[Illustration: The Author]
ALGERIA
FROM WITHIN
BY
R. V. C. BODLEY
ILLUSTRATED
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1927,
BY THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
_Printed in the
United States of America_
PRINTED AND BOUND
BY BRAUNWORTH & CO., INC.
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
_To_
MY MANY FRIENDS
OF ALL NATIONALITIES WHO
INHABIT ALGERIA
FOREWORD
This is not a preface but merely a few words to state that in
writing these pages I have in no way tried to criticize the French
administration or to discuss the Arab from any point of view but
that of a spectator.
I have no political feelings, few ambitions beyond living simply
and far away from the world, and if this work exists at all, it
is because I have wished that people should know Algeria as it
really is.
Once upon a time I had great ideas about worldly position and the
sound of long titles; I believed that greatness was to be achieved
in the capitals of Europe or on the battle-fields, but I know now
that this is not so. Worldly positions and great titles are the
weary outcome of much money laboriously reaped, and the heroes of
battle-fields pass unnoticed in the street.
Southern Algeria, with all its charm, with all its capricious moods,
has, like some lovely woman, taken me in its arms and I am doubtful
if it will ever let me go.
Let this book therefore be read in the spirit in which it has been
written by one who, having seen life in many parts of the globe,
has found peace and solution to all worldly difficulties among the
rustling palm-trees and broad expanses of the Sahara.
I must here take the opportunity of thanking certain kind friends
who have helped me in my work, notably:
Monsieur Jean Causeret, Secrétaire Général du Gouvernement
Général, who has supplied me with maps, Dr. Alfred S. Gubb,
the well-known English physician in Algiers, the Rev. Lucius Fry,
British Chaplain in Algiers, and Mrs. Clare Sheridan, who have all
lent me photos appearing in these pages. My thanks are also due to
Mrs. Welthin Winlo, whose untiring secretarial work has helped me
to prepare this work, to Miss Una Thomas who has helped me with
the proofs, and to Mr. Julian Sampson, who has not only supplied
me with photographs, but who has also brought his expert knowledge
to bear in the selecting of suitable illustrations.
LAGHOUAT,
_November_, 1926.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The Object of the Book 13
II A Little Geography 17
III A Little History 22
IV The French Conquest of Algeria 29
V The Inhabitants To-Day 35
VI French Administration of Algeria 40
VII Arab Administration 48
VIII Marabouts 57
IX The Arab Character 64
X Life among the Arabs 72
XI Arab Women 80
XII Arab Love and the Women of the Reserved Quarter 87
XIII Arab Music and Dancing 94
XIV Religion 101
XV Religious Observances 109
XVI “Mektoub” and Other Superstitions 116
XVII Abd-El-Kader 122
XVIII Arab Education 128
XIX Sport among the Arabs 133
XX The Nomads 140
XXI Sheep-Breeding 146
XXII Other Products 152
XXIII Algiers 158
XXIV Two Excursions 164
XXV Voyage 170
XXVI Bou Saada 176
XXVII The First Glimpse of the Sahara 182
XXVIII The Oasis of Laghouat 187
XXIX The Mzab 194
XXX Ghardaia and Adjoining Towns 201
XXXI Guerrera and the Sand Desert 208
XXXII Biskra 213
XXXIII Timgad 219
XXXIV Djemila the Desolate 226
XXXV Constantine to the Coast 232
XXXVI Kebylie 239
XXXVII Traveling Off the Beaten Track 246
XXXVIII Few Sketches of Arab Life 252
XXXIX A Last Glimpse of the Arab 295
Index 303
ALGERIA FROM WITHIN
CHAPTER I
THE OBJECT OF THE BOOK
A writer who sets out to study a foreign country such as Algeria
is faced with two difficulties: the first, the natural suspicion
of the Mohammedan population; the second, the little information
obtainable from the French inhabitants of the country.
It has been possible to overcome the first difficulty by making
the Arab realize that there was no intention to interfere with
his interior life or to obtain information in order to denounce
family secrets. The second difficulty has remained. This is due
to two factors. The first is the ignorance of the majority of
Frenchmen, whether they be business men or colonists, of the customs
and peculiarities of any area not neighboring that in which they
actually dwell; the second is the French administrator’s apparent
lack of information on anything beyond that which is not already
to be found in the official handbooks.
When occasionally one meets some one with a deeper knowledge of
the matters which should interest him, it is hard, as a foreigner,
to obtain any valuable data. The Frenchman finds it difficult
to realize that any one can wish to peer into the inner workings
of a foreign country without some ulterior motive. If it is not
deliberate spying for a jealous government, it is to steal a march
on some business enterprise!
Comprehensive books on Algeria of to-day are few, and usually
contradict one another, according to the point of view of the
writers.
The only solution, therefore, to the problem of writing this book
has been for the author to settle in the country, living the life of
its people, and gleaning what information was possible as a business
man in the city of Algiers, as a sheep-breeder on the Sahara, and as
a traveler across the great plains and mountains of this sunny land.
The title of the book has perhaps a pretentious sound, suggesting
that Algeria is some unexplored country into which the writer has
penetrated, bringing back with him revelations of unknown mysteries
never yet set before the public. But though this is not the case,
it is hoped that the reader, be he a tourist or scholar, will find
in these pages information which is new and interesting—_Algeria
from Within_ in opposition to the Algeria from “_without_”
as set down by travelers who have passed a few winter months in
the country and who, returning home, have compiled an inaccurate
volume based on first impressions and on legends served up very
hot by the hard-worked guides.
These legends will have to be dispelled at the cost of disillusioning
veteran visitors who pass winter after winter in the overheated
hotels of Mustapha Supérieur. But, against this, the book will
endeavor to explain shortly and accurately what this French colony
really is, what its people are doing and thinking, wherein lies
its future.
There have been no aspirations to make of it a comprehensive
guide-book or survey of the country’s long history, neither has
any attempt been made to criticize the French rule, or to compare
it with the administration of other colonies. True facts have been
set down as seen by one who has lived many years in the country,
constantly studying all about him without confining himself to one
area nor to one class of people. Living not only in the big cities,
but also in the cultivated plains, in the desolation of the desert,
and mixing with the French administrators, with business men, with
the colonists, and visiting the Arabs in such intimacy that it is
possible to tell of their daily life as it is really lived.
[Illustration: map]
It is more a pen-picture of Algeria and the Sahara as it is to-day,
drawn in the desire that the reader— be he traveler in all the
senses of the word or one who journeys by his fireside on long
winter evenings— will close the volume with a feeling that he
has peeped for a moment into the intimate life of a country which,
with all its youthful future, has a background of history more
varied perhaps than any other country in the world. . . .
To the average tourist who leaves the misty London station in
search of warmth and sunshine, the country he is about to visit
is probably a somewhat uncertain vision of blue skies, palm-trees,
and stately Arabs.
The inspired artists of the P. L. M. railway posters have dazzled
his eyes with enchanting prospects of palm-green shores and rolling
expanses of sand, golden in a perpetual sunset, while the scaleless
maps of tourist agencies have graven in his mind the names Algiers,
Biskra, Fez and Tunis, leaving him with a vague impression that
all these places are in the same country and within easy reach of
one another.
His mind is rather in the same state as that of the old lady who asks
the officer going to India not to forget to look up her nephew who
is stationed in Burmah. He has probably not realized that Algeria
differs greatly from Tunisia and Morocco in people and in government,
and that it has no connections whatever with either of these two
countries which form its eastern and western frontiers.
Even winter residents and regular visitors to Algeria know the
country very superficially, and though some have ventured along
the beaten tracks as far as the oases of Touggourt and Ghardaia,
there are few who have left the main roads and mixed in the private
life of the country. And what blame to them? There are few railways,
and the motor-transport time-tables are lacking. The guide-books do
not dwell upon places off the classical tours, the information at
the tourist agencies goes no further, and even if the adventurous
traveler pushes into the unfrequented regions, he will find no one
to guide him, and unless he knows Arabic he will often be unable to
make himself understood. Even when the acquaintance of an Arab chief
has been made it takes many months to break through his exterior
façade and to obtain a glimpse of his thoughts or his private life.
This book, therefore—which should be read in conjunction with a
guide-book—will endeavor to lift a veil on matters which are of
the deepest interest to all those who want to learn something about
a land which must appeal to the most blasé traveler.