Chapter XIV: Constantine to Algiers Through Kabylia

We left Constantine on May 15, and as the route between that place and Bordj bou Areredj is totally uninteresting, and is described in all the guide books, we took our places in the diligence, spent the 16th at Setif, and arrived at Bordj bou Areredj on May 17.

From this place two routes are practicable to Fort National. The easiest and most direct is by Beni Mansour and the Col de Tirourda; but by far the most picturesque is that by Geläa, Akbou and the Col de Chellata.

Through the courtesy of the Commandant Supérieur we were enabled to hire mules at the very moderate rate of five francs a day; he also supplied us with two tents, furnished us with spahis, and announced our intended arrival all along the road. Tents are quite indispensable if the traveller cares for his own comfort in the slightest degree, as although the Kabyle houses in the territory of the Beni Abbas are clean and well built, those in the circle of Fort National are beyond description filthy and full of vermin.

From Bordj bou Areredj we proceeded to Bordj Medjana, a ride of about two hours through a rich and highly cultivated country. This was the Castellum Medianum of the Romans, and the hereditary residence of the Bach-Agha el-Mokrani, whose family played an important part during three centuries in the affairs of Algeria. Their history is full of great deeds, and their name stands first in the list of feudal chiefs, who ruled the country before the French conquest.

After the disastrous insurrection of 1871,[96] of which El-Mokrani was the principal leader, the Bordj was destroyed, and the whole of his vast property confiscated to the State.

A village, to contain seventy homesteads, is in process of construction. Each concession contains 100 acres of excellent land, in addition to a village and garden lot.

The Bordj, built by the Bach-Agha, under the direction of French engineers, consisted of a bastioned enclosure within which was his residence. This will be repaired, and will constitute a place of refuge for the colonists in case of necessity, and will contain the church, school, and other communal buildings. A beautiful spring issues from some Roman remains below the fort, and forms almost the only water supply of the village.

We pitched our tents close to this spring, and early on May 19 resumed our journey. The road still continued in a north-westerly direction, over rich plains, and eventually amongst picturesque mountain scenery; the valleys are everywhere highly cultivated, and the hills furnish excellent pasturage for sheep. After a ride of two hours and three-quarters we reached Theniet el-Khamis, a small village of stone huts, formerly the property of Mokrani, situated in a pass forming the limit between the Medjana and Kabylia. Immediately afterwards the scenery becomes more wild; Kabyle villages are seen crowning the crests of the hills; the land is more carefully cultivated, and every thread of water carefully employed for irrigational purposes. After a ride of four hours and a half we reached the fort or blockhouse of Boni.

Here we found M. Marchal, the interpreter of Akbou, awaiting us. He had been sent on by M. de Beaumont, the Commandant Supérieur, to arrange for our journey through his command, and we had every reason to congratulate ourselves on the good fortune which procured for us so pleasant and intelligent a companion.

The Bordj of Boni contains a suite of rooms and stabling, for the accommodation of such public functionaries as may have occasion to visit the district. It was built after the last insurrection, and forms a most convenient halting-place for the traveller, who, though he cannot claim admittance, is sure to be hospitably received. There is an excellent spring below the mound, and the views of the Djurdjura range from the summit are very grand.

The Sheikh of Boni had also come to conduct us to Geläa, where he resides. He is quite of the Bou-Dhiaf type—a genial and pleasant host, who feasted us royally.

From this to Geläa is a ride of not more than an hour and a half, through what is, perhaps, the most magnificent mountain scenery in Algeria. The road winds up and down steep hills in a most tortuous manner, sometimes passing over the intervening ridges, and at others encircling their sides. On the right hand is a deep abyss, beyond which is a mass of hills and valleys, clothed to their summits with verdure, resembling a tempestuous sea suddenly arrested and turned into rock. On the left the view is more extensive; the foreground is as wild, while range after range of mountains succeed each other in ever-changing variety of form and colour, till the extreme distance is shut in by the majestic snow-capped ridge of Djurdjura. No other peak can ever depose this from its place as the monarch of Algerian mountains. Chellia and Mahmel, in the Aurès, may be higher, but they rise from more elevated ground, and thus lose much of their grandeur, while for beauty of outline and richness of tints the Djurdjura range, seen from the south, with the Oued es-Sahel at its foot, is superior to them both.

Kaläa—or Geläa, as it is here pronounced, meaning a fortress in Arabic—is one of the most picturesquely situated villages in Kabylia. It is built on the extreme end of a mountain, more than 3,000 feet above the sea, surrounded on three sides by precipitous ravines, through one of which flows a tributary of the Oued Sellam. The cliffs descend in a succession of perpendicular scarps, separated from each other by narrow terraces, so as to be quite inaccessible. The fourth side, where the hill rises behind the village, can only be reached by a narrow winding path, which a few resolute men might defend against an army.

In former times this was a city of refuge for such as wished to escape the justice or vengeance of the Turks, who never succeeded in reducing its inhabitants to their sway.

Its proximity to the _Biban_, or Portes de Fer, itself a strong position, enabled the Beni Abbas to command that pass, and consequently the route between Algiers and Constantine, and they were in a position to exact a tribute from the Turks as the price of keeping open this communication.

The village of Geläa is divided into two portions, each ruled over by a Sheikh independent of the other. The lower portion belongs to the Oulad Aissa, and the upper to the Oulad Hamadoosh. It is the principal place of the Beni Abbas, a once powerful confederation, extending north and south from beyond the Oued es-Sahel to Boni, and east and west from the river of Geläa to the Oued Maghir. The villages in this district are well built, of stone, roofed with tiles, and very often they have small enclosures, or gardens, attached, while the interiors are finished off with great neatness, and even some rude idea of decorative art.

The inhabitants of Geläa have little or no arable land, but they are famous for the manufacture of bernouses. They make a considerable quantity of olive oil, and are renowned merchants, purchasing the carpets and haiks of the south, and selling them at the markets of Constantine and other great towns. Between the two villages are a number of small springs, quite dry in summer, so that for several months in the year the water supply of each village has to be brought from the valley below.

In the upper village is an ancient mosque, with some good wood-carving over the door; in the cemetery attached is buried the celebrated Bach-Agha el-Mokrani. His body was brought here after the battle of Oued Souflat, where he was killed. It is much to be regretted that his tomb should be quite unmarked. The Commandant Supérieur of Aumale, Colonel Trumelet, has had the happy idea of marking the spot where he fell by a stone bearing this inscription:—‘Ici tomba, mortellement frappé par les balles du 4ème de Zouaves, le 5 Mai 1871, le Bach-Agha de la Medjana, El-Hadj Mohammed ben el-Hadj Ahmed el-Mokrani, chef de l’insurrection.’

The connection of the Mokrani family with Geläa dates from the sixteenth century, when one of their ancestors, Ben Abd-er-Rahman, established a little principality here after the expulsion of the Spaniards from Bougie. The last of these princes was murdered by his subjects in A.D. 1600.

Mokrani owned several houses in Geläa, and his brother was at one time Kaid of the Beni Abbas.

There is a large guest-chamber in the upper village belonging to our friend who had entertained us at Boni, but we were only permitted to see it. We were conducted to the house of the other Sheikh—of the Oulad Aissa—and installed there as honoured guests. If the first Sheikh resembled our jovial host at Timegad, this one might be compared to the more refined and imperial-looking Kaid of the Oulad Abdi. He received us with the most perfect grace, and with a cordiality which made us instantly feel at home. The Kabyles are renowned for hospitality, but very few are celebrated for their cuisine. A traveller must have been difficult indeed to please had he not been satisfied with the excellent fare provided by our host. It is not the custom here for the women to appear before strangers, but the ladies of our party visited them in their apartments, and were surprised to find a little girl who had been taught by the Sisters at Bone, and who spoke French with perfect facility. The delight of the poor child at finding ladies to whom she could speak in French would have been ludicrous had it not been so touching. She would hardly allow them out of her sight; she insisted on sharing their bed-room, and kept them awake all night with her chattering, and, to crown all, she stained their hands and nails with henna—an operation which in their ignorance they permitted, and which had the startling effect of producing an indelible stain of a bright orange colour, which adorned them for several months after their return to civilised life.

M. Daly became quite enthusiastic about the decoration of the doors in our host’s house, which he copied with most minute accuracy. The designs were quaint but not inelegant, and the colours harmonious, being only red and black.

One of the most interesting sights of Geläa is the extraordinary method employed for storing grain—in enormous baskets of alpha grass, fourteen or fifteen feet high, and ten feet in diameter at the thickest parts, resembling gigantic bottles with the necks knocked off. These are raised about a foot off the ground, and four or five of them are placed side by side in a room. In these vessels, called _Zaräa_, a reserve supply of corn has been known to keep perfectly good for fifty years. The family of Mokrani were in the habit of keeping their corn in this way on account of the exceptionally good climate of the village, but the stories which have obtained currency of the immense treasures concealed by them here are pure inventions. In troublous times, before the French conquest, such may have been the case, but for many years before the insurrection the treasures of Mokrani had vanished into debts. Somewhat similar grain-baskets, but of a much smaller size, were observed by M. Pricot de Ste. Marie in the island of Djerba; and amongst the Ouerghemma, in the Regency of Tunis, they were in the form of pears, four-and-a-half feet high, and they preserved the grain perfectly, though exposed to the full inclemency of the weather.[97]

There is a direct route from this village to Akbou, but we preferred to make a _détour_ in order to see Ighil Ali, the most considerable village in the Beni Abbas.

We started on the morning of May 21, and after passing through the village we descended a path so steep and difficult as hardly to be practicable for mules. On reaching the bottom of the hill, however, it improves, and soon the high road between Bordj bou Areredj and the Oued es-Sahel is reached. The scenery is still remarkably grand, but less green than before reaching Geläa. The ground is poor, schistose, and only adapted for the cultivation of fig and olive trees, which constitute the principal riches of the country. About halfway is the village of Zeina, the only one we actually passed, though we saw many crowning the heights around.

After about four hours’ riding we reached Ighil Ali; in fact, there are three villages placed so close together as to form but one—Ighil Ali, Tizairt, and Azrou.

The last crowns the hill to the west, while the two others at its foot are separated by an inclined plane, in which is situated the Medressa. It was one of the favourite ideas of Napoleon III. to educate the Arab and Kabyle races in the French language and ideas. Numerous educational establishments were organised with this view, at Algiers, Constantine, Fort National and elsewhere, nearly all of which collapsed with the Empire. Amongst others, a college was established here at which Kabyle youths were taught both Arabic and French. The buildings are still kept in repair, but unused; we occupied them during the day. We remained here instead of putting up at the less comfortable house of the Sheikh; _dhifas_ however were sent in great profusion, and a very cordial reception given to us.

These villages are much better built and more picturesque than most others in Kabylia; many of them have two stories, some even three. The walls are decorated with arches and quaint holes for ventilation, and not a few have arched colonnades. The general appearance of the whole, sloping upwards in a pyramidal form, is not at all unlike many Italian villages. They used to be celebrated for the manufacture of arms, but as that is now a forbidden industry, they have extended their manufacture of bernouses, silver ornaments, etc.; and one of them, Tizairt, is celebrated for its wood-carving. The objects most usually manufactured are maces, not unlike those of Gog and Magog, spoons and trinkets connected by chains cut out of a single piece of wood.

We visited our host, the Sheikh of Tizairt, who has a large and commodious pile of buildings; also the ex-Sheikh, who has built himself a very large house in the French style, and furnished it with chairs and tables, and as many bottles of good things to drink as a _buvette_ at a railway station. He was very anxious that we should recommend him to the authorities, in order that he might be reinstated in his position; but we stopped him at once with the observation that we were guests of Government, as it were, and it would ill become us to interfere with matters which did not concern us. Similar requests were frequently made, but always answered in the same sense.

On the 22nd we set out for Akbou. After leaving Tizairt the road descends rapidly, passing numerous picturesquely-situated Kabyle villages, and enters the Oued es-Sahel, a little below the ruins of Bordj Tazmalt, a fort destroyed during the last insurrection. Here it is proposed to build a village, to which will be attached 6,700 acres of land; each _concessionaire_ will have a village lot, a garden and a patch of olive trees, and two lots of cultivable land, aggregating 80 acres; 1,247 acres are divided into seven farms, and 1,030 are reserved as communal land.

We here entered the great valley called Oued es-Sahel, or _river of the coast_—known to the ancients by the name of Nasava, or Nasabath—which commences near Aumale, and terminates in the Gulf of Bougie. Like most of the rivers of Algeria, it changes its name according to the territory it traverses; thus it is successively called Oued Akbou, Oued Soumam, Oued Beni Mesaoud, Oued el-Kebir, and Oued es-Sahel. Its average width is about forty yards, but in some places it is as much as two hundred.

After traversing the rich plain of the Beni Melekeuch, covered with corn and olive trees, we pass on our right hand the celebrated Mound of Akbou, and soon reach the village itself.

Akbou is the ancient Ausum, and is the country of the well-known Si Mohammed bin Ali Cherif, who rendered great service to France, and was decorated with the Legion of Honour and created Bach-Agha of Chellata. Having unfortunately allowed himself to be drawn into the insurrection of 1871, he was tried and convicted at Constantine, but subsequently received a free pardon from Marshal de MacMahon, President of the Republic, who better than any man living knew the value of his former services.

A new village has been founded here, to which a vain attempt has been made to attach the name of Metz; it is admirably situated on an elevated mound to the north of the high road, with a charming view looking both up and down the valley. About thirty houses of a superior description were finished at the time of our visit, and the land allotted to the colonists appears to be of an unusually good quality. The great drawback is the want of water, which has to be brought in an open channel a distance of seven or eight miles; this is liable to be deranged by storms, and could easily be cut off by an enemy.

Close to it is the old Bordj of Ben Ali Cherif, purchased by the State before the insurrection, and now used as a residence for the officers of the Bureau Arabe. There are two _auberges_ here, one in the village and the other on the high road below it.

On the opposite side of the river is a ridge of steep hills close to its right bank, called Geldaman, the western point of which has been separated from the rest by the river, and now forms an isolated _mamelon_ in the middle of the plain called the _Piton d’Akbou_, which is seen from a great distance on both sides. On a small platform at the west side of this hill, and about 100 feet above its base, is a remarkable Roman mausoleum, still in an excellent state of preservation. It consists of a pyramid surmounting a cubical base, three sides of which are decorated with false windows, whilst the fourth had a door, no longer in its place, but also probably of stone. The pivot was of immense size, the hole to receive it being nearly six inches in diameter. The whole structure is raised on four steps, reduced to three on the east side by the slope of the hill. The interior, which is thirteen feet square, has a wagon vault roof, constructed, like all the rest of the building, of finely-cut stone. Three of the sides interiorly are decorated by double arches, once no doubt supported on columns. On the fourth side, the door being a little larger than the false windows, there is one larger arch, and a smaller one on each side. The windows outwardly occupy the position of the interior columns. Of the superior pyramid five courses still remain in place. Above the door was an inscription in white marble, fragments of which still exist in the corners of the panel made to receive it. The execution of the monument is admirable, but the style is debased.

We did not remain at the village of Akbou, but pushed on a few miles further to Azib esh-Sheikh, the charming residence of my friend and near neighbour at Algiers, Ben Ali Cherif. The house is large and comfortable; of the interior, of course, I can say nothing, but outside there is a row of guest-chambers, clean and spacious; and in the ravine below, on the banks of a considerable stream, is a beautiful garden of flowers and fruit trees, in which is a pavilion shaded from every ray of sun, and furnished in the most luxurious manner. He is the only Arab I ever met in the interior of the colony who took any interest in horticulture, or seemed to care for the cultivation of fruit. He has a European gardener in his service, and there are few gardens, even at Algiers, so beautifully kept, and none so plentifully irrigated. In addition to this, he has been most successful in introducing a better system of cultivation on his estate, and has constructed a European olive oil mill, which is most remunerative.

We spent part of May 22 and 23 at this delightful retreat, and having engaged fresh mules, and obtained spahis acquainted with the country from the Commandant de Beaumont, and recommendations to the Kabyle chiefs on the road, we commenced the ascent of the Djurdjura range, through a rich and highly cultivated country, abounding in fig, olive and ash trees. The two first are the riches of the country, the last (_Fraxinus Australis_) is also of great utility, as its leaves afford excellent food for sheep and goats in summer and autumn when the grass fails.

At two hours’ distance is the village of Chellata, the chief place in the country of Illoula, and the ancestral home of Ben Ali Cherif. There is a large Zaouia here for the education of Kabyle youth—one of the most renowned in North Africa—kept up at his expense; and in the inclosure in front of it are interred the members of his family. To visit such a holy place as this in Tunis or Morocco would be impossible; in Algeria the Mohammedans no longer dare to exclude Christians from their mosques, but it requires very little penetration to see that their presence is most distasteful to them. This we particularly observed at Chellata. Beyond this the place is of no interest, and, like all other villages in the Kabylia of Djurdjura, it is extremely filthy, a marked contrast to the scrupulous cleanliness of those on the other side of the Oued es-Sahel.

We pitched our tents on a grassy slope, well clear of the village and its evil odours, and were on our mules before daybreak on the following morning, hoping to see the sunrise from the summit. It took us an hour to reach the _Col de Chellata_, one of the passes leading from the Oued es-Sahel, across the Djurdjura range, between the peaks of Tili-jouen on the left, and Tizi-bart (5,670 feet) on the right. From the top of the former, which we ascended, there is an unequalled view, in some respects finer than that from Chellia, inasmuch as the foreground possesses greater boldness and variety of outline.

Commencing from the west, there is a splendid view of the whole crest of the Djurdjura range, with its two most conspicuous peaks, Azrou-n-Tehour (5,980 feet) and Tamgout Lalla Khadidja (7,542). These are crowned by _Welis_ or Saints’ tombs, favourite places of pilgrimage with the Kabyles; indeed, the latter is esteemed hardly less venerable than the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, and a pilgrimage to it certainly more meritorious than one to Kerouan. Beyond these, to the north, are the country of the Beni Illilten, Fort National, and the sea in the extreme distance. More than fifty villages can be counted in this direction. On the opposite side of the pass are Babor, Ta-Babor, crowned with their forests of cedar and pinsapo, and the mountains of the Beni Abbas complete the panorama, while the ever-present mamelon of Akbou, surrounded by a great stretch of level ground, thickly covered with olive groves, occupies the foreground to the south. The effects of light and shade at sunrise can never be forgotten. I have travelled through Algeria in every direction, and in most of the Regency of Tunis as well, but I know of nothing so grand as the view from the Col de Chellata and the short ride between Boni and Geläa.

After passing through this defile the road descends rapidly towards the Tifilkouth or river of the Beni Illilten by a steep and difficult road, but one of exquisite beauty. The whole country is cultivated with as much care as a garden. The road is completely overshadowed by magnificent ash trees, while the banks on either hand are covered with ferns, broom, wild roses, and flowers of every colour. A clear cool stream flows at the bottom, overshadowed with magnificent wild cherry trees. We stopped here for breakfast, and it required all my authority as leader of the expedition to force my followers to mount their mules and leave this fairy dell. The road ascends the opposite bank, passes the village of Tifilkouth, and winds through the most delightfully shady lanes and orchards, mounting and descending almost perpendicular precipices, crossing rapid streams, but always passing from one scene of loveliness to another, till after a ride of two hours from the stream where we breakfasted, or five hours from Chellata, we reached the village of Soumar. The only spot sufficiently level to accommodate our tents was the village cemetery, and here we pitched them, and passed a very pleasant night, undisturbed by the shades of those who rested beneath us.

The head man, or _Amin el Oumina_, as usual, entertained us with true Berber hospitality, and would fain have had us to lodge in his own house; but, much as we liked our Kabyle friends, and ready as we always were to see their inner life and manners, we could not brave the hosts of fleas with which they are surrounded.

Soumar is situated in the country of the Beni Teourigh, close under Tirourda, at the head of the long stretch of valleys abutting on that mountain. Leaving this, a ride of fifteen minutes brought us to the high road which is being constructed from Fort National to the Oued es-Sahel by the Col de Tirourda, and close to a house which has been erected by the Engineer Department for its employés. The distance hence to the fort is nineteen miles.

The scenery now changed somewhat—it never ceases to be exceedingly grand—and the view of the Djurdjura range improves as it is seen in full front, instead of foreshortened from one end.

But alas! we are once more within the influence of what we have so successfully avoided during the last two months—high roads and guide-books. The admirably engineered, but bare and shadeless road, with its regular curves and gentle gradients, becomes intolerable after the wild and shady lanes and natural scenery in which we have travelled so long; and it is not without a feeling of relief that we reach Fort National, thence to proceed by the prosaic but convenient diligence to Algiers. We made one last protest against civilisation; instead of passing the night in the _auberge_ at the fort, we pitched our tents on the historic battle-field of Icherridhen, and only arrived at the village next morning in time to catch the diligence.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 96: See Murray’s _Handbook to Algeria_, p. 28.]

[Footnote 97: _Bull. Soc. Géog._ (Paris), viii. 117.]