RAIN.--AN ENGLISH LADY’S OPINION ON THE ARABS.--WILD BIRDS.--THE
EARTHQUAKE.
And the blessed rain came. We had heard it pattering and plashing
between our dreams, and, when we came out into the open air, it was
moist and sweet and cool. For the first time throughout our entire
journey we were unable to procure the coupé to ourselves, for the
assizes were to commence at Mostaganem, and, what with witnesses,
lawyers, plaintiffs and defendants, the diligence was more than crowded.
We could not see our companion, but, from the large share of the coupé
that he monopolized, we thought he must be a very stout person indeed;
alas, how we had hoped and prayed that he might prove thin! But there
was no help for it, and, by the time we began to be cramped in every
limb, came the blessed, beautifying daylight and the ever-shifting
African landscape, that made us forget everything else.
We forgave our fellow-traveller his burliness after a while, for he
proved so full of information and pleasant. He was a barrister, and told
us of all the most important cases coming off at Mostaganem, and a
fearful list it was. By far the greater number of prisoners were Arabs
charged with assassinations. We told this gentleman of what we had heard
at Tclemcen.
“In one place,” we said, “the Arabs are represented as harmless,
improvable, mild: in another as the incarnation of villany. What _are_
we to believe?”
“Well,” he said, “the fact is this, the Arabs are _pauvres diables_, and
they are poorer now than they were before we came--that is to say, the
Bedouin, the shepherd and the cultivator of a little land is poorer--and
the consequence is, they are led from theft to murder. When we stop to
change horses every one will alight to take coffee, and you will see a
couple of priests, one looking as if he had just come out of a
war-hospital. He was attacked near Tclemcen one evening, robbed, and
left on the road for dead. That is one of the worst cases we have,
though there are others of a piece with it. The priests ride on the box
with the coachman, and in the rotunda are some Arabs who are going to
witness on the side of the accused, one of them you must look at, too;
he is dressed like a prince and has the face of _le diable_. He is the
son of a Bach-Agha.”
By-and-by, we came to a little roadside caravansary, and every one got
out, the handsome, _nonchalant_ Arabs and their “murdered man,” among
the rest. The poor curé looked very ill still, and had a gentlemanly,
but shabby, appearance. The Bach-Agha’s son was dressed in purple and
fine raiment, and looked a king--till you saw his face closely--when he
looked a very Mephistopheles. It was an indescribably cruel, clever,
sensual face,--a face from which you turned with repugnance.
After passing through some very lovely tamarisk-groves, amid which wound
a broad, bright river, a branch of the Chelif, we entered upon the vast
monotonous plain of the Habra. These African plains are only varied here
and there by shifting bands of road-makers, military posts, and by
little French colonies or Arab douars; and when you commence your
journey, you feel as if it would never end. You cross horizon after
horizon. You see a white speck in the distance and say, “That must be
our halting-place;” but, when you arrive, it is a military post and
nothing more--the dogs rush out barking and yelling, French Zouaves, who
stand basking in the sun, come up to ask for newspapers and letters; and
the Spahis look at us whilst they smoke their paper cigarettes, and show
their white teeth as they say “Bon jour.” Then, after getting a glass of
water or wine, the diligence moves slowly off, and we leave behind the
glistening white post, the red-cloaked, brown-skinned Spahis, and the
pack of dogs.
How hot it is! When we alight and walk a little way, ankle-deep in alpha
grass and wild thyme, the leaves seem warm and dry as if the soil below
were burning away with volcanic fire. We shall be sunburnt to the
complexion of Moors before our journey is done, we say, and when inside
the diligence, and pin up shawls and cloaks to keep out the wind that is
as warm now as it was cold when we started. The plains have each a
climate of their own, and travellers should always plan their
journeys--as we did--to avoid crossing them at early morning or at
night, when a terrible miasma arises from the soil and is never
harmless, often as dangerous as poison.
Mostaganem is a lively little place, and on account of the assizes was
full of strangers. Greatly to our amusement we encountered our stout
_compagnon du voyage_ on the evening of our arrival, as shrunk from his
natural size as a rabbit after skinning. What strange metamorphose had
changed him in so short a space from the size of a Falstaff to a lean
and hungry-looking Cassius? It was very perplexing, but on a sudden it
flashed on us like a revelation, that as all his luggage had consisted
of a hat-box, and as he had doffed a thick grey travelling dress and
donned a suit of shining black cloth, he must have carried his wardrobe
on his back. It was very simple.
At Mostaganem I made the acquaintance of a countrywoman, the wife of a
French gentleman holding a responsible official post there. Every one
in Oran is sure to be an official if he is not in the army; and it is
curious to see how the difference of calling modifies the political and
social opinions. I never talked with a French officer who was not
entirely opposed to the assimilation of races and incredulous of Arab
civilization, nor with an official who was not equally enthusiastic
about both. A _prêfet_, a _sous-prêfet_, a _maire_, or any other of the
dozen gentlemen who administer justice and keep order in these
French-African towns, is pretty sure to speak hopefully and humanely of
the Arabs: a colonel or a commandant uses much the same tone about them
as our officers up-country do regarding the Sepoys and Seedy-boys.
My countrywoman spoke of the Arabs with great sympathy.
“My heart bleeds for the poor people,” she said: “think of what they
have suffered during the past year! They had planted their little bits
of cornfields, and the corn was shooting up in abundance, when the
locusts came in billions and trillions, and corn, potatoes, rye,
everything was destroyed. They starve, or else they steal and fill our
prisons and reformatories. People say, let them starve or work, but you
cannot change the habits of a people in a day.
“Most of these poor things under trial now are Bedouins, as ignorant as
savages from Timbuctoo. My husband told me yesterday of a poor little
boy condemned to five years’ imprisonment for having stolen a turkey! Do
you suppose, Madame, that that boy will come out of his prison a better
French subject than he went in? I have lived for years among the
Arabs--in Constantine, in Algeria, in Oran--I have studied Arabic on
purpose to hold intercourse with them and to be able to sympathize with
and understand my husband’s calling, and I have come to this
conclusion--Madame, it is only by assimilation that the Arab is to be
improved. There was a great outcry among the colonists after the Emperor
had visited Africa in 1865, because he was said to show partiality to
the Arab; but, good heavens, what a different position does the honest
_colon_ hold to the richest _indigène_? The _colon_ is a Frenchman, and
therefore a noble being; the _indigène_ is an Arab, and what isn’t good
enough for an Arab? For my part, I think the Emperor was wise in taking
that tone. I think the colonists have much to suffer, but the Arabs
incontestably more, and if the Emperor did not take their part, who
would?”
We rested two nights at Mostaganem, and the blessed rain kept falling
all the time, though no sooner were we on our way again, than the sun
came out and all was bright and warm.
Our next halting place was Relizane. We reached Relizane in six hours’
easy travelling through a monotonous country, part wild, part
cultivated, with flocks of cranes feeding on the pastures, vultures and
eagles flying overhead, coveys of partridges whirring from the
brushwood, and hares scuttling across the road as we passed along.
Whenever we passed an Arab village, a crowd of half, or wholly naked
children ran down and followed us, calling out for coppers. They would
run incredible distances thus, and when a coin was thrown out, there
would be a diving of little black polls in the grass, a momentary
scramble, then all was ready to start afresh. Those who are fortunate
enough to get the money, put it in their mouths--having no clothes they
could clearly have no pockets--and, if not as comfortable, it was
certainly a safe and convenient mode of carrying their spoils.
My journey properly ends at Relizane, since this is the last
halting-place in Oran, the last Spanish province of Algeria. But we set
foot on Algerian soil just as the first shock of earthquake had spread a
panic throughout the length and breadth of the country, and I will give
a page or two to that most terrible time.
Never shall I forgot our journey from Relizane to Algiers. We were
happily under no apprehension about those dear to us at Algiers, as we
had received telegrams from them assuring us of their safety, but every
one we met had some fearful story to tell of the loss of life and
property in the villages of the Metidja. We knew these villages well,
having spent many days there not twelve months back; and our hearts
failed us at the thought of what we were now to see in place of the
peace and plenty we had seen then.
The first town within the devastated circle, Milianah, stood intact,
though the prevailing panic was something indescribable. All the women
were looking white and wan, some had lost friends and relatives in the
Metidja, others had taken to their beds from sheer fright, a few awaited
a final shock which was to be the ‘crack of doom.’ Wherever we went we
heard descriptions of the terrible event, all more or less exaggerated.
According to one, the Zakkar, a mountain as high as Snowdon rising to
the north of Milianah, had rocked to and fro, emitting flames of fire;
according to another, many houses had been split and shaken by the
shock.
If the former account were true, we found the mouth of the Zakkar shut
close enough, and its sides had grown marvellously green again since the
catastrophe, though happening only a few days back. We walked round and
round the town and saw no houses that had taken any harm. The shock was,
nevertheless, awful, as we gathered from the plain, unvarnished account
given us by the prefêt. He had expected at the time nothing more nor
less than the entire destruction of Milianah.
The shock had been severely felt at Algiers and Blidah, but it was a
little cluster of villages in the Metidja, by name, Bou-kika,
Mouzaiaville, El-Affrom, and La Chiffa, that had suffered most. Our way
lay straight through that village; and so recent was the calamity, and
so inaccurate the accounts of it, that we set off to Algiers without in
the least knowing where we could break the journey. Some people said,
“Bou-kika is unharmed; you will find every accommodation at Bou-kika;”
others said, “You will have to go right to Blidah, and break your
journey there. Blidah is recovering itself, and you will find the hotels
much the same as if nothing had happened.” A third said, “Blidah is as
empty as a plundered place. There isn’t a crust of bread to be had
there.”
In this uncertainty we set off. It was a superb moonlight night, and as
we passed along, we saw woeful things.
We had talked of sleeping at Bou-kika, but Bou-kika was as dead and
silent as if death were in every dwelling. Every one, in fact, was
encamped outside the village, and a knot of soldiers, gathered round a
watch-fire, guarded the deserted houses. Here the ruin had been partial;
but soon we came to great, ghastly spectres of what, a week ago, had
been thriving little towns--each with its church, its hotel, its shops
and cafés. Here and there, above great heaps of brick and mortar, stood
out a chimney, a wall, or a doorway, or, indeed, a whole house, split
like a pomegranate; but the place had collapsed like a child’s
cardhouse. One must tread upon the heels of an earthquake to understand
what it is--the suddenness of it--the despair of it--the desolation of
it.[14]
More than a hundred souls had been buried alive here; and what testifies
to the paralysing nature of the shock is the great proportion of young
children. Mothers were so horrified that they rushed out of doors,
leaving their sleeping babies behind!
We reached Blidah early in the morning, and found the town as deserted
as if stricken by a plague. The large, prosperous hotel where we had
often stayed before, was shut up. The streets were silent, the shops
were all closed; thankful enough were we to get a little coffee and a
morsel of bread at a little cabaret before taking the early train to
Algiers. All Blidah was encamped outside the town, and the long lines of
tents, and the unwonted aspect of hundreds of wealthy families turned
out of house and home, and shifting for themselves in the best way they
could, was sad and strange. It was breakfast-time. Coffee was boiling on
every little camp-fire, children were running about borrowing a
neighbour’s cup or pitcher; ladies were making their toilettes as best
they could; men were wandering hither and thither, smoking away their
disturbed thoughts.
The Arabs alone looked unmoved. “It is the will of God,” they say when
any evil happens, and they resign themselves to it, outwardly calm as
statues.
In about an hour and a half we reached Algiers. The weather was
glorious; and as we drove up to the well-known villa on the green height
of Mustapha Supérieure, and looked down upon the bright, blue sea, and
the glistening shore, and the white Moorish city crowning the sunny
Sahel, we said that Spain had showed us no fairer prospect.
And yet we were sorry--who would not be?--that our journey had come to
an end. May all those who follow in our track find the same bright skies
and pleasant faces, and bring home from Spain and Oran as many happy
memories as we did.
[Illustration: text decoration]
LONDON:
Printed by STRANGEWAYS AND WALDEN, 28 Castle St. Leicester Sq.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “La puissance paternelle, il faut le reconnaître, perd chaque jour,
de son autorité. L’esprit d’independance qui se manifeste de plus en
plus dans la société, a penétré jusque dans la famille. Les tendances
de la jeunesse à devancer l’époque de son émancipation devaient
naturellement amener ce triste résultat, dont les fatales conséquences
ne nous out été que trop souvent révelées pendant l’exercice de nos
fonctions de magistrat. Nous avons donc considéré comme un devoir de
conscience de remédier à un tel état de choses, en cherchant les moyens
de ramener dans la voie du bien les enfants que l’inexpérience de l’âge
ou la précocité des inclinaisons mauvaises conduisaient à s’en écarter.
Tel est le but que nous avons cru pouvoir atteindre en fondant une
nouvelle institution, véritable collége de répression, comme l’a si
bien definie Monseigneur l’Evêque d’Orléans, où des jeunes gens sont
placés sous une discipline sévère, pendant le temps nécessaire pour
réprimer chez eux l’esprit d’insubordination et les fâcheux penchants
qu’ils out manifestés. N’ayant entre eux aucun rapport, ils n’ont
point à subir l’influence d’un contact trop souvent pernicieux. (Le
système de la séparation est si rigoureusement observé que les élèves
ne sauraient s’apercevoir, même à la chapelle.) Leur instruction se
poursuit donc dans les conditions les plus favorables, les études ne
sont pas interrompues; les élèves peuvent même continuer à composer,
comme par le passé, avec leurs condisciples au moyen des devoirs que
nous sont communiqués par leurs anciens professeurs. De cette manière,
l’émulation ne se ralentit pas, et, accompli en dehors de toute
distraction, le travail est des plus profitables. On enseigne aussi
les sciences, les langues étrangères, et les arts d’agrément. Avant
la fondation de notre maison, le seul parti extrême auquel les chefs
d’institution pussent recourir, était l’expulsion du collége; cette
mesure compromettait l’avenir de l’enfant sans le guères de ses mauvais
penchants. D’ailleurs la crainte de l’expulsion était inefficace à
ramener dans le désir certaines élèves insubordonnés qui faisaient
tous leurs efforts pour provoquer un renvoi. L’approche des vacances
multiplie les demandes d’admission de la part des familles. Qui ne
comprend le danger qu’il y aurait a récompenser un enfant, qui, pendant
toute l’année, n’a mérité que des reproches? et cependant les parents
se résigneraient difficilement à transformer leur maison en un lieu de
répression, au moment où tout est joie et fête dans la famille, surtout
lorsqu’il s’y trouve d’autres enfants dont on n’a qu’à se louer.... Les
heureux résultats obtenues depuis plus de dix ans nous ont déterminé à
signaler aux parents les incontestables services que notre fondation
est appelée à leur rendre. Nous ne saurions trop recommander aux
familles d’apporter la plus grande sollicitude à combattre de bonne
heure chez l’enfant toute la tendance à l’indiscipline et à la paresse,
dont les conséquences sont beaucoup plus graves qu’on ne serait porté
à le croire. On commence par être mauvais élève, on finit par devenir
mauvais sujet.”
[2] There are very able and interesting articles on the condition and
prospects of Spain in Mr. Grant Duff’s admirable _Studies in European
Politics_, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ for September 1865, and in
_Fraser’s Magazine_ for December 1865. I quote one closing passage
from the writer in the _Revue_, M. Charles Mazade:--“L’Espagne est
dans un de ces états presque indéfinissables: à la veille encore on
dit qu’une révolution est impossible, parcequ’on n’aperçoit pas un but
précis, et au lendemain, lorsqu’elle a éclaté, on se demande comment
elle n’est pas arrivée plus tot, parceque tout le monde y travaillait.
Je ne veux point dire assurément que cet état si grave qu’il paraisse
lorsque ces crises deviennent plus aigues, que cet état soit sans
remède. L’Espagne possède, sans doute, en elle-même les élémens d’un
développement de fortune matérielle, comme elle a enfin tous les
éléments d’une puissance extérieure proportionnée à sa situation, à ses
interêts, et à ses ambitions légitimes; mais ce qui est vrai aussi,
c’est que les hommes, les partis, ont à secouer bien des préjugés,
bien des illusions, bien des passions, dont la trace est visible
dans la politique contemporaine, et qui ne sont point étrangères
aux crises actuelles. Ils ont à se pénétrer, tout d’abord, de cette
vérité d’où découlent toutes les autres, qui éclatent dans l’histoire
la plus récente,--que tout ce que favorise l’absolutisme accelère la
décomposition de la péril, qu’une politique libérale n’eut pas même
seulement une condition de progrès, qu’elle est plus encore peut-être
aujourd’hui, une stricte garantie d’ordre et de préservation.”
[3] Of all amusing writers on Spain, commend me to Richard Ford and
George Borrow. What a fantastic world they lived in, and how much they
contrived to see where other people would have beheld blank space and
“nothing more.” Ford’s opinions, and I should say Borrow’s stories,
must both be swallowed with a grain of salt; with the exception,
perhaps, of what the former says about bull-fights. See the _Quarterly
Review_, No. cxxiv., _The Handbook_, and _The Gatherings_.
[4] To see this and Mr. Tomline’s other fine pictures, it is necessary
to write for permission, which is most willingly granted. Without such
a precaution, you are like the foolish virgins unprovided with oil,
and have to go away in despair. The pretty scenery around may prove a
little consolation.
[5] Revue des Deux Mondes, July 1861. Du Goût Contemporaine.
[6] The name of Tarshish is supposed to have been applied to the
kingdom of Andalusia.
[7] Ford.
[8] “We shall trace cob,” he says, “for a long period as peculiarly
used by the Cainite branch. Cain built a city, ἠν οἰχοδομων πολιν.
To build a city infers a considerable population, and a certain
development of social life. As single houses must have preceded
cities, Cain certainly had previously constructed a house for himself
and his wife before the foundation of Enoch. It could not have been
a log-house: he was unprovided with instruments of iron to fell or
fashion timber, for the art of working metals was not discovered by
Tubal Cain till afterwards. It could not have been of stone, or brick,
or mortar: that implies a knowledge of chemistry. The use of bricks is
first recorded at the Tower of Babel, where bitumen was used instead of
mortar. Cain, we may fairly assume, must have built of mud or cob....
Mud was the obvious material to a tiller of the earth. Cain, an eater
of corn, must have observed the increased cohesiveness of clay when
mixed with stubble: he might have seen that exemplification in the
nests of some birds in the air. Mud mixed with straw would make his
cob, while fallen branches of trees and dried vegetable matter would
furnish his roof. His cottage, as to its colour, most _certainly_
resembled the red towers of the Alhambra, and the ferruginous cob of
Exeter; for as the first house was built near the site of Eden, it
must have been composed of the same earth from which the first man was
made,--that red earth, βωλος ἐρυθρος, which gave the ancient original
name of the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf,--that red dust from whence the
first man was called Adam--Adham, the red, the earthy man.”--_Quarterly
Review_, No. CXVI. Art. Cob Walls.
[9] Rev. James Meyrick.
[10] Rev. J. Meyrick, _Church of Spain_.
[11] Rev. J. Meyrick.
[12] I think the only book useful to all but the student who goes to
Gayangos, Pranzes, and the great work of Owen Jones, is the last-named
gentleman’s _Hand-book to the Alhambra, Crystal Palace_. Of course
everyone will carry his Ford; but, with regard to the Alhambra, Mr.
Owen Jones’s pamphlet is more explicit and exclusive, and, if mastered,
makes the Alhambra ever after familiar and easy of comprehension. We
carried it about with us as fondly as we had carried Street’s book
about the cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo.
[13] Spain is divided among three populations. First, the aristocracy,
or blue blood: as Ford says, satirically, “The azure ichor of this
_élite_ of the earth is so called in contradistinction to common red
blood, the puddle that flows in plebeian veins; while the blood of
heretics, Lutherans, Protestants, and political enemies, is held by
Spanish sangrados, or heralds, to be black, pitchy, and therefore
combustible.” A Spaniard gave me the grades thus: blue blood,
aristocratic; red blood, middle class; white blood, plebeian.
[14] It is hardly necessary to say that everything that liberality,
active and passive, could do, was done, and done at once, for the
sufferers by the earthquake. Nothing was spared, money, counsel,
sympathy, and, I have no doubt that by this time, the villages
mentioned are rebuilt and re-inhabited.