A BRIDAL PARTY.--HORRIBLE STORIES.--A LONG DAY.--THE CAID AND THE
DRIVER.--A NEW ATMOSPHERE.--TCLEMCEN.
We had originally intended to take tickets for Oran, but finding that
the _Spahis_, if weather permitting, stopped at a little town called
Nemours, we resolved to stop there. By this plan we saved ourselves a
day and a night at sea, and alighted at a point on the African coast
much nearer Tclemcen than Oran. The weather favoured us. When we awoke
next morning the sun shone bright and warm in a cloudless sky, and the
steamer was gliding gently as a swan over the still, lake-like waters.
This sea-passage between Gibraltar and Oran is a dull one, and in our
case it was especially so, as we were the only first-class passengers,
excepting an old French gentleman, an _employé_ of the Imperial
Messagerie Company, who, with his son and daughter-in-law--a bride of a
few days--was bound also to Nemours.
One great resource was a bundle of English newspapers kindly supplied to
us at Gibraltar, and we pored over them from morning till the early
twilight, when there was a ringing of bells and a smell of dinner, and
an air of liveliness among the little company on board.
I joined the _table d’hôte_, and found it very amusing. The captain had
travelled all over the world, and had evidently made use of his eyes and
ears everywhere, and the bridal party were by no means dull. After
dinner the father-in-law ordered champagne, and the officers were
invited in to drink the health of the little bride. She, poor child, was
a little overcome, what with her new honour as Madame, sea-sickness, and
the prospect of exile at Nemours; but all the rest were merry enough,
and when we retired to our cabin we heard their talk and laughter till
late in the night. There was not much time to sleep, for about three
o’clock we were told to dress ourselves in readiness for the boat, and
an hour later we went on deck. It was cold and fine. The sea was
perfectly calm, but we heard it breaking on the shore with an angry,
threatening sound, and we saw in the dim, grey light, what a rocky coast
it was, and what a barrier there was, against which the smoothest sea
could not break silently. Nemours is, indeed, no harbour, but a mere
_rade_, and only approachable in the calmest weather, and by small
boats. A hard pull our good boatmen had of it ere we could reach the
landing-place, and the poor bride shivered in her thin summer dress.
“I was married in such a hurry,” she had said to me, “that mamma had no
time to prepare anything, and all my clothes are to be sent after me;”
but it seemed to me that a good warm shawl for the sea-journey would not
have required much preparation. However, we wrapped her up in spare rugs
and great-coats, and I think she took no harm.
We had to be carried ashore one at a time, and I thought of Gilliat, and
of the sea-faring life Victor Hugo has portrayed so fantastically, when
savage-looking men, their bare limbs shining like bronze in the pearly
light, dashed into the water, and bore us to the strand as easily as if
we were babies.
Much as we had enjoyed Spain, how glad we were to find ourselves in
France again, especially in African France!--to find ourselves speaking,
as it were, our native language, and not having to try at the stately
Spanish phrase, to hear the friendly French voice, and see the friendly
French faces around us, to know that wherever we went, we were really
and truly welcome, and that we might do exactly as we liked without
being thought extraordinary!
We found Nemours just like any other little French town in Algeria, very
formal and neat, with a little square, a little church, and boulevards
in their babyhood, and a certain indescribable air of order and
importance about it. We went straight to the inn--I think it was called
_l’Hôtel des Voyageurs_--and, after knocking once or twice, the landlord
came down, very shaggy and sleepy, but pleasant and amiable, as
Frenchmen always are. He went out at once to his neighbour, the baker’s,
and came back with a pan of red-hot ashes, which was very clever of
him, for we were bitterly cold, and nothing else would so effectually
have heated the room. Then he brought us out a bottle of good Bordeaux
and excellent bread and Rochefort cheese; and by the time we had
finished our meal, there was a clean bedroom ready for us and hot water:
and what more does a weary traveller require? The _douane_ did not
choose to wake up and give us our luggage till late in the morning; it
was such a lazy _douane_; and though I went again and again, and said
pretty things to the gendarmes, it was of no use. They said pretty
things in return, but kept the luggage. At last the _douane_ chose to
wake up and open its doors, and we got our portmanteaus, and were able
to get at brushes and combs and clean dresses, and to sit down to
breakfast clothed and in our right minds.
Then we obtained the services of an old soldier as guide, and went out
to see something of Nemours. The weather was perfect, and our guide just
the person to make you feel in a new world. He had something unexpected
to tell us about everything; the people of Nemours, the past of
Nemours, and the present aspect of French-African colonization
collectively.
A bright blue sea, glistening white sands, and bold dark rocks, will
make any place beautiful; but, otherwise, Nemours is uninteresting
enough. It is only when you are outside the town, and breathing the air
of the wild desolated hills, that you understand the romance of the
place. For the history of Nemours, if written with a vigorous pen, would
abound in incidents as thrilling as any conceived by the author of
_Monte Christo_, or of _The Last of the Mohicans_.
We passed through the town, and were just entering upon a picturesque
gorge, when our guide pointed to a little farm-house that peeped sunnily
from its orchards and gardens, and said,--
“Do you see a great patch of new whitewash, just above the door yonder?”
“Yes, we see it.”
“_Eh, bien!_ I will tell you the history of that patch of new whitewash.
A good colonist lived in that house, and was murdered a few weeks back
by the Arabs. He went to bed as usual, first having seen that every lock
was secure, and that his pistol was loaded--for only fools go unarmed
here by night or day--and at midnight woke suddenly, hearing the dogs
bark and the cocks crowing. ‘The Arabs!’ he says to his wife, who wakes
up too, and then he takes up his pistol and throws open the window,
ready to scare the scoundrels away. But before he can do it, he is shot
through his head, and his blood and brains are all over the wall, and so
it had to be whitewashed as you see.”
“And the poor widow, and the guilty Arabs?”
“The widow lives there still. The poor can’t indulge in fine feelings,
you see, Madame, and must stay where their bread is to be earned. The
Arabs got away to Morocco--they can do it in a few hours from here--and
_voilà l’histoire_!”
“A sad history indeed!”
“And not the saddest I could tell you. Ah! Madame, the life of us poor
colonists here on the borders of Morocco is hard enough. Only the good
God knows how to understand how hard it is” (_le bon Dieu sait seul
comment c’est dur_.)
“On account of the great insecurity, you mean?”
“Yes, Madame. We have to keep watch-dogs as fierce as tigers, to look
well to our bolts and pistols before going to bed, to distrust an Arab
as _le diable_, and, withal, we are always being burned out, robbed,
assassinated; and those who burn us out, rob us, and assassinate us, as
often as not get across to Morocco safe and sound.”
“But the soldiers protect you?”
“Mon Dieu, Madame! the soldiers have hard work to protect themselves!
and the soldiers, you see, are not always hand and glove with the
colonists. I often think we should do better in Algeria without soldiers
at all. Being a _colon_ myself now, I speak for the _colons_, of
course.”
We were now in a wild and beautiful spot at some distance from the town.
On either side rose green hills, sharply shutting in a little river that
flowed amid tamarisk and oleander, and, here and there, shone the round
white dome of some small Moorish sanctuary.
We sat down to rest a little while and enjoy the perfect solitude of the
place, and sketch the nearest of the mosques or marabouts.
“Ah! that is a marabout which will never be forgotten as long as the
French hold Oran. A few years ago there was sharp fighting in these
parts, and the Arabs, who were very strong, contrived to get a few
hundred of our brave fellows here by some diabolical cunning or other,
and, being thousands themselves, mowed them down like so much standing
corn. But this is only one story of hundreds. If blood of the bravest
would make lands rich, we ought to have fine crops here, indeed,
Madame.”
“The Arabs seem a very savage set here,” one of us said. “Around Algiers
they are, for the most part, harmless.”
“_Il y a des Arabes et des Arabes. Voilà, Madame._ We are close on
Morocco. The Arabs who have burned, murdered, and stolen in other places
flee hither, and so we are in a sort of Botany Bay of ’em.”
Just as he spoke a wild figure came running down the mountain side, and
made towards us, gesticulating, crying aloud, shaking his shaggy hair,
laughing a horrible laugh. So brown he was, and so uncouth an object,
that it seemed belying alike Frenchman and Arab to class him as either.
Instinctively we started and drew back.
“Don’t be alarmed, ladies,” said our old soldier, with a smile; “it’s
only a poor madman--he is harmless enough if not teazed. _Bon soir, bon
soir, Père Michie, ça va bien; tu vas te promener? C’est ça. Allons!_”
And the poor creature mouthed and laughed and went his way. This was the
only person we met in that solitary walk. When we returned, the short,
bright day was drawing to a close, and we were so tired that we were
even glad to lie down and shut out the glorious colours that spread in
fiery flakes across the sky, and the purple sea, that seemed like
another firmament in its immovableness and depth, and the large pale
stars that seemed to belong to both.
The stars were not pale when we arose next morning at three o’clock to
start for Tclemcen; it was worth one’s while to rise at that hour, if
only to see them, so large and brilliant and wonderful were they; and
shining out of heavens, neither blue, nor purple, nor black, but
indescribably beautiful. Never shall I forget that journey from Nemours
to Tclemcen. The day seemed interminable. First of all, we had the long,
long reign of stars,--stars that dazzled like suns, mildly luminous,
moonlike stars, and pale, primrose-coloured stars, that trembled and
heralded the dawn. Then we had the dawn,--a long, grey, cold dawn that
seemed a day in itself, and then the blessed sun, warming the day into
perfect ripeness, as if it were a flower, and then the twilight again,
with new stars.
But if the longest day of our lives, it was by no means the least
pleasant. The weather, as usual (for, I think, in point of weather,
travellers were never so fortunate as ourselves!), was all that could be
desired, warm, breezy, and bracing, and there was recreation for heart
and brain in the region through which we passed. Every feature and
aspect of the country was new to us. We had never before seen anything
like these undulating wastes of sand, and these interminable plateaux of
stone and grass, all bathed in the mellowest, warmest, most golden
light. The light was one long surprise to us. We looked up at some sheep
browsing on a rocky ledge, and they seemed turned into copper images of
sheep; and not the mere white woolly things they are generally figured
to be. We looked from a bit of rising ground across a broad steppe of
sand and stone, and we could hardly believe that the sun was not
setting, so yellow it was, and so full of misty, delicious warmth.
Everything seemed transfigured, and the transfiguration was almost
blinding. We were alone in the coupé of the diligence, and the only
passenger in the rotunda was a stately Caïd, magnificently dressed in
purple gaudoura and white bernous of softest, silkiest Algerian
manufacture. But what was the magnificence of his dress to the
magnificence of his complexion? To understand what an Arab complexion
is, one must have seen it, as we saw it, bronzing and glowing under a
southern sky. Transported to canvas or cold climates, the rich hue loses
half its life and warmth and beauty.
When we alighted, the Caïd invariably alighted too, and he would smile
down grandly upon us, as if we were children, and say a complacent word
or two in broken French, as if he thought we were afraid of him. We were
sorry enough that we could not talk with him, and tell him how far we
had come to see the great works of the Moors in Spain and Tclemcen. Our
driver was as picturesque as the Caïd, and almost as silent. I think he
was a Breton by his style of face, which was full of character and
nobility, and such as Rembrandt would have painted. He wore a fur cap,
very rich in colours, and a light blue coat of quaint shape, bordered
with the same sort of fur. Anything finer or more poetic than this man’s
appearance, I had never seen. But, beyond the courtesy of offering us
some of his wine, when we asked for water, he hardly opened his lips.
For the most part, the country was uncultivated and uninhabited. There
was no foliage excepting that of stunted olive, tamarisk, and palmetto,
and nothing to break the universal monotony but here and there a
_douar_, or Arab village, consisting of a cluster of tents, hedged in by
walls of wild cactus, or haulm. Whenever we passed close to such a
douar, the dogs would rush out yelling and barking, the whole little
brown-skinned community would come to the road-side and stare us out of
sight. The younger children were generally naked, though such a brown
skin seems a sort of clothing in itself, and the elder ones had nothing
on but one _cutty-sark_, of coarse sacking or woollen stuff. The men and
women were decently clothed, and would greet us with a grave
“Salamalek!” or “Bon jour!” whilst the children, veriest imps of fun and
impudence, ran after the carriage, begging for a sou as long as their
breath would carry them.
We reached Tclemcen about six o’clock, and established ourselves at the
Hôtel de France, a cool, pleasant, roomy house, where they gave us large
rooms and Algerian fare, and gracious Algerian courtesy. We could
willingly have stayed at Tclemcen for months.
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