Marches—The five marabouts—Cards and chess—Night march—The
Sultan’s arrival at the camp—His wife—Female camp—Zaka the
cup-bearer—Abd-el-Kader’s Court of Justice.
On the 30th of September, at sunrise, Abd-el-Kader gave the signal of
departure. After a march of two hours we reached a desert country; the
road was extremely bad, and frequently broken by ravines. To our left
ran a long chain of wooded mountains, which we had not yet left behind
us, when Ben Faka ordered a halt, and pitched the camp on the banks of
the Ouet Mina.
The next day, the 1st of October, whilst I was watching the negroes
who were taking down the Sultan’s tent and loading it on the mules,
I saw Ben Faka with three haicks under his arm, followed by three
Italian prisoners. I went towards them and asked whither they were
going, but before they had time to answer me Ben Faka, in a voice
broken by rage, commanded me to leave them, and to mount my mule. I
was struck with a sinister presentiment as to the fate of the three
unhappy prisoners. From afar I saw Ben Faka give them the haicks, of
which they had long stood in need, as they had nothing to wear but
their ragged shirts. My three companions in misfortune then took the
road to Tekedemta. The Sultan sent them to the works there, and it was
only by his especial orders that Ben Faka had given them the haicks.
At Tekedemta the poor fellows were exposed to every kind of privation
and ill usage; one of them sunk under it. The two survivors afterwards
gave me an account of their sufferings, which would appear incredible
to any one who did not know the Arabs as well as I do. This separation
was most painful to me; we had endured together hunger, cold, insults,
and blows; we had talked together of our sorrows, our hopes, and our
hatred of the Arabs.
We started at daybreak, and marched eastward, still keeping the chain
of mountains on our left. After a march of three hours, Ben Faka
pitched the camp on the left bank of the Ouet Mina, upon a _plateau_
covered with empty silos. Not a tent or even a single Arab was to be
seen: the horsemen were obliged to ride for three or four hours in
search of barley for their horses.
On the 4th of October we again struck our camp, and marched to within
half a league of the wooded mountains I have mentioned above. Ben Faka
pitched the camp on a small plain by the side of a stream which runs
into the Ouet Mina. This plain is uncultivated, and in the winter
it is so overflowed by the Ouet Mina as to look like a lake. It is
covered with shrubs resembling the sweet briar, which bear a fruit
like the medlar, only smaller, and containing a kernel. Like all the
shrubs of this country, these swarm with large white snails and slugs
enough to feed an army for some days. Next day we continued our march
westward, bearing a few degrees to the north. We quitted the banks of
the Ouet Mina, but the wooded mountain was still to our left.
After six hours’ march we halted on a _plateau_ covered with heaps of
stones which looked like the ruins of a town: but Abd-el-Kader and his
marabouts told us they had never heard of the existence of one on that
spot.
On the 6th of October, after a march of two hours, the camp was
pitched on a _plateau_ at the eastern extremity of the plain of
Mascara, at a place called Teknifil. Near it, on five hillocks, stand
five marabouts. Here we heard that the French had sent an expedition
from Oran, and that General Létang was marching on El-Borgj, a village
two leagues to the north of Teknifil. Abd-el-Kader immediately went to
El-Borgj with all his cavalry, and forced the inhabitants to abandon
it. Next day the baggage, the flocks, the women, and children of the
Borgia tribe were scattered about the plain, and orders were likewise
sent to the inhabitants of Mascara, which is four leagues from
Teknifil, to abandon the place. We stayed at Teknifil a fortnight,
during which time Abd-el-Kader gathered together all the tribes that
remained faithful to him, and when his army amounted to five or six
thousand he followed the French to the plains of Macta. Every day
couriers arrived at the camp with false news, either that the French
were surrounded on all sides, or that they had been cut to pieces by
the Sultan. The Arabs announced the news to us, and accompanied it by
blows, abuse, and menaces of death. Moreover, we were half starved,
and the hopes with which Abd-el-Kader’s kindness had inspired us were
now turned into despair.
Our days seemed long and gloomy: the Arabs maltreated us, and
separated Meurice and me from the coral fishers. We had talked so
long of our hopes, our home, and our families, that these subjects
were quite worn out. At last, in order to pass the time, I set to
work to make a chess board and a pack of cards. I stole a board from
one of the powder chests (which it was my great amusement to water,
at the risk of my life), and divided it into squares: I then cut some
chess men out of branches of oleander: I also stole a few sheets of
paper, for which Ben Faka beat me with a stick, and made a pack of
cards of them. My knaves were jockeys with pipes in their mouths, and
red, green, and white jackets; the queens were ladies dressed in the
European fashion,—one with a bonnet, another with a foulard, another
with hair dressed _à la Chinoise_, and the fourth with long ringlets
in the English style; the kings had huge crowns on their heads. Ben
Faka and Ben Abu, who had the care of Abd-el-Kader’s tent during his
absence, sent Meurice and me to guard it during great part of the day;
for Christians and slaves as we were, they trusted us far more than
the Arabs. The cushions and the sofa had been removed, and we were
especially commanded to touch nothing in the tent, as the touch of a
Christian would defile anything belonging to the Sultan. We lay on
the carpet of this august and holy dwelling, and played at chess and
picquet. The marabouts, in spite of their horror of any representation
of the human face or figure, were struck with admiration at the
accuracy with which I had copied the European costume in my knaves and
queens. They were very anxious to understand the game of picquet, and
overpowered us with questions about every card we played. Their cards
are quite different to ours, and I have seen draughts in their _cafés_
but no chess boards, though one day when Abd-el-Kader saw me playing
at chess with Meurice, he said, “My grandfather used sometimes to
play with pieces like those on a draught board.”
On the 20th of October, after a halt of fourteen days at the five
marabouts, during which time we were exposed to threats, blows, and
cruel privations, the tents were struck. A courier arrived at the
camp, in the middle of the night, with the news that the French were
marching towards Oran, and that the Sultan would be at Mascara on the
morning of the 21st. In spite of the lateness of the hour (it was
midnight) Ben Faka ordered the troops and the baggage to set out.
There was a thick fog, and we suffered cruelly from the cold and damp,
which I am sure laid the seeds of the illness under which poor Meurice
finally sank. Meurice and I were mounted on the mules which carried
the Sultan’s coffers. Each quarter of an hour we heard the voice of
Ben Faka calling through the darkness, “France! Meurice! are you on
your mules?” “Yes.” “Don’t get down, and above all don’t change with
any of the horsemen.” “Never fear.” Ben Faka’s uneasiness was not
without cause: he was responsible for any disorder that might happen
during the march, and he was always afraid that if we quitted our
mules the soldiers of the escort would pillage the Sultan’s treasure;
for dogs and Christians as we were, Ben Faka knew that we were more
trustworthy than the proud Arab warriors. With the first rays of the
sun, we arrived with all the treasure safe at the pretty town of
Mascara.
The camp was pitched at the foot of the mountain which bounds the
plain of Mascara on the north. A little stream, whose banks were
covered with oleanders, ran through the midst of it. Mascara stands in
the centre of a mountain gorge, on a steep and precipitous hill; the
white and cheerful-looking houses are surrounded by a perfect grove of
fig trees, and a few graceful poplars and slender minarets rise like
lances among them. The view was so charming that I stole a sheet of
paper and went outside the camp to sketch it. But I had scarce begun,
when a mounted chaous rode up to me and gave me a blow with his stick.
To avoid a repetition of it, I ran back to the tent with my unfinished
sketch.
A courier brought the news of Abd-el-Kader’s arrival at the camp, and
the infantry instantly armed and went about ten minutes’ march towards
Mascara, where it drew up in two lines. Presently the cavalry arrived
at full gallop, and was drawn up by Muftar in two bodies behind the
infantry. As soon as Abd-el-Kader had passed them, the last soldiers,
both horse and foot, quitted the line, and ran to place themselves in
two rows before his tent. As he entered it, three discharges of cannon
from Mascara announced the Sultan’s return to the neighbouring tribes.
The soldiers kept up a constant firing in honour of the great victory
which the Sultan had gained over the French.
All that day the camp was in a state of great confusion; horsemen
belonging to the adjacent tribes were continually coming and going,
and feeding their horses in the camp: this, added to the cries of
joy and exultation, and the incessant galloping and firing of the
soldiers, produced an indescribable tumult and clamour.
At sunset Abd-el-Kader mounted his horse, accompanied by a few
marabouts and the thirty negroes, and rode to his wife’s tent, which
is pitched three or four miles to the south of Mascara, on a spot near
which Abd-el-Kader has a garden and a marabout.
The chiefs who accompany the Sultan also have tents for their wives
and families at the same place, where there is a sort of female camp.
That inhabited by Abd-el-Kader’s wife is woven of black camel hair.
The Sultan is said to be a most tender husband, and his conduct proves
the truth of the report, for he has not a single concubine. His wife
is very pretty; her tall slender figure is seen to great advantage
under the graceful folds of her haick, which is girded round her
middle with a red worsted cord. The Arabs usually like large fat
women, but Abd-el-Kader’s taste is different. Though often absent from
his wife for three or four months at a time, his attachment to her
remains unchanged. Even from the banks of the Ouet Mina he frequently
sent her presents of fruit, butter, honey, and other rarities. He
has had one daughter by her; and though it was asserted that she
was delivered of a boy on the very day on which the French entered
Mascara, I do not believe it; for if Abd-el-Kader really had a son I
am sure the Arabs would have told me so. During the night the thirty
negroes keep watch round the tent that nothing may disturb the repose
of Abd-el-Kader and his wife; and during their absence from the camp,
a guard of foot soldiers supplies their place around the Sultan’s tent.
In the middle of the night a man peeped cautiously out of the
Sultan’s tent, darted out, and tried to make his escape; but the
sentinels who were not asleep seized him. It was Zaka, an old negro
slave, and Abd-el-Kader’s cup-bearer. He had long been used to take
advantage of the moments during which the Sultan left his tent to
enter it and rob his treasure. The thirty negroes, either blinded
by the confidence with which his high functions inspired him, or
unwilling to denounce their comrade, had never stopped him, although
they had frequently seen him leave the tent at undue hours, and during
the absence of the Sultan. But the Arab soldiers were much less
accommodating; and when Abd-el-Kader returned to the camp at sunrise
they brought Zaka before him, together with several sultani (a silver
coin) found on his person.
The coffee-sellers deposed, that Zaka had for a long time been in
the habit of spending a great deal of money in their booths, and of
treating his friends there daily. Haicks, bernouses, yataghans, and
splendid pistols were found in his tent; and every one knew that his
means were small and uncertain. Abd-el-Kader ordered him to be put
in irons for an unlimited time; and he was brought to our tent, and
placed under the guard of his friend Ben Faka. As the punishment
promised to last very long, the chaous struck a nail through the bar
which joins the irons, instead of securing it with a padlock.
Ben Faka was presently summoned to his duties in Abd-el-Kader’s tent;
and after his departure Zaka crept to the further extremity of the
tent, threw himself on the ground like a man overcome with fatigue,
and pretended to sleep. Meurice watched all his movements with great
attention, “The negro is trying to escape,” said he. “He is asleep,”
I replied; “besides, both his feet are hampered.” “Say rather, he is
pretending to sleep,” answered Meurice; “only watch his proceedings.”
Zaka took down a rifle which he laid across two bales; he then pulled
off his black bernouse, hung it over the gun, and crouched down
behind it. I left the tent, and soon after saw him slowly cross the
camp, wrapped in his white haick, and hiding his face. As soon as he
had reached the limits of the camp he took to his heels, and soon
disappeared among the fig trees on the mountain.
When Ben Faka returned to the tent, and found that the prisoner for
whom he was personally responsible had escaped, he flew into a
violent passion, and loaded us with blows and abuse, for not having
prevented Zaka’s flight. A hundred horsemen mounted immediately,
and rode in all directions in pursuit of him. Ben Faka was anxious
to conceal the escape of Zaka from the Sultan, as he hoped that the
fugitive would be retaken before the news of his flight could reach
Abd-el-Kader. But the horsemen had not returned when a chaous summoned
him into the presence of the Sultan. As Ben Faka was going towards
the tent he met Zaka in the midst of an escort of horsemen, with his
hands tied behind his back; he took possession of his prisoner, and
went with him to the Sultan’s tent. Without further enquiry, the
Sultan condemned Zaka to be put in irons for an indefinite time, and
to receive six hundred blows a day with a stick, for three successive
days; two hundred at seven in the morning, two hundred at noon, and
two hundred at night; in all one thousand eight hundred blows in three
days. Zaka was instantly brought before our tent, and laid flat upon
his face; two of his friends held the skirts of his bernouse, while
the chaous administered to him the first two hundred blows.
The important post which Zaka had filled, joined to his munificence,
had gained him many friends, to whose zeal he now entirely owed his
life. He could not possibly have survived the one thousand eight
hundred blows well laid on, but the chaous took care not to hit very
hard, and the Arabs who held the skirts of his bernouse stretched them
so tight, as considerably to deaden the force of the blows. When the
chaous had administered the first two hundred, Zaka was brought into
our tent, where his friends busied themselves in kneading and chafing
his whole body, and in warming him; and Ben Faka, who now remembered
nothing but his former friendship, loaded him with attentions and gave
him coffee. By degrees Zaka recovered, but he was not released from
his irons, and at the time of my departure he was still stretched
upon the ground, vainly expecting each day the Sultan’s order for his
release.
The Sultan administers justice in a very simple and expeditious
manner. The contending parties are brought to his tent, where the
accuser first makes his complaint; the witnesses, if there be any,
are then examined, after which the accused makes his defence. Both
accusation and defence, like all Arab explanations, are long-winded
and clamorous. When the pleadings are at an end, the Sultan decides
singly, and without appeal. Without saying a word, he condemns the
guilty to any kind of punishment by signs to the chaous. He raises
his hand, and the accused is carried to prison; he holds it out
horizontally, and the accused is led beyond the limits of the camp,
and his head is cut off by the chaous; he bends his hand towards the
earth, and the accused is dragged away and bound, laid flat upon the
earth, and beaten with a stick. The Sultan usually determines the
number of blows; if he omits to do so, it is left to the discretion of
the chaous.
Most of the complaints and accusations are of thefts, a crime
exceedingly common among the Arabs, and generally treated with great
leniency, especially by Abd-el-Kader, who is neither cruel nor
vindictive.