Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, Number 371, September 1846

Chapter VI: Letter II (1)

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DEAR MR EDITOR--I should like to offer you some more of my criticisms on the hexameters which have been written in English, and, by your good leave, will try to do so at some future time. But there are probably some of your readers who entertain the prejudices against English hexameters which we often hear from English critics of the last generation. I cannot come to any understanding with these readers about special hexameters, till I have said something of these objections to hexameters in general. One of these objections I tried to dispose of in a former missive; namely, that “we cannot have good hexameters in English, because we have so few spondees.” There are still other erroneous doctrines commonly entertained relative to this matter, which may be thus briefly expressed;--that in hexameters we adopt a difference of long and short syllables, such as does not regulate other forms of English versification; and that the versification itself--the movement of the hexameter--is borrowed from Greek and Latin poetry. Now, in opposition to these opinions, I am prepared to show that our English hexameters suppose no other relations of strong and weak syllables than those which govern our other kinds of verse;--and that the hexameter movement is quite familiar to the native English ear.

The first of these truths, I should have supposed to be, by this time, generally acknowledged among all writers and readers of English verse: if it had not been that I have lately seen, in some of our hexametrists, a reference to a difference of _long_, and _short_, as something which we ought to have, in addition to the differences of strong and weak syllables, in order to make our hexameters perfect. One of these writers has taken the model hexameter--

“In the hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery column;”

and has objected to it that the first syllable of _column_ is _short_. But, my dear sir, it is not shorter than the first syllable of _collar_, or of the Latin _collum_! The fact is, that in hexameters, as in all other English verses, the ear knows nothing of _long_ and _short_ as the foundation of verse. All verse, to an English ear, is governed by the succession of _strong_ and _weak_ syllables. Take a stanza of Moore’s:--

“_When_ in _death_ I shall _calm_ re_cline_,
O _bear_ my _heart_ to my _mis_tress _dear_.
_Tell_ her it _lived_ upon _smiles_ and _wine_,
Of the _bright_est _hue_ while it _ling_er’d _here_.”

I have marked the strong syllables, which stand in the place of long ones, so far as the actual _existence_ of verse is concerned; though no doubt the _smoothness_ of the verse is promoted by having the light syllables short also, that they may glide rapidly away. But this, I say, though favourable to smoothness, is not essential to verse: thus the syllable _death_, though strong, is short; _I_ and _while_, though weak, are long.

Now this alternation, in a certain order, of strong and weak syllables, is the essential condition of all English verse, and of hexameters among the rest. Long and short syllables, to English ears, are superseded in their effect by strong and weak accents; and even when we read Greek and Latin verses, so far as we make the versification perceptible, we do so by putting strong accents on the long syllables. The English ear has no sense of any versification which is not thus constructed.

I had imagined that all this was long settled in the minds of all readers of poetry; and that all notion of syllables in English being long, for purposes of versification, because they contain a long vowel or a diphthong, or a vowel before two consonants, had been obliterated ages ago. I knew, indeed, that the first English hexametrists had tried to conform themselves to the Latin rules of quantity. Thus, as we learn from Spenser, they tried to make the second syllable of _carpenter_ long; and constructed their verses so that they would _scan_ according to Latin rules. Such are Surry’s hexameters; for instance:--

“Unto a caitiff wretch whom long affliction holdeth,
Grant yet, grant yet a look to the last monument of his anguish.”

But this made their task extremely difficult, without bringing any gain which the ear could recognise; and I believe that the earlier attempts to naturalize the hexameter in England failed mainly in consequence of their being executed under these severe conditions, which prevented all facility and flow in the expression, and gave the popular ear no pleasure.

The successful German hexametrists have rejected all regard to the classical rules of quantity of syllables; and have, I conceive, shown us plainly that this is the condition of success in such an undertaking. Take, for instance, the beginning of _Hermann und Dorothea_:--

“Und so sass das trauliche Paar, sich unter den Thorweg
Ueber das wander de Volk mit mancher Bemerkung ergötgend
Endlich aber began der wüedige Hansfrau, und sagte
Sept! dort kommt der Prediger her; es kommt auch der Nachbar.”

The penultimate dactyls in these lines, “_unter dem_ Thorweg,” “Be_merkung er_götgend,” “_Hansfrau und_ sagte,” “_kommt auch der_ Nachbar,” have, in the place of short syllables, syllables which must be long, if any distinction of long and short, depending upon consonants and dipthongs, be recognised; but yet these are good and orderly dactyls, because in each we have a strong syllable followed by two weak ones. If we call such trissyllable feet _dactyls_, and in the same way describe other feet by their corresponding names in Greek and Latin verse, _spondees_, _trochees_, and the like, we shall be able to talk in an intelligible manner about English verse in general, and English hexameters in particular.

And I have now to show, in the second place, that English hexameters are readily accepted by the native ear, without any condition of discipline in Greek and Latin verse. I do not mean to say that hexameters have not a peculiar character among our forms of verse; and I should like to try to explain, on some future occasion, the mode in which the recollection of Homer and Virgil, in Greek and Latin, affects and modifies the pleasure which we receive from hexameter poems in German and English. But I say that, without any such reference, poems written in rigorous hexameters will be recognised by a common reader as easy current verse.

In order to bring out this point clearly, you must allow me, Mr Editor, to make my quotations with _various readings_ of my own, which are requisite to exemplify the forms of verse of which I speak.

I begin by talking of “dactylics,” in spite of the _Antijacobin_. Dactylic measures are very familiar to our ears, and congenial to the genius of our versification. These lines are dactylics:--

But the lines may be also regarded as anapæstics:--

In all these cases, the line begins with a weak syllable; and if the lines are regarded as dactylics, this syllable must be taken as a fragment of foot. When the line begins with a strong syllable, the dactylic character is more decided: as if the lines were,--

Know ye the land of the cypress and myrtle?
Emblems of deeds that are done in their clime?

Now, in such examples, along with the trissyllable feet, dissyllable feet are often mixed, as their metrical equivalents: as

We may observe that there is, in this example, a kind of symmetry shown in preserving the dissyllable feet always in the second place, which is not without its effect on the ear. Some of these feet may be made two or three syllables at pleasure, as _linger’d_ or _lingerèd_. I will add the next stanza as a further example:--

That the verse so constructed is perfectly rhythmical, we know, by the exactness with which it lends itself to music. The musical bars would point out the divisions, or the number at least, of the feet, if we had any doubt upon that subject.

In order that we may the more distinctly perceive the mixture of two kinds of feet in this example, let us reduce it entirely to trissyllable feet, by slight changes in the expression:--

I have arranged this variation so that the incomplete feet at the end of one line and the beginning of the next in each distich, as well as the rest, make up a complete dactyl; and thus, the measure runs on through each two written lines in a long line of seven dactyls and a strong syllable. But it will be easily perceived, that if the feet had been left incomplete at the end of each written line, the pause in the metre would have supplied what was wanting, and would have prevented the verse from being perceived as irregular. Thus these are still true dactylic lines:----

When in my tomb I shall calmly recline
O carry my heart to my conqueror dear;
Tell her it lived upon smiles and on wine
Of brilliant hue, while it lingered here.

I will now arrange the same passage so as to reduce it entirely to dissyllable feet, which alters the character of the versification.

When in death I calm recline,
O bear my heart to her I love;
Say it liv’d on smiles and wine
Of brightest hue, while here above.
Bid her shed no tear of grief
To soil a heart so clear and bright;
But drops of kind remembrance give
To bathe the gem from morn to night.

As the dissyllable feet may be divided either as dactyls or as anapæsts, so the dissyllable feet may be divided either as trochees or as iambuses. Thus we may scan either of these ways--

But in this case, as in that of dissyllable feet, the metre is more decidedly trochaic, because each line, (that is, each distich, as here written,) begins with a strong syllable.

_When_ in | death I | calm re | cline.

The animated trochaic character, when once given by a few lines of this kind, continues in the movement of the verse, even when retarded by initial iambuses; as,

“Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful jollity:
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles;
Such as dwell on Hebe’s _cheek_,
_And_ love to live in dimple sleek,
Sport that wrinkled care de_rides_,
_And_ laughter holding both his sides.”

Here the weak syllables _And_, _And_, do not materially interrupt the trochaic verse. They may be taken as completing the trochee at the end of the preceding line.

In these verses, and in all English verses, there are no spondees, or feet consisting of two strong syllables. No foot in English metre has more than one strong syllable, and the weak syllables are appended to the strong ones, and swept along with them in the current of the metre. The equality between a trissyllable and a consecutive dissyllable foot, which the metre requires, is preserved by adding strength to the short syllable, so as to preserve the balance. Thus, when we say----

_Bear_ my heart to my _mis_tress dear,

There is a strength given to _bear_, and _mis_tress, which makes them metrically balance _carry_ and _conqueror_ in this verse,

_Carry_ my heart to my _conqueror_ dear.

It must be observed, however, that the proportion between heavy and light, or strong and weak, in syllables, is not always the same. When a dissyllable foot occurs in the place of a trissyllable one, in a metre of a generally trissyllabic character, the light syllable may be conceived as standing in the place of two, and is therefore more weighty than the light syllables of the trissyllabic feet. Thus, if we say--

“Tell her it lived upon smiles _and_ wine,”

the _and_ is more weighty than it would be, if we were to say--

“Tell her it lived upon smiles _and on_ wine.”

And if again we say--

“Tell her it liv’d _on_ smiles and on wine,”

the _on_ is more weighty than the same syllable in _upon_. Hence, in these cases, _smiles and_, _lived on_, approach to spondees. But still there is a decided preponderance in the first syllables of each of these feet respectively.

I have hitherto considered dactylics with rhyme; of course the measure may be preserved, though the rhyme be omitted, either at the end of the alternate lines; as

When in my tomb I am calmly lying,
O bear my heart to my mistress dear:
Tell her it liv’d upon smiles and nectar
Of brightest hue, while it lingered here:

Or altogether; as

Bid her not shed one tear of sorrow
To sully a heart so brilliant and bright;
But drops from fond remembrance gather,
And bathe for ever the relic in these.

In the absence of rhyme, each distich is detached, and the number of such distiches, or long lines, may be either odd or even.

I shall now take a shorter dactylic measure; and first, with alternate rhymes.

Tityrus, you laid along,
In the shade of umbrageous beeches,
Practise your pastoral song,
As your muse in your solitude teaches.
We from the land that we love
From all that we value and treasure,
We must as exiles remove:
While, Tityrus, you at your leisure
Make all the woods to resound
Amaryllis’s name at your pleasure.

We see, in this example that the rhyme is a fetter to the construction. In this case, it is necessary to have three distichs which rhyme, in order to close the metre with the sentence.

We detach these distichs, or long lines, from each other, by rejecting the use of rhyme between successive distichs. We might make the two parts of the same long line rhyme thus:--

Tityrus, you in the shadow Of chestnuts stretcht in the meadow,
Practise your pastoral verses In strains which your oat-pipe rehearses.
We, poor exiles, are leaving All our saving and having;
Leaving the land that we treasure: You in the woods at your pleasure
Make them resound, when your will is, The name of the fair Amaryllis.

But these rhymes, even if written in one long line, are really two short lines with a double rhyme; and this measure, besides its difficulty, is destitute of dignity and grace.

If we take the same measure, rejecting rhyme, and keep the dactylics pure, we have such distichs as these:--

Tityrus, you in the shade
Of a mulberry idly reclining,
Practise your pastoral muse
In the strains that your flageolet utters.

But these may be written in long lines, thus:--

Tityrus, you in the shade of a mulberry idly reclining,
Practise your pastoral muse, in the strains that your flageolet utters;
We from the land that we love, from our property sever’d and banish’d,
We go as exiles away; and yet, Tityrus, you at your leisure
Tutor the forests to ring with the name of the fair Amaryllis.

These verses are of a rhythm as familiar and distinct to the English ear as any which our poets use. Now these are _hexameters_ consisting each of five dactyls and a trochee,--the trochee approaching to a spondee, as I have seen; yet still, not being a spondee, but having its first syllable decidedly strong in comparison with the second.

The above hexameters are perfectly regular, both in being purely dactylic, and in having the regular _cæsura_, namely the end of a word at the beginning of the third dactyl, as--

We from the land that we _love_
We go as exiles _away_.

But these hexameters admit of irregularities in the same manner as the common English measures of which we have spoken. We may have dissyllable feet instead of trissyllable in any place in the line; thus in the fourth--

Tityrus, you in the shade of a _chestnut_ idly reclining.

In the third--

Tityrus, you in the _shade of_ mulberries idly reclining.

In the second--

Tityrus, _you in_ shadows of mulberries idly reclining.

In the first--

_Damon_, you in the shade of a mulberry idly reclining.

We may also have a dissyllable for the fifth foot--

Tityrus, you in the shade of a beech at your _ease re_clining.

But this irregularity disturbs the dactylic character of the verse more than the like substitution in any other place. So long as we have a dactyl in the fifth place, the dactylic character remains. Thus, even if we make all the rest dissyllables--

“Damon, you in shades of beech-trees idly reclining.”

But if the fifth foot also be a dissyllable, the measure becomes trochaic.

“Damon, you in shades of beech at ease reclining,
Play your oaten pipe, your rural strains combining.”

Supposing the dactylic character to be retained, we may have dissyllables not in one place only, but in several, as we have seen is the case in the more common English dactylics. Now, the metre thus produced corresponds with the heroic verse hexameters of the Greek and Latin languages; except in this, that the English dissyllable feet are not exactly spondees. The Greek and Latin hexameters admit of dactyls and spondees indiscriminately, except that the fifth foot is regularly a dactyl, and the sixth a spondee or trochee. Also, the regular cæsura of the Greek and Latin hexameters occurs in the beginning of the third foot, as in the English hexameters above given.

I think I have now shown that, without at all deviating from the common forms of English metre, and their customary liberties, we arrive at a metre which represents the classical hexameters, with this difference only, that the spondees are replaced by trochees. And this substitution is a necessary change; it results from the alternation of strong and weak syllables, which is a condition of all English versification.

And thus I have, I conceive, established my second point; that hexameters, exactly representing those of Greek and Latin verse, may grow out of purely English habits of versification.

But at the same time, I allow that classical scholars do read and write English hexameters with a recollection of those which they are familiar with in Greek and Latin; and that they have a disposition to identify the rhythm of the ancient and the modern examples, which leads them to treat English hexameters differently from other forms of English verse. This gives rise to some particularities of English hexameters, of which I may have a few words to say hereafter. In the mean time, I subscribe myself, your obedient

M. L.

FROM SCHILLER.

COLUMBUS

Still steer on, brave heart! Though witlings laugh at thy emprise,
And though the helmsmen drop, weary and nerveless, their hands.
Westward and westward still! There land must emerge from the ocean;
There it lies in its light, clear to the eye of thy mind.
Trust in the power that guides: press on o’er the convex of ocean:
What thou seek’st, were it not, yet it should rise from the waves.
Nature with Genius holds a pact that is fixt and eternal--
All which is promised by _this_, _that_ never fails to perform.

ODYSSEUS

O’er all seas, in his search of home, lay the path of Odysseus,
Scilla he past and her yell, skirted Charybdis’s whirl.
Through the perils of land, through the perils of waves in their fury--
Yea even Hades’ self scap’t not his devious course.
Fortune lays him at last asleep on Ithaca’s margin,
And he awakes, nor knows, grieving, the land that he sought.

M. L.

ALGERIA

[_Algeria and Tunis in 1845._ By CAPTAIN J. C. KENNEDY, 18th Royal Irish. London: 1846.]

[_Algeria in 1845._ By COUNT ST MARIE, formerly in the French Military Service. London: 1846.]

We have always felt a strong interest in the welfare and progress of the French colonies in Africa. Our reasons for the same are manifold, and must be manifest to the readers of Maga; that is to say, to all judicious and reflecting persons conversant with the English language. There is, indeed, much to excite sympathy and admiration in the conduct of our neighbours to their infant settlement in the land of the Moor and the Arab. Their treatment of the natives has been uniformly considerate, their anxiety to avoid bloodshed painfully intense, their military operations have been invariably successful, and in their countless triumphs, modestly recorded in the veracious bulletins of a Bugeaud, they have ever shown themselves generous and magnanimous conquerors. The result of their humane and judicious colonial administration, and of a little occasional wholesome severity on the part of Colonel Pelissier, or some other intrepid officer, is most satisfactory and evident. A hundred thousand men are now sufficient to keep the ill-armed and scattered Arab tribes in a state of perfect tranquillity. Twice or thrice in the year, it is true, they rise up, like ill-bred savages as they are, and fiercely assault the Europeans who have kindly volunteered, to govern their country, and, whenever it may be possible, to civilize themselves. A few unfortunate French detachments, outposts and colonists, are plundered and slaughtered; but then up comes a Lamoricière or a Changarnier, perchance the Duke of Isly himself, or a prince of the blood in person, with thousands of bayonets and sabres; and forthwith the turbulent Bedouins scamper across the desert in tumultuous flight, their dingy bournouses waving in the wind, shouts of fury and exultation upon their lips, and Frenchmen’s heads upon the points of their scimeters. As to Abd-el-Kader, the grand instigator of these unjustifiable outbreaks, he is a troublesome and discontented barbarian, always kicking up a devil of a hubbub, usually appearing where least desired, but, when wanted, never to be found. The gallant and _reverend_ gentleman--for, besides being an emir and a general, he is a marabout or saint of the very first chop--has caused the aforesaid Bugeaud a deal of annoyance; and the marshal has long been desirous of a personal interview, which hitherto has been obstinately declined. Altogether the emir is a vexatious fellow; and it is another strong proof of French kindness and conciliatory spirit, that although he has frequently wandered about in very reduced circumstances, _sans_ army or friends, with a horse and a half, and a brace of barefooted followers, (_vide_ the Paris newspapers of any date for the last dozen years,) the French, instead of laying hold of him and hanging him up, which of course they might easily have done, have preferred to leave him at large. Some say that it would be as unreasonable to expect an enthusiastic fox-hunter to waylay and shoot the animal that affords him sport, as to look for the capture of Abd-el-Kader at the hands of men who find pleasure and profit in the chase, but would derive little of either from its termination. To cut his throat would be to cut their own, and to slay the bird that lays the golden epaulets. It is related, in a book now before us, that M. Bugeaud, when applied to by a colonel for a column of troops to pursue and capture the emir, replied in these terms:--“Do not forget, sir, that to Abd-el-Kader most of your brother officers are indebted for their chances of promotion.” Others have asserted, that if the Arab chief is still a free denizen of the desert, it must be attributed to his own skill, courage, and conduct; to the bravery of his troops, and the fidelity of his adherents; and not to any merciful or prudential scruples of his opponents. We reject this notion as absurd and groundless. We are persuaded that French forbearance is the sole reason that the head of Abd-el-Kader, duly embalmed by the _procédé_ Gannal, does not at this moment grace the sideboard of the victorious Duke of Isly, or frown grimly from the apex of the Luxor obelisk.

Having thus avowed our strong interest in the prosperity of Algeria, we need hardly say that we read every book calculated to throw light upon the progress and prospects of that country. The volumes referred to at foot of the first page, had scarcely issued from the sanctuaries of their respective publishers, when our paper-knife was busy with their contents, and as we cut we eagerly read. We confess to have been disappointed. Captain Kennedy’s narrative is tame, and rather pedantic; its author appears more anxious to display his classical and historical lore, and to indulge in long descriptions of scenery and Arab encampments, than to give us the sort of information we should most have appreciated and relished. As a book of travels, it is respectable, and not unamusing; but from travellers in a country whose state is exceptional, one has a right to expect more. We had hoped for more copious details of the present condition and probable result of French colonization, for more numerous indications of the state of feeling and intercourse between the Arab tribes and their European conquerors. These matters are but slightly touched upon. It is true that Captain Kennedy, in his preface, avows his intention of not entering into political discussions, and of abstaining from theories as to the future condition of the southern coast of the Mediterranean. We can only regret, therefore, that he has _not_ thought proper to be more comprehensive. His opportunities were excellent, his pen is fluent, and he evidently possesses some powers of observation. Received with open arms and cordial hospitality by the numerous officers to whom he had introductions, or with whom he casually became acquainted, he has perhaps felt a natural unwillingness to probe and lay bare the weak points of the French in Africa. Such, at least, is the general impression conveyed to us by his book. He seems hampered by fear of requiting kindness by censure; and, to escape the peril, has abstained from criticism, forgetting the possible construction that may be put upon his silence. There is certainly scope for a work on Algeria of a less superficial character, and such a one we wish he had applied himself to produce. From no one could it better proceed than from a British officer of intelligence and education. We are not disposed, however, because Captain Kennedy has not fulfilled all our expectations, to judge with severity the printed results of his tour. His tone is easy and gentlemanly, and we are far from crying down what we presume to be his first literary attempt.

From the English officer we turn to the French one, whose book is of a much more ambiguous character. Who is this Count St Marie? Whence does he derive his countship and his melodramatic or vaudevilleish name? Does he write in English, or is his book translated? Is he a Frenchman as well as a French officer, a _bonâ fide_ human being, or a publisher’s myth; a flesh and blood author, or a cloak for a compilation? From sundry little discrepancies, we suspect the latter; and that he is indebted for name, title, and rank, to the ingenious benevolence of his editor. Sometimes he talks as if he were a Frenchman; at others, in a manner to make us suppose him English. Whatever his nation, it is strange, if he has been an officer in the French service, that he should request information from a certain mysterious Mr R----, whom he constantly puts forward as an authority, on the subject of promotion in the French army, and respecting French military decorations. The commanders of the Legion of Honour, he tells us, wear the gold cross _en sautoir_, like the cross of St Andrew. Odd enough that Count St Marie should be more conversant with Scottish decorations than with French ones. Talking of Bougia, at page 203, he remarks that “the blindness and imbecility of the French in Africa _is_ (he might have said _are_) more perceptible there than any where else;” and adverts to “the ruined _débarcadère_, the fragments of which seem left only to put French negligence to shame.” We doubt if any Frenchman would have written in this tone, especially in a book intended for publication in England. There are many similar passages in the volume. Yet the gallant count talks of the French consul as “_our_ consul,” and of the French troops as “_our_ columns,” the latter in the very same paragraph in which he sneers at their victories. His style is free from foreign idioms, but here and there occurs a peculiarity seeming to denote a translation. A town is said to be garrisoned by veteran troops, when the meaning evidently is, that the garrison was a detachment of the French corps known as “the Veterans.” Although _cent sous_ is a common term in France to express a five-franc piece, in English we do not talk of a payment of one hundred sous. But it is unnecessary to multiply instances. We have probably said enough to make our readers coincide in our suspicion, that “Algeria in 1845,” by Count St Marie, is neither fish, flesh, nor red herring, but altogether of the composite order. It is, nevertheless, amusing and full of anecdote, with only here and there a blunder or dash of exaggeration; and although, as we believe, a compilation, it is tolerably correct in its statistics and inferences. We must protest, however, against the humbug of the system. A book that has merit may be launched under its true colours, and kept afloat without a titled name upon the title-page.

The motives that induce the French to cling, with a tenacity which an immense annual outlay of treasure and human life has hitherto failed to weaken, to their African conquest, are, we believe, pretty well appreciated, at least in this country, where colonies and colonization are understood, and where French policy is studied by many. Algeria is the safety-valve by which the superfluous steam of the national character is in some measure let off; it affords a _point de mire_ for the people, occupation for the army, a subject of discussion for the newspapers. Doubtless a large section of the French nation, or at least of its more sensible and thinking classes, would gladly witness the abandonment of a colony which has already cost more than there is any probability of its yielding for years to come--more, perhaps, than it ever will yield, either in direct or indirect advantages. But were it proposed to give it up, the general cry would be loudly against the measure. Not that there is a probability of the proposal being made. The present shrewd and wary ruler of France well knows that a little blood-letting is as essential to keep down the feverish temperament of his people as a plaything is to occupy their thoughts and preserve them from mischief. Algeria is at once the leech and the toy. Restless and enterprising spirits there find the field of action they require; those who might otherwise be busy with home politics, have their attention diverted by battles and bulletins. The evils of protracted and unprofitable warfare do not, in this instance, come home to the nation in a very direct and palpable form, and therefore disgust at the resultless strife has not yet replaced the interest and excitement it creates. Now and then a tent or an umbrella is captured and stuck up in the gardens of the Tuileries to be gaped and wondered at by the Parisians. This gives a fillip to popular enthusiasm, and well-fed national guardsmen, as they take their turn of duty at the palace gates, look with increased respect and envy upon the Algerine schako and bronzed visage of their fellow sentry of the line. Captain Kennedy gives an amusing instance of the extent to which the martial ardour of sober French citizens is sometimes carried by that stir of arms and din of battle whose echoes are wafted to their ears from the distant shores of the Mediterranean.

“Among the various costumes and styles of dress seen in the streets of Algiers, none are so ridiculous as that of the European civilian, dressed _à l’Arabe_, some fine specimens of which we saw to-day. One of this genus, a wealthy shopkeeper from the Rue Chaussée d’Antin, had, by his adventures a short time since, created some little amusement. Enthusiastic on the subject of the new colony, his thoughts by day had been for months of Algiers, and his dreams by night of bournoused warriors, fiery steeds, and bloody yataghans. At last, determined to see with his own eyes, he left his beloved Paris, and arrived safely in Algiers.

“His first care was to procure a complete Arab dress, in which he sallied forth the morning after his arrival. He came in search of adventures, and he was soon gratified. Stalking along, he accidentally hustled a couple of French soldiers, was sworn at, thrashed, and rolled in the mud as a ‘Sacré cochon d’Arabe,’ lost his purse from having no pockets in his new garments, and was nearly kicked down stairs by the garçon of his hotel for venturing to enter his own room.

“Undismayed by these misadventures, he set out the following day, armed to the teeth, to ride to Blidah. When, half-way there, he was seized as a suspicious character by two Arab gendarmes, for being armed without having a permit, and pretending not to understand Arabic; he was disarmed and dismounted, his hands tied behind his back, and fastened to his captor’s stirrup. He spent the night on the ground in a wretched hut, with a handful of cuscusoo for supper, and next morning was dragged into Algiers in broad daylight, half dead with fear and fatigue. On being carried before the police he was instantly liberated; and, taking advantage of the first packet, returned to France, having seen more of life in Algeria in a few days, than many who had spent the same number of years in the colony.”

Great must have been the discomfiture of the worthy burgher, although he had much reason to rejoice at having encountered Arab gendarnes and French troopers, instead of Bedouins or Kabyles, who would hardly have let him off with a beating, a night’s imprisonment, and a cuscusoo supper. We can imagine his delight at again finding the asphalte of the Boulevards under his boot-soles, and the respect with which his coffee-house gossips regarded him, as he related, over his post-prandial _demi-tasse_, or in the intervals of his game at dominos, the adventures of his amateur campaign, and the perils that beset the pilgrim to Algeria. A slight traveller’s license would convert the pair of gendarmes into a troop of hostile cavalry, and his brief detention in the hut into a visit to the dungeons of Abd-el-Kader. His friends would look up to him as a military authority, his wife exclaim at the injustice that left his button-hole undecorated; and when next his company of the national guard elected their officers, he would have but to present himself to be instantly chosen. The laurels he had failed to achieve in Africa would be bestowed upon him by acclamation in the guard-room of his _arrondissement_.

In relating the well-known incident that gave rise to hostilities between France and the Dey of Algiers, Count St Marie goes back to the remote cause, which, by his account, was a lady. In the time of Napoleon the Bey of Tunis had a favourite female slave, for whom he ordered, of an Algerine Jew, a costly and magnificent head-dress. The Jew, unable to get it manufactured in the country, wrote to Paris; the head-dress was made, at an expense of twelve thousand francs, and the modest Israelite charged it thirty thousand to the Bey. The latter was too much pleased with the bauble to demur at the price, but, not being in cash, he paid for it in corn. There chanced just then to be a scarcity in France; the Jew sold his grain to the army contractors, and managed so well that he became a creditor of the French government for upwards of a million of francs. Napoleon fell, and the Bourbons declined to pay; but the Jew contrived to interest the Dey of Algiers in his cause, and remonstrances were addressed to the French government. The affair dragged on for years, and at last, in 1829, on the eve of a festival when the diplomatic corps were admitted to pay their respects to the Dey, the latter expostulated with the French consul on the subject of the long delay. The answer was unsatisfactory, and the consequence was the celebrated rap with a fan or fly-flap, which sent its giver into exile, and converted Algeria into a French province. On visiting the Kasbah, or citadel, at Algiers, Captain Kennedy was shown the little room in which the insult was offered to the representative of France. It is now used as a poultry-yard. “Singularly enough,” says the captain, “as we entered, a cock, strutting on the deserted divan, proclaimed his victory over some feebler rival by triumphant crow--an appropriate emblem of the real state of affairs.” But the conquered cock is game; and although sorely punished by his adversary’s spurs, he returns again and again to the charge.

Within the fortress of the Kasbah were comprised the Dey’s palace, harem, and treasury. The buildings are now greatly altered, at least as regards their application. The private residence of the Dey has been converted into officers’ quarters, the harem is occupied by artillerymen, a kiosk has been arranged as an hospital, and a mosque has become a Catholic chapel. The treasury was said to contain an immense sum at the time of its capture by the French; but the exact amount was never known, and various accounts have been given of the probable disposal of the money. Captain Kennedy believes there is little doubt that the sum of forty-three millions of francs, officially acknowledged to have been shipped to France, was employed by the ministers of Charles the Tenth in their vain endeavours to suppress the revolution of 1830. Certain general officers of the invading army have been charged with acts of appropriation; but nothing was ever proved, and the whole rests on rumour and unsupported assertion. However the money was got rid of, there is no doubt that a vast deal was found. The Dey, a careless extravagant old dog, worthy of his piratical ancestors, was any thing but minute in his record of receipts and expenditure. He was not the man to ring his sovereign or mark his bank-notes; he knew as much about double entry as about the Greek mythology or the Waverley novels, and kept his accounts with a shovel and a corn-bin. Wooden partitions divided his treasury into compartments--one for gold, one for silver, and separating foreign and native coin; when money was received, it was thrown in uncounted; when wanted, it was taken out without form or ceremony of writing. “Such also was the carelessness shown,” adds Captain Kennedy, “that, in one part, the walls still bear the impressions of coins cast in at random, before the inner coating of plaster had had time to dry,”--quite a realisation of fairy tale accounts, and popular ideas of Oriental profusion and lavish prodigality. The manner in which these heads of gold and silver were guarded is equally curious, and completes a picture worthy of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. “Prior to the French occupation,” says M. St Marie, “any attempt to penetrate into these caves was impracticable, the approach to them being guarded by lions, tigers and hyenas, chained up at short distances from each other.” Besides these formidable brute body-guards, whose melodious voices must have greatly soothed the slumbers of the fair inmates of the seraglio, the Dey had barracks within the Kasbah for his household troops, on whose fidelity he relied for protection from the soldiery of the regency, frequently in a state of mutiny.

Military hospitals are of course a primary necessity in a country where half a million of soldiers have perished during the last fifteen years, either by disease or the sword. At Algiers there are several establishments of the kind, one of which, situated in the gardens of the Dey, and capable of containing five thousand sick, is particularly worthy of notice. Large as the building is, it is insufficient in summer and autumn to accommodate all who seek admission. The gardens have been left as much as possible uninjured, and their orange-trees and fountains afford cool shade and delightful freshness to the convalescent soldiers. On the other hand, the Jardin Marengo, belonging to Colonel Marengo, the commandant of the citadel of Algiers, contributes its quota to the sick wards. It is cultivated, Count St Marie informs us, by condemned soldiers, who suffer dreadfully from the heat and from exposure to the burning sun. Scarcely a day passes without some of the unfortunate men being conveyed to hospital, and in many instances they never recover. The real name of Colonel Marengo is Capon. His father distinguished himself at the battle of Marengo, and Napoleon jestingly bestowed on him the name retained by his son, instead of the ignoble appellation that he previously bore. Apropos of the hospital--or it might just as well be said, _àpropos de bottes_--the Count, who certainly never loses an opportunity of bringing in a good story, relates one of a M. St Vincent, president of a French learned society, who went to Africa to prosecute researches in natural history. Eager for specimens, he was liberal in his payments; and one day a great curiosity was brought to him in the shape of two rats, each with a long excrescence, like the trunk of an elephant, issuing from the top of the nose. He caught at the prize, and immediately forwarded to the Jardin des Plantes at Paris a scientific description of the _rat trompé_. But his letter had scarcely gone when the excrescence became dry and dropped off; and on examination it was found that incisions had been made above the noses of the animals, and the tails of two other rats inserted The _rat trompé_ dwindled into a _rat trompeur_.

After a short stay in the city of Algiers, and contemplating a return thither, Captain Kennedy and his companion, Viscount Fielding, started for Blidah by diligence. At about half a mile from the Kasbah, the road--an excellent one, constructed by the troops--passes under the walls of Fort l’Empereur, built in commemoration of a victory obtained by the Moors in the year 1541 over the troops of Charles V. Some of the cannon abandoned on this occasion by the Spaniards were originally French, having been taken by the imperial army at the battle of Pavia. The Algerines mounted them on the Kasbah, where they remained until in 1830, after an interval of three hundred and five years, they again fell into the hands of their first possessors. The fort, which owes its existence to a signal triumph of Algerine power, was not destined to survive the downfall of the Crescent. Invested by the French, a few hours’ cannonade dismounted its guns, breached its walls, and ruined its defences. The garrison were compelled to abandon it, and retreat into the city, with the exception of a few desperadoes, who had sworn to perish, but never to fly before the Christians. Whilst the French troops impatiently awaited orders for an assault, a tremendous explosion took place; and when the dust and smoke cleared away, the whole western face of the fort was a heap of ruins. The surrender of the city shortly followed.

Previously to an earthquake that occurred in 1825, the town of Blidah, situated in a fertile valley at the foot of the lesser Atlas, numbered fifteen thousand inhabitants. Many of these perished in the ruins of their dwellings, and the place never recovered itself; for, at the period of the French invasion, the population was only five thousand. Placed in the very heart of the scene of war, the diminution continued, and the native inhabitants are now an insignificant handful. The European population is on the increase, and the situation of the town on the line of communication between the port of Algiers and the country beyond the Atlas, as well as its good climate and abundance of water, seems to mark it out as a place of future importance. In former times it was a favourite residence of the Moors and Arabs, who called it the New Damascus. There has been hard fighting there during the present war, and it has thrice changed masters. It is surrounded by luxuriant gardens and groves of orange-trees, whose fruit is said to be the finest in the world. The plantations formerly extended quite up to the town; but the Arabs took advantage of this to come down and pick off the sentries, and it was found necessary to clear a large number of acres. This impoverished many of the inhabitants, whose wealth consisted in plantations of oranges, lemons, and olives. The town is usually garrisoned by the Zouaves, troops originally raised amongst the natives in imitation of our Sepoys. Soon after the formation of the corps, however, Frenchmen were allowed and encouraged to enlist, and of these the three battalions now principally consist. As fighting men they enjoy the highest possible character, but in quarters they are terrible scamps. Its gallant reputation and picturesque uniform, and the numerous opportunities of distinction afforded to it, cause this corps to be generally preferred by volunteers, and non-commissioned officers often leave the line to serve as privates in the Zouaves.

At Blidah, Captain Kennedy and his friend procured horses, and with their party strengthened by two Prussian officers, they set out for Medeah. West of the river Chiffa they came upon another military road, at which a battalion was then working. Men and officers were encamped in tents, and in huts constructed of boughs. “The men employed on this duty receive seventy-five centimes (about sevenpence) additional pay per diem; and during the winter and spring, as the work is not hard, it is rather preferred by the troops to garrison duty.” The system of providing employment for the soldier, when he is not actually opposed to the enemy, is very generally carried out by the French in their African colony, and also in France when it is possible to be done. Captain Kennedy evidently approves of it. At Medeah, a few minutes’ walk from the gate, are the gardens of the garrison. Each regiment or battalion has its piece of ground, divided into lots for the different companies, and supplying the troops with vegetables. “Here, as at other places I have since visited, the ground in the occupation of the troops was in a high state of culture, and superior both in produce and neatness of arrangement to the gardens of the civilians. * * * In many of our own colonies, and even at home, this system might be followed with beneficial results to our troops; for, putting aside the addition the produce would make to the comforts of the men, any employment or amusement that would tend to keep the soldier out of the canteen or public-house during his leisure hours, and there are many on whom it would have that effect, must be advantageous.”

Medeah is the capital of the province of Tittery, and the head-quarters of a subdivision of the French army, commanded by General Marey, to whom Captain Kennedy had introductions. To these the general did all honour, and sketched out for his guests the plan of an expedition to the Little Sahara. A French traveller, recording his visit to Medeah, has given the following ludicrous and melancholy account of the caravanserais of the town. “On a déjà plusieurs cafés avec l’inévitable billard, et deux hôtels où le travail est divisé, car l’un loge and l’autre nourrit; les chambres n’y sont pas encore tout à-fait meublées, et le charpentier n’a pas encore achevé l’escalier qui y monte. On y a oublié une certaine faience très utile, mais il y a déjà des miroirs.” This description, doubtless as true as it is characteristic, now no longer applies. Things have improved in the last year or two; and at the time of Captain Kennedy’s journey, the Medeah hotels were very tolerable. But he was eager for the desert, and tarried little in the town. Accompanied by an aide-de-camp of General Marey, who had volunteered to do the honours of the colony, and show to the English visitors life amongst the Bedouins, escorted also by a score of light infantry, a party of Spahis or native cavalry, by half a dozen officers of the garrison, several servants, and a vast number of dogs, our travellers struck into the Arab country. The district they were about to traverse being peopled by friendly tribes, this large attendance was less for purposes of protection to the Englishmen than of mischief to the wild-boars, which it was proposed to hunt. After a night passed in an Arab tent, the battue began; and although not very successful, only one boar being killed, the sportsmen deemed themselves well repaid for eight hours’ walk in a broiling sun, by magnificent scenery, and the excitement of the chase.

There is interest, although no very great novelty, in Captain Kennedy’s narrative of his wanderings amongst the _dasheras_ and _douars_ of the Bedouins. The douars are Arab camps, the dasheras villages, or rather collections of huts, built of stone and mud, and roofed with branches of trees. The walls of these miserable habitations are low; the door does duty as sole window; for a fireplace a hole is made in the earthen door; the furniture consists of a few mats, a corn-mill, some pots, and a lamp. These are the dwellings of the agricultural tribes, who live near the mountains. The pastoral tribes roam over the desert; their tents, corn-mills, and mats, packed upon camels; and driving with them flocks and herds of sheep, goats, and cattle. When they halt, the tents are pitched in a circle, the opening towards the east; and at night the animals are driven into the inclosure, for safety from robbers, and to prevent straying. A family of Arabs will frequently wander several days’ march from their usual abiding-place to some French garrison or settlement, there to barter their stock for corn and European produce. They travel by easy journeys, and halt whenever convenient, only taking care to keep out of the way of hostile tribes. “A short time serves to unload the camel, spread the mats, and pitch the tent. A few handfuls of corn, ground in the mill, kneaded into a paste with water, and baked in thin cakes on the fire, with a drink of water, or, if they have it, milk, forms their simple meal.” Such is the abstemious life of these sons of the desert. In the autumn, when the great fair is held at Boghar, the advanced post of the French on the side of the Little Sahara, several thousand people repair thither, bringing hides, cheese, butter, and wool; also dates, skins of beasts, ostrich feathers, and the woollen manufactures of the Arab women, received from the interior of the country. These various products are exchanged for honey, oil, corn, cutlery, and cotton cloths. Arms and ammunition used to be greatly in request, but the French have prohibited that traffic. The imports of European goods are on the increase, and Captain Kennedy considers French trade in the north of Africa in a highly improving state, favoured as it is by numerous roads, made or making, through the Atlas, by the pacification of the country, and submission of the tribes between Blidah and Boghar. How long this submission may last must be considered doubtful. It has been induced neither by love nor fear, but by self-interest. The more prosperous tribes, and those located in the plain, finding Abd-el-Kader unable to protect them, took the only means left to secure themselves from the fierce razzias of the French, and from the ruin that these entailed. So long as they deem it advantageous, they will doubtless be staunch to their compact; but let then see or imagine a probable change in the fortune of the war, and they will be found eager, as some of them have already shown themselves, to rally once more round the standard of the Emir.

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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, Number 371, September 1846Chapter VI: Letter II (1)

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