the doctors of Tlemçen, he was summoned thither by the reigning monarch from Bougie, then within the boundaries of the Tlemçenian Empire. His failing strength sustained him almost to the city’s gates, when, looking up at the little village of El-Eubbad, with its hanging woods beneath the rugged cliff, and owning at last the charm of the world he had so fiercely disdained, he breathed a wish to be buried in that lovely spot, and expired. And there for seven centuries he has lain, and you may stand beside his tomb, which is decked in the tinsel pomp of Mohammedan finery and surrounded by the offerings of the faithful. It is approached from a little court-yard, in which is an ancient alabaster well-head curiously worn by the chain which draws the bucket.

The mosque which adjoins the tomb was raised shortly after the saint’s death. It is of no great size, but both structurally and decoratively it possesses a charm which is unique. The high portal is a blaze of tiles in the finest style; tiles said to be partly of Moroccan, partly of Spanish, origin; and the doors of cedar wood, covered with bronze, ornamented with a design of arabesque interlacement, are incomparably beautiful. It has been said that they are to Moorish art what the doors of Ghiberti are to Italian; but in their decorative flatness—a quality which becomes doors—they have a distinction which is their own. In the whole realm of Moorish decoration I have seen nothing more charming. The mosque itself does not belie the promise of its entrance. It follows the usual plan, but on a very high level. Its plaster decorations, if somewhat less fine than those of the mihrab of Bel Hassan, are in the best style. The whole building is instinct with the charm of unassailable fitness, and fills the mind with an ineffaceable impress of beauty.

From these heights—mountainous and æsthetic—it will probably be the lot of the traveller to descend by easy stages to the town of Oran, which, as a commercial port, is the rival of Algiers. Unless he desires to do deal in olive oil or esparto grass, or intends to become a shipper of fine clarets and burgundies, it will not detain him long. Yet it is pleasant for an hour or two to sit before one of its brilliant cafés and survey the palpitating life of the streets. Oran is more than half Spanish; it is historically almost wholly Spanish. To-day, if you inquire of a stranger your way in French he will very likely reply by asking if you have the Spanish, and if you have it not you must try again. But the Spaniards, great builders in Europe and beyond the seas, built little but fortifications on the African shore. Oran is frankly modern and European in aspect; the most Oriental-looking building is the railway-station. The French have built fortifications too; a picturesque fort crowns a hill to the west, a thousand feet above the town; and there is much show of strength below. And there is an important garrison. Brilliant groups of officers frequent a café at the corner of the Place d’Armes, and get through a most unconscionable amount of hand-shaking. I notice that one of them, apparently a Siamese, who yet sips his _sirop_ as to the manner born, is the object of much attention. With the mass of the café’s frequenters the soldiers appear to have no acquaintance. These men of business are Frenchmen in manner and speech, but there is a prevalence of that Levantine air which pervades the Mediterranean ports;—not quite Greek, not quite Jew, and yet not wholly European.

If there is one institution more characteristically French than another, it is the Café. And, further, it is an institution which no other people, unless it speaks French, as do the Belgians, can reproduce. France has set the mode to Europe for centuries, but it has reserved the café. The other Latin nations are content with bastard imitations; the northern peoples frankly own their failure. Who can conceive a café in Hull or Aberdeen? Not more incongruous was the attempted battle of flowers in a Lancashire town,—the mayor had visited Monte Carlo,—which ended in the choockin’ o’ loomps o’ coal and the military being called out. It is not a matter of climate; Brighton and Worthing have climatic advantages over Boulogne and Dieppe. It is rather a matter of character. The café depends for its existence on French moderation and French civility, in the widest sense. The German in his beer-garden piles empty glass on empty glass; the Englishman lolls at his reeking bar; only the Frenchman can be trusted to sit at his will at his little marble table, and contemplate his little drinks, and play his little games. He does not exceed, he does not quarrel; if he did either, the café were impossible. So is he a free man, while we for our sins must submit to stringent regulations of police.

Oran’s fine old Spanish fort and the ancient walls still speak of the Spanish dominion. It was a penal station to which convicts were sent, and the governors were in the habit of putting their labour to some useful purpose. An inscription records that the citadel was built at no cost to his Catholic Majesty but for the timber and scaffolding. After repeated struggles the town was surrendered to the Turks in 1791, a very convenient arrangement, as things turned out, for the French, who occupied it forty years later. And they have made it what it is. Yet among the lower orders the Spanish element is perhaps still preponderant. To paraphrase the words of a French writer[6]—"the peasants of Valencia and Murcia have only a few hours of sea to cross, and a bad season at home brings them in hundreds. If they find no work in and around Oran as gardeners they betake themselves to the country, and become field-labourers, or harvesters of esparto grass. Sober and industrious, they are especially fitted to the conditions of cultivation in Algeria, which without irrigation is unproductive. They have in their veins the blood of those Moors who taught Spain to husband her waters. Oran is for them almost their own country, the two sides of the Mediterranean have identical characteristics; and in the smallest villages of the province they find themselves at home among their own people."

Footnote 6:

P. Bourde.

It is interesting to recall in this connection that the increase of emigration from Spain generally is becoming a very serious matter. It reaches the annual average of 200,000 persons, or considerably more than one per cent of the total population. The late Government in 1907 dealt with the matter, and appointed a Conseil Supérieur de l’Emigration, which took the exceedingly futile course of endeavouring to check it by police interference with persons arriving at a port to emigrate, the arrest of emigration agents, and complicated regulations affecting steamship companies, which it has been found impossible to carry out. The chief effect has been to conceal a certain amount of emigration, which doubtless exceeds the official figures. The present radical Government, pledged to reform in every department of the national life, is attempting to check unemployment and emigration by a scheme of extensive public works. Meantime under French institutions, Spaniards are living contentedly and prosperously in a country marked out by nature for their occupation, which they were never able to secure for themselves.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------

_VII—THE CITY OF PRECIPICES_

Road and rail to the eastward—Constantine—Its remarkable site—Its
chequered history—French Conquest—Roman remains—Fronto—The Mairie—
The road northward—The Aurès.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

“A towered citadel a pendant rock.”
_Antony and Cleopatra._

If the traveller intends to journey from Algeria into Tunisia, he will do well to visit Khabylia before he starts further east; if not he may proceed first to Constantine, and motor through the mountain districts from Sétif on his return. For the greater part of the way the great trunk road and the railway from Algiers to Constantine take a similar course; but towards the end they diverge, Constantine being situate north of the main line from Algiers to Tunis, at a distance of twenty miles from the junction of El-Guerrah, while the road passes through the city. Hence it comes that the distance by road is 434 kilometres, by rail 464. There are not many convenient stopping-places, perhaps Sétif is the best.

By train you may make the journey either by night or by day; the latter is preferable, as much of the scenery is beautiful and interesting. Leaving Algiers the line crosses the Metidja, the great plain which encircles the _Sahel_, the rocky promontory on which Algiers stands, stretching on either side of it from sea to sea. At Ménerville it begins to ascend, and shortly enters the Gorge of the Isser. The country here is very picturesque; the river roars through a narrow cleft in the rocks, Khabyle villages are perched on isolated points, and ruddy mountains stand bare against the deep blue sky. Palestro, a little further on, was the scene of a terrible and treacherous massacre in the Khabyle insurrection of 1871. The European residents, numbering over a hundred, were attacked in their residences. After a desperate resistance about half surrendered on terms, but were immediately killed. The remainder held out longer but about forty survivors, including thirty-two women and children, were ultimately captured and kept prisoners till the revolt was crushed.

Further on the line runs under the southern slope of the snowy Djurjura range, which is such a prominent object from Algiers. The view of the mountains is very fine. All the time the line is ascending, as it continues to do as far as Sétif, 200 miles from Algiers, and 3573 feet above the sea. Here we are in the centre of a vast corn-growing district, once the granary of Rome. The country-side is full of Roman remains, of towns and country-houses and farms. At this altitude the climate, if hotter in summer, resembles that of Central France. The landscape is very bare,—a vast sea of corn, without a tree to break its monotony. To the east of Sétif the plain begins to slope downwards; the railway diverges to the south, but the road enters the valley of the Roumel, the river which forms the moat of the rock-girt city of Constantine.

Constantine occupies one of those positions of natural strength which from the earliest times man has seized upon as a habitation secure from the attack of his fellow-man. It is too much to suppose that its beauty had any force in such a selection. Yet it combines picturesqueness and grandeur with strength to a remarkable degree. A circular chasm or ravine, nearly 1000 feet deep, and sometimes not more than 200 feet wide, creates a plateau which is in fact a peninsula of rock, only united to the mainland by an isthmus on the west side. Through the abyss roars the river Roumel. The plateau is not circular, but in the form of an irregular square, with sharp angles,—a formation which greatly increases the majesty of its effect. The length of the sides averages about 1000 yards. In this confined space are crowded together the habitations of men,—the European quarter, the Arab quarter, and the Jewish quarter,—the public buildings incident to an important town, and considerable barracks and fortifications.

“Le fantastique Roumel, fleuve d’une poème qu’on croirait rêvé par Dante, fleuve d’enfer coulant au fond d’un abîme rouge comme si les flammes éternelles l’avaient brûlé. Il fait un île de sa ville, ce fleuve jaloux et surprenant; il l’entoure d’un gouffre terrible et tortueux, aux rocs éclatants et bizarres, aux murailles droites et dentelées.”[7]

Footnote 7:

Guy de Maupassant, “Au Soleil,” 1904.

A great part of the attraction of a city occupying such a site lies in its suggestion of romance. It calls up visions of furious siege and desperate defence, of attempts to scale impossible cliffs, of hand-to-hand encounter at the only gate. And the actual records of Constantine almost surpass the possibilities of romantic imagination. It can lay no claim to that happiness which comes from having no history. Alike from its commanding situation and the richness of its surrounding lands it has been marked out by nature to be an incentive to ambition. It has known many masters. It is said to have stood eighty sieges. Its apparent impregnability has but invited attack. It has been a necessary mainstay to the support of every power which has aspired to the lordship of Barbary. It has seldom been a fitting residence for those who desired a quiet life.

Under its early name of Cirta it was the capital of that dynasty of Numidian kings who fought first for Rome against Carthage, and then for themselves against Rome. It became in due course a Roman colony. In the fourth century it was ruined in the wars which rent the empire, and re-arose as Constantine. Re-naming, with a spice of subservience, was a passion of the time; even so to-day do the Piazza Umberto and Boulevard Carnot obliterate ancient landmarks. The frenzied quarrels of Christians and Christian heretics, which tore Africa to shreds, raged within its walls, but spared its buildings. Genseric the Vandal, and the Byzantine Belisarius were its lords in turn. Then came the Arab. Darkness broods over its history for centuries, broken only by lightning flashes of capture and recapture. The Barbarossa brothers recognized the truth that he who would rule in Algeria must hold Constantine. They and their successors conquered it, and lost it, and conquered it again. Its Beys were nominally subservient to the Deys of Algiers, but Constantine breeds insurrection, and maintained its traditions during the Turkish domination. Even at the beginning of the nineteenth century, during a period of thirty years, twenty Beys succumbed to poison, the bow-string, or the sword.

“Here Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two and went his way.”

At the time of the French invasion its Bey, Hadj-Ahmed, was in insurrection against the Dey, but made common cause against the unbeliever. After the capitulation of Algiers he retired to Constantine and declared himself independent, and took the title of Pasha, with the countenance of the Porte. His minister, Ben-Aissa, a humble Khabyle in origin, and a blacksmith by trade, was a man of marked ability. The two created an army of Khabyles, and breathed defiance to the French. In 1836 Marshal Clauzel advanced against Constantine with 8000 men. Among them was a young captain of the staff, afterwards Marshal Macmahon. Clauzel attempted an assault by the bridge of El Kantara, but was repulsed with great loss, and hardly retreated with his broken army to Bône. France could not brook such a defeat. Another army of 10,000 men was despatched under General Damrémont and arrived before the city on October 6th, 1837. To his summons to surrender came the response, “He who will be master of Constantine must cut the throat of the last of its defenders.” A few days later the General in command and General Perrégaux were killed side by side in the course of siege operations, and General Valée assumed the leadership. On the 13th he took the city by assault. Numbers of the besieged endeavoured to escape by ropes into the ravine, but the ropes breaking they perished. Hadj-Ahmed evaded capture, and for eleven years maintained himself in the Aurès mountains. In 1848 he surrendered, and died two years later. For seventy years an unwonted peace has brooded over the heights of Constantine; but who shall say that the end is yet?

As usual, the French have destroyed most of the remains of the Roman city; the exigencies of space are here a better excuse than exists elsewhere. But the antiquary may still ferret out endless evidences of the ancient town. The ordinary traveller may amuse himself by strolling through the Arab quarter; he may perambulate the gorge by the _Chemin des Touristes_; he may cross the bridge and ascend the opposing height to view in its majesty this unique city of precipices. With a map and moderate intelligence he will need no guide; but he will be pestered by the attentions of guides, responsible and irresponsible. They throng the door of his hotel, they mark his goings-out and his comings-in, and unless he succumbs to paying blackmail to one of the fraternity, they will strive to make his life a burden to him. Yet is there a certain fierce pleasure in denying them. The guide who haunts the hotel door is generally one of the least estimable of men, especially in Oriental countries. If you are weak, he will prey on your weakness; if you are vicious, he will reap his reward in ministering to your vices. He does not shrink from suggestion, and he seems to know no shame. He sometimes, when not guiding, fills a menial office in the hotel; one can hardly suppress a smile at the idea of the epicurean having his pleasures chosen for him by the Boots. To the credit of Algiers it may be said that one is there little troubled by these vermin; but Constantine has something to learn.

The Roman city of Cirta must have presented a marvellously beautiful spectacle. Classical architecture perhaps looks its noblest in buildings which crown a height. The temples of Cirta were of course not individually comparable with those which adorned the Acropolis of Athens, or the line of cliffs at Girgenti; but from a general scenic point of view the effect would be similar and on a greater scale. If the present city, which (like the belfry of Christchurch) has no architectural merits, looks so impressive at a little distance, the ancient city with its marble columns and triumphal arches must have been grand beyond our powers of realization. We know from the ruins at Timgad what a Roman city in Africa was like, and Thamagudi was a provincial town of no great mark, while Cirta was the capital. Its remains are to be seen everywhere, especially by the iron bridge of El Kantara, which replaces the ancient Roman bridge, a very remarkable structure which stood until 1857, when two of its arches fell. It was designed to carry an aqueduct, and a roadway, which was supported on a double series of arches, stood 400 feet above the level of the river. It excited the wonder and admiration of all travellers. Shaw saw it in 1740. He says it was “ indeed a masterpiece of its kind, the gallery and the columns of the arches being adorned with cornices and festoons, ox-heads and garlands. The keystones also of the arches are charged with Caducei and other figures.”

The gorge contains many other Roman remains. Numerous inscriptions, statues and ornaments have been removed, and are collected in a garden near the Place de la Brèche. In this neighbourhood was found a delightful epitaph of one Praecilius, a silversmith, written in very inaccurate and unclassical Latin, which may be thus translated:—

“Here I, silent myself, in verse describe my life. I have filled an honourable career in prosperous times; Praecilius my name, a householder of Cirta and a silversmith by trade; a man of acknowledged probity and unvarying truthfulness. I have been friendly to all men, and whom has my charity failed? Laughter and good cheer I ever enjoyed with my chosen friends. Life was not the same to me after the death of my virtuous wife Valeria; I found my happiness in holy wedlock. I have celebrated in honourable fashion a hundred happy birthdays. But there has come at last the day when I must shuffle off this mortal coil. The inscription you read while yet living I have prepared against my death. Let it be as Fortune wills; never has she deserted me. Follow my example. Here I await you. Come!”

To one illustrious citizen Cirta gave birth, Fronto the orator, friend of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, and tutor of his heir, Marcus Aurelius. Some of the correspondence of the master and his pupil has been preserved. It abounds in intimate and homely touches. The prince went out hunting one morning, and on his return wrote: “I betook myself to my books. I took off my boots and my clothes, and went to bed for two hours. I read two orations of Cato. I think I have caught cold, perhaps because I walked in sandals this morning. So I will pour oil on my head and go to sleep. Farewell, my dearest and sweetest master, whom I love better than Rome itself.” When Marcus Aurelius succeeded to his imperial throne he offered his old tutor the proconsulship of Asia, one of the greatest positions in the Empire, but Fronto, who perhaps preferred to remain in his native Africa, refused the office on the ground of ill-health. Nothing has been discovered at Cirta bearing on Fronto’s connection with the city, but an inscription built into a house at Guelma, the ancient Kalama, records his official appointment as patron of that town.

The Arab quarter, which is gradually being squeezed out of existence, is quite different in character from that of Algiers. Its lanes are equally tortuous and narrow, and even more dirty, but it is more full of life and more actual. In Algiers most of the native shops are in modern, Frenchified streets; here they line the ancient alleys. Merchants sit in the serene Eastern fashion beside their stores of merchandise; artisans ply their little trades in a very confined space. More than half the population appears to be occupied in making shoes. The general confusion is increased by the constant passage of animals, horses, mules, donkeys and camels. It is a little bit of an old world, and being in close contact, yet hopelessly out of touch, with the dominant world of the day, its hours are numbered. The march of improvement, especially when cribbed and confined as by the cliffs of Constantine, brooks no denial. And if we are compelled to hold our noses, we may nevertheless be disposed to shed a tear.

As becomes a city set on a hill, Constantine is more retentive of its ancient customs than a port like Algiers, which is subject to the levelling influences of the sea and its traffic. Here, for example, the Jewesses retain their distinctive dress. They delight in bright colours, and in heavy barbaric jewellery, such as broad bracelets and large circular earrings. They wear a peculiar head-dress, a sort of lace veil with gold or gilt ornaments, surmounted by a pointed cap. The girls affect a very diminutive form of this cap, generally of brilliant red or blue, stuck jauntily on one side of the head. They are very lovely, these Jewish girls, the finest type of their race, with noble features and clear olive complexions. In point of refinement and the carriage which marks good breeding perhaps no race touches such wide extremes as the Jewish; for some reason or other the Constantine Jews are at the top of the tree.

You may sit in a café of the Place de la Brèche and watch the endless pageant of commingled East and West. The military note is predominant; Zouaves and Spahis are everywhere. Behind a series of transport waggons of the Chasseurs d’Afrique a motor-car hoots impatiently. Next a group of little donkeys bearing loads, heads low, and ears wearily flopping. Then carts heavily laden with stone, drawn by five horses,—sometimes a grey team, sometimes a brown,—harnessed in single file, the driver walking by the penultimate horse; a group of neat French children on their way to school; an Arab lady of high degree veiled in the daintiest grey chiffon, riding on a caparisoned mule and holding a lovely child before her; an old Arab seated on a mass of saddle-bags which almost hide his donkey, waggling his feet up and down after the Arab manner, even as civilized man works a salmon-rod; and as you turn to go there comes a troop of men chanting a dull Gregorian measure, and bearing something on a stretcher covered with a green and gold flowered cloth;— an Arab on his way to his last resting-place.

Such is a fraction of the cosmopolitan and parti-coloured crowd. And as you watch you will reflect how much it owes to the fact that the natives, high and low,—you do not see much of the former,—wear a distinctive dress. The Arab’s robe is often shabby and often unclean; but it avoids the meanness and vulgarity of European clothes. The working classes of Northern Europe have discarded their suitable dress of the past;—even the lingering smock-frock, most appropriate and dignified of coverings, has gone,—they habit themselves in the cast-off clothings of the well-to-do, or in badly-made imitations of them. The women suffer in appearance more than the men, but both combine in their personal aspect to contribute to the grim squalor and hideousness of our meaner streets.

It is said that the plateau on which Constantine stands is honeycombed with caves and subterranean passages, and that formerly it was possible to walk round the city underground. Probably these caves were excavated by the river before it had carved out its present bed at a lower level. These great natural storehouses were used in troublous times for the keeping of provisions and munitions of war; and during the French attack of 1837 many of the inhabitants took refuge in them. They are now for the most part bricked up, but a very remarkable grotto lies beneath the Hôtel de Paris, and may be visited from the hotel.

There is a museum at the Mairie. It is, as Mr. Lucas found the Soane Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, very difficult to get into; and it is still more difficult to get out of, especially if you are a sympathetic listener. The good lady whose place is in the porter’s lodge, and who has the key, will, when at leisure, conduct you to a long room containing the usual assortment of battered coins and broken pottery, and one gem, a bronze statuette of Victory, found beneath the Kasbeh. When you are sufficiently depressed by the antiquities, your guide has something in store for you. She will show you—you only, you are given to understand; it is an exception;—the marble staircase and the saloon in which the Mayor receives. And very fine the marble columns and marble panels are, and you will notice how here a butterfly with long tails is faithfully depicted in their rich grain, and there the head of an old Arab to the very life. And if you will have the goodness to look out of window, you will see a house on the hill opposite, and just beyond it on the other side is the quarry from which all these marbles come. And in all Algeria there is no such a Mairie as this. And you may be led to discuss systems of local government, and to mention that you yourself, who speak, take some small share in such matters, if only as a member of an Education Committee, or a County Council, or what-not. And you will perhaps be pained to discover that the very name of your important county town is unknown to your entertainer; a pain to be mitigated later by the reflection that the caretaker of its Town Hall is perhaps not fully informed as to Constantine. And the _pièce de résistance_ comes last. You shall see the _salon_ in which the Mayor conducts the marriages. And very suitable and dignified it is. Has your Mayor so fine a marrying-place? You are constrained to confess that as far as you are aware your Mayor has nothing to do with any marriages but his own. A quick look as at an impostor detected, a shrug of the shoulders, and a sigh for the barbarous condition of foreign countries, and it is over.

Constantine is a busy place. It is naturally a great corn-market. It has long been celebrated for its leather goods. In their manufacture a large number of tanners, saddlers and shoemakers are employed. Here are produced all the elaborate articles of harness affected by Arab cavaliers, often curiously wrought and of high price. And there is a considerable woollen industry. Here are woven the _haïks_ and _burnous_ which form part of Arab dress; and certain finer articles, called _gandouras_, made partly of wool and partly of silk. And the development of the minerals of the province, especially zinc, iron-ore and phosphates, is bringing activity and prosperity to Constantine.

The last conquerors have indeed set their seal upon the ancient city. They have wrought more damage to its beauty in less than a century than the Arabs in a thousand years. They have done their utmost to reduce it to the level of a common French provincial town, and they may boast such partial success as its conditions permitted. We are inured to regarding such proceedings as inevitable. We have let our own towns grow as the speculative builder willed; we have spared nothing except by accident; we should have dealt with Constantine very much as the French have, perhaps more outrageously. The folly and iniquity of it all is dawning on us too late, we are beginning to see that the nineteenth century betrayed its trust; it destroyed wantonly in time of peace what even the stress and exigencies of centuries of war had spared.

The cliffs of Constantine’s great gorge still hold aloft its plateau; if they enclose a city unworthy of their protection, such a condition is perhaps, relatively to their own permanence, merely transitory. They will doubtless see the passing of all that our banal age has set up; it is fortunately not built for lasting. And a more enlightened race of men may yet arise to crown with the towers of a noble city the finest site in the world.

From Constantine the traveller will doubtless turn his face southwards. He will have in front of him the ruins of Roman cities on the northern slope of the Aurès mountains, for which Batna, 122 kilometres from Constantine by road, is a convenient head-quarters; and further on, after passing through a gorge which severs the range, he will enter the true Sahara and, at 116 kilometres from Batna, reach the oasis of Biskra, the much honoured and much sung. The railway takes during part of the journey a somewhat different course from the road, but the distance is about the same, the journey occupying seven or eight hours.

There is nothing very remarkable about the first part of the route. The country is bare and somewhat marshy. Half way to Batna both rail and road pass close to two salt lakes, which are the haunt in winter of flamingoes and wild duck. A little further on a glimpse is caught of the Medrassen, a remarkable monument recalling the “Tombeau de la Chrétienne,” near Algiers. It is interesting to the archæologist, but perhaps hardly repays an ordinary traveller for the trouble of visiting it. Different opinions are held as to its purpose; it was probably the burial-place of the Numidian kings, perhaps of Massinissa, in which case its date would be about 150 B.C.

At Batna the road to Timgad and other ancient cities of the Roman frontier diverges to the eastward. Proceeding northwards we continue to ascend for a few miles, until the watershed is reached, where we enter the valley of the Oued Fedhala, the river which runs southward to Biskra and the desert. East of the road lies the great mass of the Aurès mountains. On their northern side they slope gradually, forming, in the manner of Algerian mountains, great plains, which again, after the lapse of many centuries, have been brought into cultivation. Their southern face rises more or less precipitously from the Sahara, and defines, as has been suggested, the limits of European colonization.