the outside, and we fought our way through the beggars who got in front
of us and behind us and about us, demanding "_sou-penny_" at least it
sounded like that--a sort of French-English combination, I suppose,
which probably has been found to work well enough to warrant its general
adoption.
We thought we had seen beggars at Madeira, and had become hardened to
them. We _had_ become hardened toward the beggars, but not to our own
offerings. One can only stand about so much punishment--then he
surrenders. It is easier and quicker to give a sou-penny, or a dozen of
them, than it is to be bedevilled and besmirched and bewildered by these
tatterdemalion Arabs who grab and cling and obstruct until one doesn't
know whether he is in Algiers or Altoona, and wishes only to find relief
and sanctuary. Evidently sight-seeing in the East has not become less
strenuous since the days when the "Innocents" made their pilgrimage in
these waters.
We found temporary sanctuary in the mosque, but it was not such as one
would wish to adopt permanently. It was a bare, unkempt place, and they
made us put on very objectionable slippers before we could step on their
sacred carpets. This is the first mosque we have seen, so of course I am
not a purist in the matter of mosques yet, but I am wondering if it
takes dirt and tatters to make a rug sacred, and if half a dozen mangy,
hungry-looking Arab priests inspire the regular attendants in a place
like that with religious fervor.
They inspired me only with a desire to get back to the beggars, where I
could pay sou-pennies for the privilege of looking at the variegated
humanity and of breathing the open air. The guide-book says this is a
poor mosque, but that is gratuitous information; I could have told that
myself as soon as I looked at it. Anybody could.
We went through some markets after that, and saw some new kinds of
flowers and fruit and fish, but they did not matter. I knew there were
better things than these in Algiers, and I was impatient to get to them.
I begrudged the time, too, that we put in on some public buildings,
though a down-town palace of Ali Ben Hussein, the final Dey of
Algiers--a gaudy wedding-cake affair, all fluting and frosting--was not
without interest, especially when we found that the late Hussein had
kept his seven wives there. It was a comparatively old building, built
in Barbarossa times, the guide said, and now used only on certain
official occasions. It is not in good taste, I imagine, even from the
Oriental standpoint.
[Illustration: MARVELLOUS BASKETS AND QUEER THINGS]
But what we wanted, some of us at least, was to get out of these
show-places and into the shops--the native shops that we could see
stretching down the little side-streets. We could discover perfectly
marvellous baskets and jugs and queer things of every sort fairly
stuffing these little native selling-places, and there were always
fascinating groups in those side-streets, besides men with big copper
water-jars on their shoulders that looked a thousand years old--the
jars, I mean--all battered and dented and polished by the mutations of
the passing years.
I wanted one of those jars. I would have given more for one of those
jars than for the mosque, including all the sacred rugs and the holy
men, or for the palace of A. B. Hussein, and Hussein himself, with his
seven wives thrown in for good measure. No, I withdraw that last item. I
would not make a quick decision like that in the matter of the wives. I
would like to look them over first. But, dear me, I forgot--they have
been dead a long, long time, so let the offer stand. That is to say, I
did want the jar and I was willing to do without the other things. There
was no good opportunity for investment just then, and when I discussed
the situation with Laura, who was in the carriage with me, she did not
encourage any side-adventures. She was right, I suppose, for we were
mostly on the move. We went clattering away through some pleasing parks,
presently, and our drivers, who were French, cracked their whips at the
Algerine rabble and would have run them down, I believe, with great
willingness, and could have done so, perhaps, without fear of penalty.
Certainly French soldiers are immune to retribution in Algiers. We saw
evidence of that, and I would have resented their conduct more, if I had
not remembered those days not so long ago of piracy and bondage, and
realized that these same people might be murdering and enslaving yet but
for the ever-ready whip of France.
[Illustration: WE DID NOT CARE MUCH FOR PARKS]
From one of the parks we saw above us an old, ruined, vine-covered
citadel. Could we go up there? we asked; we did not care much for parks.
Yes, we could go up there--all in good time. One does not hurry the
Orient--one waits on it. We did go up there, all in good time, and then
we found it was the Kasba, the same where had occurred the incident
which had brought about the fall of Algiers.
They did not show us the room where that historic spark had been
kindled, but they did tell us the story again, and they showed us a view
of the city and the harbor and the Atlas Mountains with snow on them,
and one of our party asked if those mountains were in Spain. I would
have been willing to watch that view for the rest of the day had we had
time. We did not have time. We were to lunch somewhere by and by, and
meantime we were to go through the very heart, the very heart of hearts,
of Algiers.
[Illustration: ETERNALLY EAST WITH NO HINT OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD]
That is to say, the Arab quarter--the inner circle of circles where, so
far as discoverable, French domination has not yet laid its hand. We
left the carriages at a point somewhere below the Kasba, passed through
an arch in a dead wall--an opening so low that the tallest of us had to
stoop (it was a "needle's eye," no doubt)--and there we were. At one
step we had come from a mingling of East and West to that which was
eternally East with no hint or suggestion of contact with any outside
world.
I should say the streets would average six to eight feet wide, all
leading down hill. They were winding streets, some of them dim, and each
a succession of stone steps and grades that meander down and down into a
stranger labyrinth of life than I had ever dreamed of.
How weak any attempt to tell of that life seems! The plastered,
blind-eyed houses with their mysterious entrances and narrow dusky
stairways leading to what dark and sinister occupancy; the narrow
streets bending off here and there that one might follow, who could say
whither; the silent, drowsing, strangely garbed humanity that regarded
us only with a vague scornful interest and did not even offer to beg;
the low dim coffee-houses before which men sat drinking and
contemplating--so inattentive to the moment's event that one might
believe they had sat always thus, sipping and contemplating, and would
so sit through time--how can I convey to the reader even a faint
reflection of that unreal, half-awake world or conjure again the spell
which, beholding it for the first time, one is bound to feel?
Everywhere was humanity which belonged only to the East--had always
belonged there--had remained unchanged in feature and dress and mode of
life since the beginning. The prophets looked and dressed just as these
people look and dress, and their cities were as this city, built into
steep hillsides, with streets a few feet wide, shops six feet square or
less, the dreaming shopkeeper in easy reach of every article of his
paltry trade.
I do not think it is a very clean place. Of course the matter of being
clean is more or less a comparative condition, and what one nation or
one family considers clean another nation or family might not be
satisfied with at all. But judged by any standards I have happened to
meet heretofore I should say the Arab quarter of Algiers was not
overclean.
But it was picturesque. In whatever direction you looked was a picture.
It was like nature untouched by civilization--it could not be
unpicturesque if it tried. It was, in fact, just that--nature unspoiled
by what we choose to call civilization because it means bustle,
responsibility, office hours, and, now and then, clean clothes. And
being nature, even the dirt was not unbeautiful.
Somebody has defined dirt as matter out of place. It was not out of
place here. Nor rags. Some of these creatures were literally a mass of
rags--rag upon rag--sewed on, tacked on, tied on, hung on--but they were
fascinating. What is the use trying to convey all the marvel of it in
words? One must see for himself to realize, and even then he will
believe he has been dreaming as soon as he turns away.
In a little recess, about half-way down the hill, heeding
nothing--wholly lost in reverie it would seem--sat two venerable,
turbaned men. They had long beards and their faces were fine and
dignified. These were holy men, the guides told us, and very sacred. I
did not understand just why they were holy--a mere trip to Mecca would
hardly have made them as holy as that, I should think--and nobody seemed
to know the answer when I asked about it. Then I asked if I might
photograph them, but I could see by the way our guide grabbed at
something firm to sustain himself that it would be just as well not to
press the suggestion.
I was not entirely subdued, however, and pretty soon hunted up further
trouble. A boy came along with one of the copper water-jars--a small
one--probably children's size. I made a dive for him and proposed buying
it; that is, I held out money and reached for the jar. He probably
thought I wanted a drink, and handed it to me, little suspecting my base
design. But when he saw me admiring the jar itself and discussing it
with Laura, who was waiting rather impatiently while our party was
drifting away, he reached for it himself, and my money did not seem to
impress him.
Now I suspect that those jars are not for sale. This one had a sort of
brass seal with a number and certain cryptic words on it which would
suggest some kind of record. As likely as not those jars are all
licensed, and for that boy to have parted with his would have landed us
both in a donjon keep. I don't know in the least what a donjon keep is,
but it sounds like a place to put people for a good while, and I had no
time then for experimental knowledge. Our friends had already turned a
corner when we started on and we hurried to catch up, not knowing
whether or not we should ever find them again.
We came upon them at last peering into an Arab school. The teacher, who
wore a turban, sat cross-legged on a raised dais, and the boys, who wore
fezzes--there were no girls--were grouped on either side--on a
rug--their pointed shoes standing in a row along the floor. They were
reciting in a chorus from some large cards--the Koran, according to the
guide--and it made a queer clatter.
It must have struck their dinner-hour, just then, for suddenly they all
rose, and each in turn made an obeisance to the teacher, kissed his
hand, slipped on a pair of little pointed shoes and swarmed out just as
any school-boy in any land might do. Only they were not so noisy or
impudent. They were rather grave, and their curiosity concerning us was
not of a frantic kind. They were training for the life of contemplation,
no doubt; perhaps even to be holy men.
We passed little recesses where artizans of all kinds were at work with
crude implements on what seemed unimportant things. We passed a
cubby-hole where a man was writing letters in the curious Arabic
characters for men who squatted about and waited their turn. We saw the
pettiest merchants in the world--men with half a dozen little heaps of
fruit and vegetables on the ground, not more than three or four
poor-looking items in each heap. In a land where fruit and vegetables
are the most plentiful of all products, a whole stock in trade like that
could not be worth above three or four cents. I wonder what sort of a
change they make when they sell only a part of one of those pitiful
heaps.
We were at the foot of the hill and out of that delightful Arab quarter
all too soon. But we could not stay. Our carriages were waiting there,
and we were in and off and going gaily through very beautiful streets to
reach the hotel where we were to lunch.
Neither shall I dwell on the governor's palace which we visited, though
it is set in a fair garden; nor on the museum, with the exception of
just one thing. That one item is, I believe, unique in the world's list
of curiosities. It is a plaster cast of the martyr Geronimo in the agony
of death. The Algerines put Geronimo alive into a soft mass of concrete
which presently hardened into a block, and was built into a fort. This
was in 1569, and about forty years later a Spanish writer described the
event and told exactly how that particular block could be located.
The fort stood for nearly three hundred years. Then in 1853 it was torn
down, the block was identified and broken open, and an almost perfect
mould of the dead martyr was found within. They filled the mould with
plaster, and the result--a wonderful cast--lies there in the museum
to-day, his face down as he died, hands and feet bound and straining,
head twisted to one side in the supreme torture of that terrible
martyrdom. It is a gruesome, fascinating thing, and you go back to look
at it more than once, and you slip out betweentimes for a breath of
fresh air.
Remembering the story and looking at that straining figure, you realize
a little of the need he must have known, and your lungs contract and you
smother and hurry out to the sky and sun and God-given oxygen of life.
He could not have lived long, but every second of consciousness must
have been an eternity of horror, for there is no such thing as time
except as to mode of measurement, and a measurement such as that would
compass ages unthinkable. If I lived in Algiers and at any time should
sprout a little bud of discontent with the present state of affairs--a
little sympathy with the subjugated population--I would go and take a
look at Geronimo, and forthwith all the discontent and the sympathy
would pass away, and I would come out gloating in the fact that France
can crack the whip and that we of the West can ride them down.
We drove through the suburbs, the most beautiful suburbs I have ever
seen in any country, and here and there beggars sprang up by the
roadside and pursued us up hill and down, though we were going
helter-skelter with fine horses over perfect roads. How these children
could keep up with us I shall never know, or how a girl of not more than
ten could carry a big baby and run full speed down hill, crying out
"_Sou-penny_" at every step, never stumbling or falling behind. Of
course, nobody could stand that. We flung her sou-pennies and she
gathered them up like lightning and was after the rear carriages,
unsatisfied and unabated in speed.
We passed a little lake with two frogs in it. They called to us, but
they spoke only French or Algerian, so we did not catch the point of
their remarks.
And now we drove home--that is, back to the fine streets near the
water-front where we were to leave the carriages and wander about for a
while, at will. That was a wild, splendid drive. We were all principals
in a gorgeous procession that went dashing down boulevards and through
villages, our drivers cracking their whips at the scattering people who
woke up long enough to make a fairly spry dash for safety.
Oh, but it was grand! The open barouches, the racing teams, the cracking
whips! Let the Arab horde have a care. They sank unoffending vessels;
they reddened the sea with blood; they enslaved thousands; they martyred
Geronimo. Let the whips crack--drive us fast over them!
Still, I wasn't quite so savage as I sound. I didn't really wish to
damage any of those Orientals. I only wanted to feel that I could do it
and not have to pay a fine--not a big fine--and I invented the idea of
taking a lot of those cheap Arabs to America for automobilists to use
up, and save money.
When we got back to town, while the others were nosing about the shops,
I slipped away and went up into the Arab quarter again, alone. It was
toward evening now, and it was twilight in there, and there was such a
lot of humanity among which I could not see a single European face or
dress. I realized that I was absolutely alone in that weird place and
that these people had no love for the "Christian Dog."
I do not think I was afraid, but I thought of these things, and wondered
how many years would be likely to pass before anybody would get a trace
of what had become of me, if anything did become of me, and what that
thing would be likely to be. Something free and handsome, no
doubt--something with hot skewers and boiling oil in it, or perhaps
soft concrete.
Still, I couldn't decide to turn back, not yet. If the place had been
interesting by daylight, it was doubly so, now, in the dusk, with the
noiseless, hooded figures slipping by; the silent coffee-drinkers in the
half gloom--leaning over now and then, to whisper a little gossip,
maybe, but usually abstracted, indifferent. What could they ever have to
gossip about anyway? They had no affairs. Their affairs all ended long
ago.
I came to an open place by and by, a tiny square which proved to be a
kind of second-hand market-place. I altered all my standards of economy
there in a few minutes. They were selling things that the poorest family
of the East Side of New York would pitch into the garbage-barrel. Broken
bottles, tin cans, wretched bits of clothing, cracked clay water-jars
that only cost a few cents new. I had bought a new one myself as I came
along for eight cents. I began to feel a deep regret that I had not
waited.
Adjoining the market was a gaming-place and coffee-house combined. Men
squatting on the ground in the dusk played dominoes and chess
wordlessly, never looking up, only sipping their coffee now and then,
wholly indifferent to time and change and death and the hereafter. I
could have watched them longer, but it would really be dark presently,
and one must reach the ship by a certain hour. One could hardly get lost
in the Arab quarter, for any downhill stair takes you toward the sea,
but I did not know by which I had come, so I took the first one and
started down.
I walked pretty rapidly, and I looked over my shoulder now and then,
because--well, never mind, I looked over my shoulder--and I would have
been glad to see anything that looked like a Christian. Presently I felt
that somebody was following me. I took a casual look and made up my mind
that it was true. There were quantities of smoking, drinking people all
about, but I didn't feel any safer for that. I stepped aside presently
and stood still to let him pass. He did pass--a sinister looking
Arab--but when I started on he stepped aside too, and got behind me
again.
So I stopped and let him pass once more, and then it wasn't necessary to
manoeuvre again, for a few yards ahead the narrow Arab defile flowed
into the lighter French thoroughfare. He was only a pick-pocket,
perhaps--there are said to be a good many in Algiers--but he was not a
pleasant-looking person, and I did not care to cultivate him at
nightfall in that dim, time-forgotten place.
I picked up some friends in the French quarter, and Laura and I drifted
toward the ship, pressed by a gay crowd of merry-makers. It was
carnival-time, as before mentioned, and the air was full of confetti,
and the open-air cafes were crowded with persons of both sexes and every
nation, drinking, smoking, and chattering, the air reeking with tobacco
and the fumes of absinthe. Everywhere were the red and blue soldiers of
France--Chasseurs d'Afrique and Zouaves--everywhere the fashionable
French costumes--everywhere the French tongue. And amid that fashion and
gayety of the West the fez and the turban and the long flowing robe of
the Orient mingled silently, while here and there little groups of
elderly, dignified sons of the desert stood in quiet corners, observing
and thinking long thoughts. And this is the Algiers of to-day--the West
dominant--the East a memory and a dream.
XII
WE TOUCH AT GENOA
We lost some of our passengers--the wrong ones--at Algiers. They wanted
to linger awhile in that lovely place, and no one could blame them. Only
I wish that next time we are to lose passengers I might make the
selection. I would pick, for instance--no, on the whole, I am not the
one to do it. I am fond of all of our people. They are peculiar, most of
them, as mentioned before--all of them, I believe, except me--but
thinking it over I cannot decide on a single one that I would be willing
to spare. Even the Porpoise-- But we have grown to love the Porpoise,
and the news that we are to lose him at Genoa saddens me.
We were pitched from Algiers to Genoa--not all at one pitch, though we
should have liked that better. A gale came up out of the north and,
great ship as the _Kurfuerst_ is, we stood alternately on our hind feet
and our fore feet all the way over--two nights and a day--while the roar
and howl of the wind were appalling. We changed our minds about the
placid, dreamy disposition of the Mediterranean; also, about sunny
Italy.
When the second morning came we were still a good way outside the harbor
of Genoa, in the grip of such a norther and blizzard as tears through
the Texas Panhandle and leaves dead cattle in its wake. Sunny Italy
indeed! The hills back of Genoa, when we could make them out at last,
were white with snow. To go out on deck was to breast the penetrating,
stinging beat of the storm.
But I stood it awhile to get an impression of the harbor. It is no
harbor at all, but simply a little corner of open sea, partly enclosed
by breakwaters that measurably protect vessels from heavy seas, when one
can get through the entrance. With our mighty engines and powerful
machinery we were beating and wallowing around the entrance for as much
as two hours, I should think, before we could get inside. You could stow
that harbor of Genoa anywhere along the New York City water-front,
shipping and all, and then you would need to employ a tug-boat captain
to find it for you. It is hard to understand how Genoa obtained her
maritime importance in the old days.
(I have just referred to the guide-book. It says: "The magnificent
harbor of Genoa was the cause of the mediaeval prosperity of the city,"
and adds that it is about two miles in diameter. Very well; I take it
all back. I was merely judging from observation. It has led me into
trouble before.)
We were only to touch at Genoa; some more of our passengers were to
leave us, and we were to take on the European contingent there. It was
not expected that there would be much sight-seeing, especially on such a
day, but some of us went ashore nevertheless. Laura, age fourteen, and I
were among those who went. We set out alone, were captured immediately
by a guide, repelled him, and temporarily escaped. It was a mistake,
however; we discovered soon that a guide would have been better on this
bitter, buffeting day.
We had no idea where to go, and when we spoke to people about it, they
replied in some dialect of Mulberry Street that ought not to be
permitted at large. Laura tried her French on them presently, but with
no visible effect, though it had worked pretty well in Algiers. Then I
discovered a German sign, over a restaurant or something, and I said I
would get information there.
I had faith in my German since my practice on the stewards, and I went
into the place hopefully. What I wanted to ask was "Where is Cook's?"
the first question that every tourist wants to ask when he finds himself
lost and cold and hungry in a strange land. But being lost and cold and
hungry confused me, I suppose, and I got mixed in my adverbs, and when
the sentence came out it somehow started with "_Warum_" instead of
"_Wo_" so instead of asking "Where is Cook's?" I had asked "Why is
Cook's?" a question which I could have answered myself if I had only
known I had asked it.