THE CAPITAL OF THE CORSAIRS
If you are of an imaginative and romantic turn of mind, if you have
thought of Algiers as the Pirate City, the haunt of the Barbary rovers
and the capital of the deys, rather than as a pleasant winter-resort, an
African edition of Nice or Cannes, then you should by all means approach
it for the first time from the sea, preferably at dawn, when the sun
comes up like thunder from behind the purple mountains beyond the bright
blue bay, gilding the spires and minarets and turning to mellowed ivory
the crowded whitewashed buildings which rise, tier on tier, from the
water’s edge to the citadel which crowns the lofty hill on which the city
stands. Seen thus, the Algerine capital is but little changed from those
distant days when the red-bearded sea-rover whom we call Barbarossa came
sailing out of the east to make it the seat of pirate power; when its
harbor sheltered the swift galleys of the corsair fleet; when thousands
of Christian slaves labored in chains within its walls; and when its very
name spelled terror to the seamen of every country in Christendom.
But on coming down from the heights of the Grand Kabylia, as we did, the
approach to Algiers is extremely disappointing, for the road, which is of
rough _pavé_, crossed and recrossed by tracks on which clatter hooting
electric trams, leads through the sordid and unlovely suburb of Mustapha
Inférieur, a noisy industrial district teeming with foundries, factories,
belching chimneys, and monotonous rows of workmen’s dwellings. It is the
difference between approaching New York by sea or entering it through
Harlem.
Viewed from the deck of a steamer some distance out from shore, Algiers
seems to be a great triangle of dazzling white framed in vivid green,
the quays forming the base of the triangle and the _kasbah_ its apex,
with the verdure-clad hill-slopes of the Sahel for a background. For
sheer loveliness its only rival among the seaports of the Nearer East
is Constantinople, which is in a class by itself. But, as in the case
of all Oriental cities, distance lends enchantment, for, as the steamer
draws nearer, what had appeared from a distance to be wholly picturesque
becomes in part prosaic, the modern French town, built on the level
ground beside the sea-shore, masking to a considerable extent the ancient
city of the deys, which climbs the steep hill behind the European quarter
to the _kasbah_, or citadel, four hundred feet above the waters of the
harbor.
Upon disembarking one has the uneasy feeling that somehow he has made
a mistake, that he is not in Africa after all, for the streets and
buildings which confront him are all aggressively modern, without a
trace of that colorful Orientalism which the posters and pamphlets
of the tourist companies had led him to expect. On the quays are the
landing-stages, the custom-house, and the railway station, while, lined
up outside, are taxicabs, private motor-cars, and luxurious motor-buses
belonging to the various hotels. We are in Africa, at the gateway to the
Magic East, yet a camel would be as much out of the picture here as
at the Grand Central Terminal in New York. Forty feet above the quays,
supported by a series of massive arches of masonry and reached by means
of ramps, is the imposing Boulevard de la République, bordered on the
landward side by rows of arcaded office-buildings and on the seaward side
by a fine promenade, which forms a great balcony as it were, nearly three
quarters of a mile in length, overhanging the Mediterranean.
A block or so back from the sea-front are the principal business streets
of the city—broad, tree-shaded thoroughfares, crowded with tram-cars,
motors, and carriages and lined with department-stores which are
branches of the great establishments in Paris, specialty shops of every
description, steamship agencies, consulates, news-stands (Sunday’s Paris
newspapers are sold on Monday afternoon in Algiers), restaurants, cafés,
and cinemas advertising the latest films of Douglas Fairbanks, William
S. Hart, and Charlie Chaplin. Barring the red tarbooshes of the Arabs,
almost the only Oriental note is provided by the post-office, a new and
imposing structure in neo-Moorish style, for throughout Africa the French
have had the good taste to use a modified native style in the erection of
public buildings instead of reproducing the monotonous ugliness of the
Second Empire.
[Illustration: ALGIERS, THE CAPITAL OF THE CORSAIRS
In the harbor behind the Penon, where fishing-craft and merchant vessels
now swing at their anchors, the pirate galleys lay
The Kasbah, at the top of the town, has not greatly changed since it was
the palace of Barbarossa and resounded to the groans of Christian slaves]
But behind the screen formed by the modern buildings of the French city,
where the hillside begins its steep ascent, lies the picturesque Arab
quarter, a labyrinth of narrow, tortuous lanes, alleys, and culs-de-sac,
turning and twisting like so many snakes. These thoroughfares are made to
appear even narrower than they are by the peculiar architecture of the
houses, whose second floors, supported on cedar poles, extend over the
street until they almost touch, the space between being so narrow that
it would seem as though a householder, by leaning from his second-story
window, could shake hands with his opposite neighbor. A visit to the
_quartier arabe_ leaves one breathless—breathless because you hold your
breath in order to avoid inhaling the stenches which rise to heaven;
breathless because all the streets are in effect staircases, the longest,
the Rue de la Kasbah, which leads from the harbor to the citadel, having
497 uneven stone steps. I know, because I counted them. The streets being
so steep and narrow, there are, of course, no carts, carriages, cars, nor
camels; all burdens are transported by porters or donkeys, and he who
desires to explore the native town must walk, or rather, climb, which is
good for the figure but hard on the lungs. Up and down these narrow ways
moves an endless procession of colorful and interesting figures—Arabs in
turbans and tarbooshes, brawny, big-muscled stevedores with bare legs and
arms, spahis in crimson cloaks, gabardined Jews with patriarchal beards,
shifty-eyed Levantines, French soldiers, caps cocked rakishly and about
their middles broad red sashes, priests of the missionary orders in white
cassocks and shovel-hats, veiled Moslem women, slipping along between the
high walls like sheeted ghosts, and swarms of dirty, noisy, half-naked
youngsters who thrive amid the filth of the gutters and importune the
visitor for “_Un sou, m’sieu.... Donnez-moi un sou!_” It is not so easy
for a stranger to lose his way in this maze of narrow streets as one
might suppose, for he has only to keep ascending and he will eventually
reach the _kasbah_, the old Turkish fortress which commands the town,
while, descending, he will sooner or later find himself in the European
quarter and civilization again.
The houses, built of stone and whitewashed and re-whitewashed
continually, are square, flat-topped buildings, windowless save for
a few narrow slits protected by iron bars or gratings. Occasionally a
fine gateway breaks the surface of the walls, and, should the door be
ajar, one may catch a fleeting glimpse of a marble-paved and colonnaded
patio filled with sunlight, flowers, and palms. Thus encloistered,
the Arab women spend their eventless days, the monotony of existence
broken only by occasional shopping expeditions or the weekly visit to
the cemetery. What takes place behind those mysterious green doors is a
popular subject for speculation, but I imagine that the life within is
not greatly different from that of Occidental households. Now and then
one hears strange tales of European women, wandering alone through the
dim and narrow streets, who have been seized and dragged within, to be
heard from never more. Most of these stories are pure inventions, told by
a dragoman or guide to whet the curiosity of the tourist; but that does
not mean that it is wholly safe for foreign women to visit the native
quarter unaccompanied, particularly toward nightfall, for the streets are
none too well policed, and, even should a European woman disappear, it is
extremely doubtful whether the French authorities would dare to institute
a house-to-house search for her, for an Arab’s harem is sacred, and to
invade it for any reason whatsoever might well entail consequences of the
gravest character.
But the Oriental life is slowly dying out; the quaint charm of the East
is giving way to the hurly-burly of Western civilization. The tide of
modernization is gradually but inexorably engulfing the hill on which
what is left of the old pirate city stands. The ancient walls are gone,
the gates also; most of the old minarets have disappeared. The palace of
the deys has become barracks for French soldiers, and the last time I
was there the newly washed uniforms of the troops were flapping on a line
within sight of the pavilion where the last of the corsair rulers slapped
the face of a French consul with his fan. Of the numerous mosques, none
of which may be entered by non-Moslems, perhaps the most picturesque is
that of Sidi Abd er Rahman, whose venerated tomb is within its precincts.
Facing on the Rue de la Marine is the Great Mosque, the Djamaa el Kebir,
distinguished by its magnificent colonnade. It is said to be the oldest
in Algiers, an inscription on the pulpit showing that it existed in 1018.
In the Place du Gouvernement is the new Mosque, which was built in 1660
in the form of a Greek cross according to designs drawn by a European
architect who had been captured by the corsairs and enslaved.
Though the almost total absence of any really fine examples of native
art and architecture is due in part to centuries of warfare and the
destruction caused by successive bombardments, it should be remembered
that, even during the great days of Islam, Algiers was never, culturally
speaking, of much importance. Such love of beauty as the Algerines
possessed was fully satisfied by a beautiful woman; the building of a
galley was far more important to them than the building of a mosque; the
Christian captives who received the most consideration were not artists
and architects but gunsmiths, ship-carpenters, and stone-masons; they
carved their history with the sword rather than with the chisel.
Unlike most cities of Barbary, Algiers is lacking in historic background.
In Roman times, it is true, there stood on what is now the city’s
waterfront a small town called Icosium, but it was presumably a place of
little consequence, for it is seldom mentioned in history. The present
city was founded by the Arabs about the middle of the tenth century, but
it remained comparatively unimportant until the expulsion of the Moors
from Spain in 1492, when large numbers of them settled here and adopted
the profession of piracy with the double motive of profit and revenge.
From that period dates Algiers’s importance as the chief stronghold of
the Barbary pirates. Thenceforward, for nearly three hundred and fifty
years, its harbor afforded shelter to the corsair fleets that terrorized
both shores of the Mediterranean, ravaged the Atlantic coast of Spain,
sacked Baltimore in Ireland, and even carried their depredations as far
westward as the Canaries and as far northward as Iceland.
The amazing rise to power of the Algerine pirates may be said to have
commenced with the struggle for the possession of the Penon, a small
island, connected with the mainland by a mole, which provided a place
of refuge for the corsair fleet and to-day forms the inner harbor of
the great modern port. After their occupation of Oran and other towns
on the coast of Africa, the Spaniards seized and fortified this island
and held it for nearly twenty years, its position athwart the entrance
to the roadstead enabling them to hamper, if not actually to control,
the movements of the Algerine fleets. But in 1516 the emir of Algiers,
Selim bin Teumi, growing weary of Spanish interference with the pleasant
and profitable game of piracy, sought the aid of the celebrated Turkish
sea-rovers, Arouj and Khair-ed-Din, better known as the Barbarossa
brothers. They accepted the invitation promptly, and it was a sad day for
Selim bin Teumi when they did, for scarcely had Arouj set foot in Algiers
before he caused the emir to be assassinated and himself took possession
of the city. After the death of Arouj in an obscure fight near Oujda,
his brother Khair-ed-Din took up the reins of power at Algiers, and, in
order to bolster up his position, offered the city to Selim I, sultan
of Turkey, who accepted the offer and named Khair-ed-Din his viceroy,
or capitan-pasha. Thus began the Turkish domination of Algeria, which
lasted for upward of three hundred years and brought worries and woes
innumerable to Europe.
Now that he had the might of the Ottoman Empire behind him, Khair-ed-Din
turned his attention to the Spanish garrison on the Penon. Bringing up
heavy artillery, he subjected the fortress to fifteen days of intensive
bombardment, and, when all save a handful of the garrison had been
killed, carried it by storm. The Spanish commander Martin Vagas, taken
prisoner, was offered his choice between death or conversion to Islam.
Being a stout son of the church as well as a gallant soldier, he chose
the former, whereupon he was sentenced to die by flogging, and his dead
body was dragged through the streets, cut into pieces, and thrown into
the sea.
With the double-barreled idea of preventing any repetition of the Spanish
occupation and of providing a securer harbor for his fleet, Khair-ed-Din
conceived the idea of connecting the Penon with the city by means of
a huge mole. For those days it was a herculean undertaking, but an
ample supply of forced labor was at hand in the corsairs’ Christian
captives, thirty thousand of whom were employed at the task, while an
inexhaustible mine of building-materials was provided by the ruins of
the old Roman city of Rusgania. The work was completed in three years,
and thenceforward for more than three centuries the corsair fleets found
refuge within, safe from the storms of the Mediterranean and the attacks
of the enemies; for Khair-ed-Din mounted heavy batteries on the Penon and
in 1544 erected a lofty lighthouse to guide his home-bound rovers. The
present great harbor, covering 222 acres, was commenced by the French in
1836—the first time blocks of concrete were used in such an operation.
From about 1518 until 1587, Algiers was the capital of the beylerbeys,
the Turkish viceroys of North Africa, whose rule extended over
Tripolitania, Tunisia, and Algeria. From 1587 until 1659 the Barbary
states were governed by Turkish pashas, sent from Constantinople for
terms of three years; but in 1659 a military revolt in Algiers put an
end to this system of government, reduced the pashas to nonentities,
and greatly weakened the Turkish power in Africa. From 1659 onward the
Barbary states, though still nominally parts of the Ottoman Empire,
were in fact anarchical pirate republics which chose their own rulers,
supported themselves by plunder, and made their own treaties—which they
rarely observed.
During the first of these three periods, as David Hannay has pointed out,
the beylerbeys were admirals of the sultan commanding great fleets and
conducting serious naval operations for political ends, for at that time,
it should be remembered, under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent,
the Ottoman Empire was at the zenith of its power and glory, Turkish
rule extending from Germany to Zanzibar, from Persia to the borders
of Morocco. The beylerbeys were slave-hunters, and their methods were
ferocious, but the reader should be reminded that their Christian enemies
were neither more chivalrous nor more humane. Plunder, however, was the
sole object of the pashas who succeeded them after 1587—plunder of all
who went upon the sea and of the native tribes on land. The maritime
side of this wholesale and systematic brigandage was conducted by the
captains, or _reises_, who formed a sort of guild, a veritable pirates’
union. Cruisers were fitted out by capitalists, just as privateers were
fitted out by private parties, both in the North and the South, during
the Civil War, each being commanded by a _reis_. Most of the ships were
built at Bougie, the timber being obtained from the forests of the
adjacent hinterland. Ten per cent of the value of the prizes was paid
to the Turkish ruler—variously known as pasha, agha, bey, or dey—of the
Barbary state from which they came.
Until the seventeenth century the corsairs used galleys, long
single-decked vessels propelled by fifty or more oars, the rowers being
prisoners of war who were chained to the sweeps, sometimes even when
their vessel was in harbor. The Algerines were eventually taught the
superiority of sailing-ships, however, by a Flemish renegade named Simon
Danser, and among them for a time was an English gentleman adventurer of
the distinguished Buckinghamshire family of Verney—the original, perhaps,
of Rafael Sabatini’s “Sea Hawk.” Though the fleets put into commission
at Algiers were so much the most formidable that the name of Algerine
became a synonym for Barbary pirate; the same lucrative trade was
carried on, though on a smaller scale, from Tripoli and Tunis, as well
as from various Moroccan seaports, the most notorious being Salé, which
gave its name to the Sallee rovers. The introduction of sailing-vessels
enabled the pirates greatly to extend the theater of their operations.
The galleys, being unfit for the high seas, were confined to the
Mediterranean coasts, but the sailing-ships passed through the Straits
of Gibraltar and ranged far into the Atlantic, burning seaports in the
Canaries, harrying the western seaboard of Spain; and in 1631 two private
crews under the command of Murad Reis, a native of Flanders, landed at
Baltimore in Ireland and carried off its inhabitants, who were sold into
slavery in Algiers.
The first half of the seventeenth century was the heyday of the Barbary
pirates. More than twenty thousand captives were said to be imprisoned
in Algiers alone. Those possessed of property could redeem themselves,
but the poor were sold at auction like cattle, though occasionally
their masters would give them their freedom upon their professing
Mohammedanism. But thousands died from fever, from exhaustion, or under
the lash. The women were less fortunate: they were taken into the harems
and became concubines of their masters. A long list might be compiled of
persons—not only Italians, French, and Spaniards, but English, Dutch, and
German travelers in the South—who were captives for a time in Barbary.
Don Miguel de Cervantes, the author of “Don Quixote,” and his brother
Rodrigo were captured by Barbary corsairs in 1575 off Marseilles and
taken as prisoners to Algiers. As the letters found upon the former were
taken to prove that he was a man of importance and in a position to
pay a high ransom, he was put under special surveillance. Their father
made every effort to effect their release, but the money which he sent
to Algiers by two priests of the Order of Mercy was sufficient only
to ransom Rodrigo. Miguel and his companions in misery made several
daring efforts to escape, which were, however, invariably discovered or
betrayed, whereupon he always chivalrously took the blame upon himself,
being sentenced on one of these occasions to two thousand strokes of the
lash; but the Turkish viceroy remitted the sentence, which was tantamount
to death, and thereby rendered an inestimable service to literature. In
1580, just as Cervantes was being sent to Constantinople, two Trinitarian
monks arrived in Algiers and effected his release by paying a ransom
of two hundred gold ducats—equivalent to about a thousand dollars—not a
high price, it would seem, for one of the greatest writers of all time.
Speaking of authors, it will be recalled that Defoe’s immortal hero,
Robinson Crusoe, before setting out on his voyage to the South Seas, was
captured by a Sallee rover and worked as a slave in Barbary—an incident
which was probably founded on one of the adventures of Alexander Selkirk.
[Illustration: VEILED WOMEN SLIP LIKE SHEETED GHOSTS
Through the dim and narrow streets, flanked by high, blank walls, of the
corsair capital]
When a prize was brought into Algiers the captives were required to
declare their quality and condition, and a flagging memory was revived
by a taste of the bastinado. The dey selected one prisoner in ten for
himself, his preference being generally for skilled workmen and, of
course, for young and beautiful women. The others were sold by public
auction in the slave-market for the benefit of the owners of the galleys
and their crews. Incredible as it may seem, the European powers tacitly
accepted this piracy and slave-hunting by maintaining consuls at Algiers,
through whose agency those of the captives whose friends could find the
ransoms demanded were, after much delay, released, though it is said that
they had to pay for the water they drank at the public fountains during
their incarceration. Perhaps the most successful agency for the release
of Christian captives, however, was the religious order of Trinitarians,
or Redemptionists, as they are now called, who collected vast sums of
money for the purpose, and, when other means failed, offered themselves
in exchange for Christian captives.
Though for three hundred years and more the most powerful states of
Europe paid tribute to the corsairs and tolerated their insults, they
had only themselves to blame, for the continuance of African piracy was
wholly due to European jealousies. France openly encouraged them during
her long, fierce rivalry with Spain; and when she had no further need
of them they were supported against her by England and Holland. Indeed,
British statesmen of the eighteenth century saw no shame in asserting
that Barbary piracy was deserving of British encouragement because it
served to check the competition of Britain’s Mediterranean rivals in
the carrying trade. (Which serves to remind us that even to-day British
public men are supporting the opium trade with China for equally sordid
reasons.) Yet, in view of the weakness of their fleets as compared
with those of the European powers, it remains a matter for profound
astonishment that the corsairs succeeded in playing their great game
of bluff so long. When William Eaton, the American consul at Tunis,
who himself in later years smashed the power of the Tripolitan pirates
by his amazing desert march on Derna,[5] was sent in 1799 to negotiate
a treaty with the dey of Algiers, he wrote, “Can any man believe that
this elevated brute has seven kings of Europe, two Republics, and a
Continent tributary to him, when his whole naval force is not equal to
two line-of-battle ships?”
But, though the various powers were ready enough to tolerate piracy when
it affected their rivals, their complaisance quickly disappeared when
it affected themselves. In 1655, as a result of repeated attacks on
British shipping, Admiral Robert Blake was ordered to teach the corsairs
respect for the British flag, which he did by administering a sound
thrashing to the Tunisians. During the reign of Charles II a long series
of expeditions against the pirates was undertaken by the British fleet,
sometimes single-handed, sometimes in coöperation with the Dutch. In
1682 and again in 1683 the French fleet bombarded Algiers, and on the
second occasion the Algerines repaid the little pleasantry by blowing
the French consul from the mouth of a gun. In 1804 the United States
took a hand in the game by sending a squadron under Commodore Preble
to the Mediterranean. During a naval demonstration against Tripoli the
frigate _Philadelphia_ went aground in the harbor and was captured by
the corsairs, but was burned a few days later, under the very guns of
the city, by a daring expedition led by gallant young Stephen Decatur,
who subsequently commanded with marked success all the American naval
operations against the cities of the Pirate Coast.
When the dove of peace settled upon European soil after Waterloo, it was
generally agreed that the time had arrived to bring the activities of
the corsairs to an end. Accordingly, at the Congress of Vienna, Great
Britain was delegated by the other powers to clean up the Barbary Coast,
and in 1816 Lord Exmouth was ordered to exact promises of good behavior
from the bey of Tunis and the dey of Algiers at the mouths of his guns.
The negotiations proceeded amicably enough, but scarcely had they been
concluded before a number of British subjects were attacked and brutally
ill-treated by the pirates of Bône, whereupon the British government
sent Exmouth back to exact reparation, and, acting in conjunction with a
Dutch squadron under Admiral Van de Capellen, he administered a smashing
bombardment to Algiers.
This recalls the romantic attempt at escape of Ida M’Donnell, the
sixteen-year-old daughter of Admiral Ulric, consul-general of Denmark,
and wife of the British consul at Algiers. When the bombardment was about
to begin, M’Donnell was loaded with chains by order of the bey and
thrown into a dungeon. Mrs. M’Donnell, cutting off her hair, attempted to
reach the British fleet disguised as a midshipman, carrying on her arm a
basket of vegetables in which her baby was hidden. She was detected and
detained, but the child was sent out to the flag-ship under a flag of
truce with the dey’s compliments.
Though the salutary lesson taught them by Lord Exmouth’s guns terrified
the pirates both of Algiers and of Tunis into surrendering upward of
three thousand captives, they were not reformed nor were they capable of
reformation. The leopard cannot change its spots. Ere many months had
passed the Algerines were again at their work of plundering, burning, and
slave-hunting, though on a smaller scale; and in 1824 another British
squadron under Sir Harry Neal had again to bombard Algiers, but the great
pirate city was not thoroughly tamed until its occupation by the French
in 1830.
Through one of those curious anomalies with which the musty pages of
history are enlivened, the result which the European powers in concert
had been unable to accomplish in spite of three hundred years of outrage
and insult was brought about by the stroke of a fan. The incident which
was destined to have such important consequences for North Africa and
for civilization arose—as modern international incidents have frequently
arisen—from a financial controversy. During the period of the Directory
two Algerine Jews, Bacri and Burnach, had supplied the French government
with large quantities of grain, but their claims were repudiated by
the succeeding governments of Bonaparte and the Bourbons. The question
of the debt would not in itself have been sufficient to produce a
rupture, but the dey, Hussein—to whom the Jews had probably promised
a substantial rake-off—pressed the claim as his own. Exasperated by
the numerous delays, he sent for the French consul, M. Deval, whom he
received at the _kasbah_ in a sort of pavilion. The interview, which was
exceedingly acrimonious, was abruptly terminated when, giving rein to
his passion, the pirate chieftain struck the French envoy in the face
with his fly-flap. France’s retaliation for this affront was more prompt
than vigorous; it took the form of an ineffectual blockade of the port
of Algiers by a squadron of war-ships. Though this action inconvenienced
it did not particularly worry the dey, who showed his contempt by firing
on _La Provence_, a vessel which entered the harbor of Algiers under a
flag of truce in August, 1829. This ended the patience of the French
government, which determined to terminate the intolerable situation by a
punitive expedition, the minister of war, Marshal de Bourmont, himself
taking the command. On June 14, 1830, the red-trousered battalions
disembarked under cover of the war-ships at Sidi-Ferruch. Five days later
they smashed the enemy at Staoueli. On July 4 the Fort de l’Empereur
was blown up. On the following day Algiers capitulated, and the pirate
standard which had flaunted so long above the _kasbah_ was replaced by
the tricolor. After terrorizing the Mediterranean and defying Christendom
since the Middle Ages, the Barbary pirates had come to the end of the
road.
Meanwhile the revolution of July, 1830, had broken out in France.
The new government found itself greatly embarrassed by the situation
bequeathed it by the preceding régime. Parliament, as a whole, was
strongly opposed to the nation’s embarking on an African adventure; but
French troops were, on the other hand, in possession of Algiers, and
popular sentiment—which in France can never safely be disregarded—was
opposed to their withdrawal. The situation was, in fact, not unlike that
which confronted the American government in 1898, when Admiral Dewey had
captured Manila. The administration at Paris did not want Algeria, any
more than the administration at Washington wanted the Philippines, but
neither of them was in a position to withdraw its forces. Fearing to
arouse the jealousies of the other powers by following up its conquest,
its freedom of action hampered by its treaty engagements with England,
yet realizing that evacuation would mean a prompt resumption of piratical
activities, the Paris government determined to pursue a middle course,
called restricted occupation, which consisted merely in occupying the
principal ports and waiting to see what would happen. The diplomats
of the Quai d’Orsay were extricated from their embarrassing position,
however, by the Algerines themselves, who attacked the French troops and
gained some small successes. This was all that was needed. It now became
necessary to avenge the honor of the flag. Reinforcements were rushed to
Africa, columns were pushed east, south, and west, and the hinterland
was gradually occupied and pacified. Thus was brought about the French
conquest of Algeria, and, as time went on, of all North Africa.
* * * * *
Having proceeded thus far with my sketch of the conquest of Algeria,
I might as well round it out here as to resume it later on. The five
years, then, which followed the capitulation of Algiers were a period
of anxiety and uncertainty for the French, who, undetermined whether to
evacuate or retain the country, remained on the defensive, their dominion
extending over only six coast towns. In Algiers, Bougie, and Bône their
position was tolerably secure, but along the western littoral, at
Mostaganem, Arzeu, and Oran, they found themselves menaced by a most
formidable adversary in the person of the young Abd-el-Kader, who had
been proclaimed emir at Mascara in 1832, when only four-and-twenty years
of age.
Abd-el-Kader’s family were _sherifs_, or descendants of the Prophet, and
his father was celebrated throughout North Africa for his piety and his
charity. As a youth he received the best education attainable by a Moslem
of princely rank, especially in theology and philosophy, in horsemanship
and in other manly exercises. A born leader, a man of exceptional
intelligence, a great soldier, an able administrator, a brilliant and
persuasive orator, a chivalrous opponent, a skilled swordsman and a
fearless horseman, Abd-el-Kader was one of the most remarkable figures
which Africa, or, indeed, the whole Arab world, has ever produced. Of
him, as of Bayard, it might be said with entire truth that he was _sans
peur et sans reproche_.
For fifteen years he held in check all the forces which France, the
greatest military power of the time, could bring against him, treating
on terms of equality with the French government, which maintained
representatives at his court. Undisputed master of the great province of
Oran, he crossed the Shelif in response to the appeal of the natives of
Middle Algeria, who flocked to greet him as though he were an emperor. He
defeated the French on the banks of the Macta in June, 1835, and then all
western Algeria belonged to him, his possession of it being confirmed by
the Treaty of Tafna, by the terms of which the French surrendered several
important cities in the west while Abd-el-Kader on his part vaguely
recognized French sovereignty in North Africa.
This was a political as well as a military triumph for the young
leader, who regarded the peace as but a truce which would give him
a breathing-space in which to gain strength to renew the struggle
under more favorable conditions. The capture of Constantine by the
French in 1837, which, he claimed, was an infraction of the treaty,
provided him with a pretext for reopening hostilities, and two years
later he turned loose his hordes once more. Meanwhile his power had
been steadily increasing. He was amply provided with materials of war,
having magazines and arsenals scattered through the heart of the Tell.
He had a regular army of ten thousand men, both horse and foot, to say
nothing of the fifty thousand _goums_—irregular native cavalry—which
the great chieftains brought to his standard. He was obeyed by a whole
hierarchy of khalifas, aghas, and caïds. And the people, seeing in him
not only a champion of their liberties but a man of transcendent piety, a
soldier-saint, worshiped the ground beneath his charger’s hoofs.
Marshal Valée, who first opposed him, relied on defensive tactics, but in
1840 the conqueror of Constantine was replaced by General Bugeaud, who
was destined to become Duke of Isly and a marshal of France. Bugeaud, who
was first, last, and all the time a fighter, lost no time in adopting
the offensive. Increasing the mobility of his troops by lightening
their equipment—which they repaid by affectionately calling him “Père
Bugeaud”—and forming a number of flying columns, he proceeded to carry
the war into the province of Oran, from which Abd-el-Kader drew his
principal resources. One after another all the strongholds of the emir
were captured and destroyed. In the spring of 1843 the Duc d’Aumale made
a successful surprise attack upon his camp at Tanguin, whereupon the emir
retreated into Morocco and persuaded the Shereefian emperor to become his
ally and declare war on France. Upon Bugeaud’s great victory at Isly in
August, 1844, however, the Moroccan monarch lost no time in signing a
treaty of peace at Tangier.
But the struggle was not yet at an end. Islam made a supreme effort
in Algeria. The warlike tribes of the hinterland rose at the voice of
a fanatic called Bu-Maza, “the goat man.” Abd-el-Kader reappeared in
Algeria, which he overran with a rapidity which paralyzed resistance
and baffled pursuit. He smashed the French at Sidi-Brahim, punished the
tribes of the Tell Oranais which had deserted him, pushed as far eastward
as the borders of the Metija, and even penetrated the Djurjura, where
he sought to arouse the Kabyles. It was the refusal of these Berber
mountaineers to make common cause with the Arabs against the French
which led to his downfall. His eloquence offended rather than stirred
these little democratic communities; his appeals fell on ears deaf to
the sentiment of the common good. From that time Abd-el-Kader played a
losing game. He again retired into Morocco, but the sultan, jealous of
his popularity with the people and having no desire to again embroil
himself with the French, drove him out. This was the end. Two days before
the Christmas of 1847, the great Arab leader surrendered to General
Lamoricière on the plains of Sidi-Brahim. His capitulation marked the
end of the period of the conquest. It is true that the Grand Kabylia
had to be subdued only ten years later, and that terrible insurrections
still had to be quelled. But at the end of the reign of Louis Philippe
the work of laying the foundations of France’s African empire had been
accomplished. All that was needed was to complete and secure it.
In violation of the solemn pledge that he would be permitted to take up
his residence in Syria or Egypt, on the strength of which he laid down
his arms, Abd-el-Kader and his family were detained in France for five
years, but in 1852 he was released by Napoleon III on taking an oath
never again to disturb Algeria. For a time he made his home in Brusa,
the quaint old town which was once the capital of Turkey, but later
he removed to Damascus. In July, 1860, when the Moslems of that city,
taking advantage of the Druse revolt, attacked the Christian quarter and
slaughtered more than three thousand Christians, Abd-el-Kader helped to
suppress the outbreak and saved hundreds of Christian lives. For this
the French government, which had granted the emir a pension of twenty
thousand dollars a year, bestowed on him the grand cross of the Legion of
Honor—the highest distinction in the gift of France. He visited Paris and
London and attended the Paris Exposition of 1867, where he was acclaimed
as a national hero; when, in 1871, the Algerians again rose in revolt,
he wrote them urging them to accept the rule of France. In the spring of
1883 he passed from Damascus to the Moslem Paradise—a gallant soldier, a
chivalrous enemy, and a great gentleman.
Having shown in this rather lengthy historical interlude how Algiers
came to be French, let us return to the city itself, or rather, to its
environs. It is with a distinct sense of relief that one leaves _la ville
européene_, with its crowded streets, its garish shops, the clatter
and bustle of traffic over stone-paved thoroughfares, the honking of
motors and the clang of tram-cars, and takes the road which ascends in
long, steep zigzags to the lovely heights of Mustapha Supérieur and El
Biar, where are situated the great tourist hotels and the enchanting,
flower-smothered villas of the European residents.
It has been said that no one can know how beautiful a sunset can be
unless he has lived in a villa at El Biar with a terrace facing toward
the west. That the view is superb there can be no denying; it is one
of the grandest in the world, I should say. Rising above the exquisite
curve of the crescent-shaped bay is a long line of mountains, their peaks
usually dim in a mulberry haze or purple and sullen when shadowed by
storm-clouds, but in clear weather standing out against the soft cerulean
sky like cameos. But the scene, enchanting as it is, attains true majesty
only on those rare occasions when the clouds lift sufficiently to reveal,
behind and beyond the shore range, the mighty snow-peaks of the Grand
Kabylia towering thousands of feet into the African blue.
The walled gardens of Mustapha Supérieur are places of sheer delight,
heavy with fragrance and aglow with color. They are crowded with plants
and trees of every variety and clime—palms from the South Seas and
Malaysia; Japanese bamboos, eucalyptus and blue-gums from Australia;
Spanish oranges and lemons; dragon-trees from China; stately rows of
dark Italian cypress; fruit-trees from the south of France. Splashes
of vivid color are provided by great masses of crimson or magenta
bougainvillea, by clusters of arum-lily, iris, and narcissus. As for
roses, they are everywhere, clambering over the walls, festooning arbors
and summer-houses, forming hedges of pink, yellow, red, or white. And the
ground is covered with a purple carpet of long-stemmed Algerian violets
whose perfume fills the air.
The suburb of Mustapha takes its name from one of the deys, who erected
the palace now used as the official residence of the governor-general of
Algeria. Few if any of the world’s rulers can boast such a residence, for
it is built in the colorful Moorish style, rich in marbles, faiences,
and mosaics, and stands amid gardens of fairy-like loveliness which look
down upon the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean. It did not prove a
good investment for its luxury-loving builder, however, for the vast sums
he squandered on it so angered the Janizaries, whose pay was perpetually
in arrears, as to bring about his disgrace and death. The ideal time to
see the gardens of the palace is during an evening fête—one of those
scented, languorous African nights when the moon throws a white beam
athwart the darkened waters of the Mediterranean, when the fragrance of
flowers intoxicates the senses, and the air is as soft as the cheek of
a lovely woman. The trees are festooned with myriads of little colored
lights, red, blue, and white; across the velvet lawns or along the marble
terraces stroll men in brilliant uniforms, and bare-shouldered, bejeweled
women; beneath a clump of palms the red-jacketed spahi band is softly
playing....
If you are interested in seeing what the soil and climate of Algeria
are capable of producing in the way of vernal loveliness, you should
not fail to visit the Jardin d’Essai, an extremely successful attempt
at acclimatization on a large scale, which was established by the
government nearly a century ago on the flats of Mustapha Inférieur. If
you expect something unusual in landscape gardening, however, you will
be disappointed, for there is nothing here to compare with the superb
effects which have been achieved at Peradeniya in Ceylon or in those most
wonderful of all tropical gardens at Buitenzorg in Java. But the Jardin
d’Essai has one feature which in itself well repays the trouble of a
visit: a magnificent avenue of India-rubber trees which have attained
gigantic size, in some cases twenty feet around and three times that in
height.
When you have concluded your visit to the Jardin d’Essai, I hope that
you will cross the road to one of the little open-air native cafés which
are set amid groves of trees above the Mediterranean. You can have tea,
or an ice, or the thick, sweet Arab coffee, but the chief thing is the
view, particularly toward sunset, when from the tables, as from nowhere
else, you can obtain a glimpse of the old Algiers, the city of the
corsairs, the white terraces of the town glowing like ivory in the soft
afternoon light, the masts of the shipping in the harbor mirrored in the
calm opalescent waters.
On the slopes of Mustapha Supérieur, a few minutes’ walk from the Jardin
d’Essai, is the Algerian Museum, which contains an admirably arranged
collection of objects illustrative of the country’s varied history,
including the flint instruments of primitive man, an assortment of Punic
earthenware from Gouraya, Roman mosaics and sculptures, and numerous
examples of Berber and Arab handicraft. It is laudably confined, as Mr.
Thomas-Stanford remarks, to Algerian antiquities and native art; unlike
so many American museums, it contains no irrelevant South Sea Island
curios; it has not been used as a receptacle for the rubbish of the local
collector, a dumping-ground for the perplexed widow and the embarrassed
executor.
By far the most interesting object in the museum, though a very gruesome
one, is the plaster cast of a young man, lying face downward, his hands
and feet bound with cords, his torso arched, his muscles strained in
agony. It is not a cheap replica of some celebrated statue, as most
casual visitors assume, but a life-mask which depicts with ghastly
veracity the agonizing death-struggles of a man who was buried alive!
Were it that and nothing more it would merely be revolting, but it is in
some measure redeemed from the horrible by its amazing history.
The cast is of the body of San Gerónimo, the discovery of whose remains
in 1853 afforded striking confirmation of an incident recorded by a
Spanish Benedictine monk named Haedo in an account of Algiers which he
had written nearly two and a half centuries before. According to the
priestly chronicler, a young Arab who had been captured by the Spaniards
about the middle of the sixteenth century, had embraced Christianity,
and had been baptized with the name of Gerónimo, was recaptured in 1569
by Algerine pirates and taken to Algiers. That one of their breed and
creed should have become an apostate was an unforgivable offense in Arab
eyes. When threats and pleadings failed to move him from his adopted
faith, Gerónimo was condemned to death. Bound hand and foot he was thrown
alive into a mold in which a block of concrete was about to be made and
the liquid concrete poured in upon him. The block containing his body
was built into an angle of the Fort of the Twenty-four Hours, then in
process of construction. Nearly three centuries later, in 1853 to be
exact, the fort was demolished by French military engineers, and in the
angle specified by Haedo the block containing the skeleton of Gerónimo
was found. Into the mold left by the saint’s body liquid plaster of Paris
was run, and a perfect model obtained, showing the agonized features of
the youth, the cords which bound him, and even the texture of his single
garment. This model is now in the museum. But the block itself, that
“noble sepulcher,” as the old chronicler calls it, has found a fitting
shrine in the cathedral of St. Philippe, where the bones of the Arab
youth who died a Christian martyr and was canonized a saint rest beneath
a marble sarcophagus which bears the inscription, “Ossa venerabilis servi
Dei Geronimo.”
High on the slopes behind Algiers, set on a shoulder of the Bou Zarea
Hills, above a sea of almond-blossoms, is the church of Notre Dame
d’Afrique, to which you should not fail to make a little pilgrimage,
if from no more pious motive than to enjoy the sublime view. At our
feet the white houses of Algiers run down steeply, like the seats in
the gallery of a theater, to meet the blue waters of the bay; turning
inland we look down upon the beautiful Valley of the Consuls, the
favorite place of residence of the European representatives at the
corsair court and but little changed since the time of the deys. Perhaps
the most interesting time to visit Notre Dame d’Afrique is on a Sunday
afternoon, when thousands of the pious and the curious make their way
up the steep hill to witness the poetic ceremony of the blessing of the
sea. Amid a reverent hush a procession of priests and choristers moves
slowly across the terrace to the edge of the cliff, where, overlooking
the Mediterranean, a cross has been raised to the memory of all those
who have been buried in deep waters. Boyish voices rise in a sweet,
shrill chant, and, after a brief prayer for those who go down to the sea
in ships, the officiating priest sprinkles holy water out toward the
Mediterranean, whose sun-kissed surface sparkles as though strewn with
diamonds.
Within the church, above the high altar, is a statue of a _black_ Virgin,
and over it is the unusual inscription: “_Notre Dame d’Afrique, priez
pour nous et pour les Musulmans._”
It gratified me, that inscription; it bespeaks a tolerance, a freedom
from bigotry, which one likes to associate with the faith founded by the
gentle Man of Nazareth. Why, the words might have been spoken by Jesus
himself!
“Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Mohammedans.”