interiors, are not very clean, and to the Western eye, if not nose, they
suggest insanitary conditions. But it is never safe to judge from
appearances, and it may be that your brand-new _hôtel de luxe_ is richer
in lethal germs than this ramshackle city. I am not armed with any
statistics bearing on the point. At any rate, these devious
thoroughfares appear to be admirably policed, and in spite of their
cut-throat appearance it is said that they are safe for passage by day
or by night.
If the aspiring word-painter has failed to convey any due impression of
this curious labyrinth, the artist has seldom been more successful.
Perhaps it passes the endurance of flesh and blood to sit and paint,
where there is too little room to sit, exposed to the torments of an
Arab crowd. Even the humble photographer must own defeat. The narrowness
of the lanes, the height of the houses and the unwelcome attentions of
the passers-by try his skill beyond endurance. The casual wayfarer,
content with his own impressions, has the best of it.
It appears that in Turkish times the streets of the city had no
distinctive names. It may be that everyone knew where everyone else
lived. The Arab, at any rate, had no address. Presumably he had no
extensive correspondence. And perhaps he seldom received callers. There
were certainly no public vehicles, indeed no vehicles at all. It was
all, and is, a strange tangle; an incongruous medley of great houses and
squalid shops, of “the grey homes of the people and the palaces of the
mighty,” as Mr. Lloyd George said at Mile End. With laudable intentions
the French set to work to unravel it—to give at least to every street a
name, for to the European mind a street without a name is inconceivable;
although we frequently see in new-fledged localities names bestowed on
streets which are as yet in embryo. The official who was entrusted with
the job deserves immortality in the pillory. A more hopelessly
inappropriate collection of titles it would be difficult to conceive.
Such aberration almost touches genius. Rue du 4 Septembre, Rue
d’Amfreville, Rue du Galmier, Rue Annibal,—such are the gems which greet
our astonished eyes. And, above all, Rue Sidney Smith! What is the witty
parson—or is it the admiral?—doing in this galley? If only he had lived
to know it. But so for all time, or until the next conqueror arrives,
will it be.
The amateur will look in vain in Algiers for fine examples of Arab art,
such as he may study at Cairo, at Granada, or at Tlemçen, in the
province of Oran. The ravages of war, the stress of successive
bombardments, amply account for this. The old minarets are gone; such
work of the best period as may have existed has long disappeared; what
the French have spared is chiefly of the Turkish domination.
But, in truth, during the great days of Mohammedan art Algiers was not
of much importance. Its site had been previously occupied by the Roman
Icosium, a town of little place in history, but the seat of one of the
numerous North African bishoprics of the fifth century. The Arab town
was founded in the tenth century, at which time numerous monuments of
the Roman period are said to have been still standing. About the year
1500, when the Moors were expelled from Spain, many settled here, and
adopted the profession of pirates. It is at this time that the
importance of Algiers in the history of Europe commences.
[Illustration: ALGIERS: DOORWAY IN THE RUE BEN-ALI]
The Penon, the islet which, being connected with the shore by a mole,
forms the present inner harbour of Algiers, the old harbour of the
corsair fleet, is intimately connected with this period. Some good Arab
work is to be seen, notably a magnificent doorway in the Bureau de la
Marine, carved in white marble, or ornamented with inscriptions and with
tigers,—an infringement of the Moorish law which perhaps indicates its
Persian origin.[1] A small and very charming Arab house with good
carving and many tiles is used as the residence of the Admiral. As I
gazed deferentially at the exterior an obliging sailor invited me to
enter. “This,” he said, “is the _grand salon_ of the Admiral; and this,”
laying his hand on the handle of a door, “the Admiral’s _bureau_.” I
recalled the Oxford undergraduate who showed “his people” over his
college: “That,” he said, “is the Master’s Lodge, and that,” hurling a
stone at a window, “is the Master.” Perhaps my face showed some
apprehension of the possible apparition of a fierce French admiral with
bristling moustache hastening to repel the foreign invader, for my
conductor reassured me. “M. l’Amiral est absent,” he said. From a
pleasant flagged terrace, with a summer-house at the further end, the
Admiral may look down on the inner harbour, packed now with the French
torpedo-boats which have replaced the lateen-rigged vessels of its
former owners.
Footnote 1:
See Chapter IV.
The island and its mole have a strange history,—not the least
astonishing episode in the annals of this astonishing city. The
depredations of the Moorish pirates soon became extremely harassing to
Spain; not only did they seriously interfere with Spanish commerce, but
they made frequent raids on the Spanish coast, pillaging towns and
carrying away their inhabitants to slavery. The evil became so pressing
that at length a determined effort was made to put a stop to it. In 1509
a Spanish expedition, under Cardinal Ximenes, captured Oran and Bougie,
and as a check to the pirates of Algiers occupied the island facing the
town. Here they built a fort, which still exists in part, and forms the
base of the lighthouse. This expedition, for which the Cardinal supplied
the funds, was known as the “Crusade of Ximenes de Cisteros,” and was
regarded as a holy war, bestowing certain indulgences on those who took
part in it.
For nearly twenty years the Spaniards held the island, commanding the
roadstead and controlling the maritime proceedings of the Algerines.
These found the position so irksome that their Emir, to his own undoing,
called in the services of the celebrated pirate, Baba Aroudj, known to
Christendom as Barbarossa,
“A corsair’s name, linked with a thousand crimes.”
The romantic story of this king of robbers supplies a curious picture of
the times. At the beginning of the sixteenth century Lesbos, in
Mytilene, was the head-quarters of Turkish piracy in the Eastern
Mediterranean. A simple potter, or fisherman, as some say, of the island
had four sons, of whom two, Baba Aroudj and Kheir-ed-Din, rose to fame.
Aroudj was in particular of a soaring spirit. Marking the avenues to
fortune which the staple industry of the island presented, he became
“apprenticed to a pirate.” An early disaster seemed like to blast his
promising career; he was captured by a vessel of the Knights of Rhodes
and condemned to the galleys. But such checks are to the really great
only stepping-stones to higher things. Having, as was inevitable,
effected his escape, he betook himself to Tunis, determined in the freer
air of a new country to wipe out the memory of his early failure, and to
find a fresh theatre for his energies. His professional knowledge stood
him in good stead. He proposed to the Sultan of Tunis that they should
enter into a partnership, in accordance with which he should conduct the
active part of the business, and the Sultan receive half the profits, in
consideration of his countenance and support. The Sultan, with that
discernment that has so often characterized sovereigns, saw that he had
to deal with a man of mark, and jumped at the proposal. A pirate station
on the most approved lines was established at Djerba, where Aroudj was
shortly joined by his brother, Kheir-ed-Din. The enterprise met with
more than the success it deserved. Besides the ordinary dividends of the
business, the brothers were able to make many very handsome presents to
their partner and patron. On one occasion, it is recorded, they offered
to him fifty Spanish youths holding in leash hounds and hawks of the
rarest breeds, and four young ladies of noble birth, attired in splendid
garments and mounted on magnificent horses. Mulai Mohammed, the Sultan,
however keen a hand in purely business matters, was not the man to turn
a deaf ear to the appeal of a brother in distress. The plight of his
fellow-monarch, the Emir of Algiers, moved him deeply. With a quite
distinguished disinterestedness he proposed to his associates that they
should abandon for a time the ordinary course of their duties and
proceed to Algiers to turn the obnoxious Spaniards out of their eyrie on
the island. Baba Aroudj arrived at Algiers with 5000 men, and was hailed
as a deliverer. But the instincts of his trade were too strong for him.
Instead of attacking the Spaniards on the Penon, he put the Emir to
death, proclaimed himself King, and gave the town to pillage. Master of
Algiers, with his vessels dominant at sea, he set himself to win an
empire. He occupied Medea and Tlemçen, and menaced the Spanish position
at Oran. This was too much, and Charles V sent thither a powerful force
to check him. He retired on Tlemçen, and fell in an obscure fight at
Oudjda, on the frontier of Morocco, a town of some significance in
recent history, and now in the occupation of the French.
“He left a name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral and adorn a tale.”
His brother, Kheir-ed-Din, assumed the reins of power at Algiers.
Lacking the vaulting ambition of the terrible Barbarossa, he seems to
have possessed a sounder business head. His first care was to assure his
position; and with this object he offered his African dominions to Selim
I, Sultan of Turkey. The Turk accepted the offer, and named Kheir-ed-Din
his “Captain-pasha.” So arose the Turkish domination of Algeria, which
lasted for three centuries, and inflicted on Europe unnumbered woes. If
Europe had only known it, now was the time to cut off the serpent’s
head; but Europe, as usual, was busy with its own quarrels. Charles V
did indeed conduct an expedition in person in 1535, but it was
half-hearted and proved abortive. No native prince arose to repel the
Turkish pretensions, which were consolidated by the capture of Tunis and
the occupation of Kairouan, the holy city.
Kheir-ed-Din next turned his attention to the Spanish garrison on the
Penon. Having procured heavy guns, he bombarded the position for fifteen
days with an incessant fire. The garrison of 150 men made a heroic
resistance, but when all save twenty-five were killed, the island was
captured and the survivors put to death.
The brave commander, Martin Vargas, was offered the alternative of
embracing Mohammedanism and a Mohammedan wife or execution. He chose the
latter, and was beaten to death with sticks, his body was dragged
through the streets, cut into pieces, and thrown into the sea. So did
the corsair treat a gallant foe.
It was then that Kheir-ed-Din conceived the project of uniting the
island and the city, with the double object of preventing any repetition
of the Spanish occupation and of providing a harbour for his fleet.
Thirty thousand Christian slaves supplied him with labour, and materials
lay near to hand. The ruins of the old Roman city of Rusgania strewed
the shore at Cape Matifou; and countless blocks of Roman hewn stone and
marble lie buried beneath the floor of the mole. The work, a very big
work for the period, was finished in three years, and henceforth for
nearly three centuries the corsair fleets lay within, safe from the
storms of the Mediterranean and the attacks of their enemies.
Kheir-ed-Din’s son mounted batteries on the Penon, and built the
lighthouse tower in 1544. It is of octagonal shape, nearly 120 feet
high, and visible for a distance of fifteen miles. A band of gleaming
tiles below the summit happily relieves the monotony of its elevation.
The present great harbour, covering 222 acres, was commenced by the
French in 1836. It was formed by continuing the line of Kheir-ed-Din’s
mole to the south-east, and building another of irregular form from a
point to the south of the city. In these works blocks of concrete were
used for the first time in such operations,—an experiment which has had
important results. In the making of this great harbour, as in so many
other constructive matters, the French have risen to the level of their
opportunities. Their genius in such large matters is unquestioned; and
if anyone doubts their pre-eminence in minor arts, let him compare their
coinage and their postage stamps with those of any other nation.
The French have done many great things; one thing they have omitted,—to
provide an adequate service of passenger steamers between France and
North Africa. They have generally fallen behind in the race of maritime
improvement in recent years; but the insufficiency of this particular
service may be due to the fact that trade between Marseilles and Algeria
is held to be French coasting trade, and therefore reserved to vessels
sailing under the French flag. The stimulus of foreign competition is
absent. But nothing can prevent the indirect competition of the superior
steamers of the North German Lloyd to Genoa, which are securing much of
the tourist traffic. This company is gradually establishing a network of
steamer lines in the Mediterranean. And a service of fast steamers
covering the voyage between Barcelona and Algiers in twelve hours is now
mooted. This may prove a further nail in the coffin of the Marseilles
route. But the French have it in their hands to retain the trade by
running adequate steamers properly equipped.
In spite of the heavy hand of the destroyer a few fine houses of the
Turkish domination survive, and some are put to public uses and are
accessible to the stranger. They exhibit a usual characteristic of the
Eastern house; they are insignificant, sometimes even squalid without,
but like the princess they are all glorious within. Christendom builds
its houses for the public eye. This is not entirely altruistic; not
wholly due to a desire to please the neighbours; a man’s credit and
importance (even, it is said, the amount of his doctor’s bill) bear some
relation in the opinion of his world to the outward appearance of the
house in which he lives. And in the northern view, at any rate, a man’s
house is a consideration prior to his equipage, his retinue, and his
personal adornment. And some value attaches to what is called “a good
address.” Wherefore our note-paper headings often contain a _suggestio
falsi_; and Glenalmond Villa or The Elms strive to conceal the banality
of a mere terrace.
All this is unmeaning to the Mussulman. He fulfils Bacon’s dictum that
“houses are built to live in, not to look upon, wherefore let use be
preferred before uniformity.” A bare wall with narrow and barred windows
facing a mean alley;—such is his house’s exterior. It seems rather to
desire to escape than to court observation. It has more the air of a
fortress than of a dwelling. The doorways are an exception to the
prevailing plainness. They exhibit a great variety of detail, but mainly
follow a Roman or Byzantine scheme, of a round arch supported on
columns, the whole copiously decorated. The doors themselves are
generally of simple woodwork, often heavily studded with iron, and
sometimes retaining their fine old handles and knockers. To the wanderer
in the Arab town they offer a never-failing source of interest and
study. The elaboration of the doorway when all else that is external is
plain would seem to be thoroughly congruous with Oriental taste and
tradition. The door of the house and the gate of the city stand for much
in private and public life, for the line that divides the intimate and
the stranger, the friend and the foe. Our fathers had some sense of the
dignity of the door, a sense which in our careless acceptance of
decadent conventions we have almost lost. We may strive to recover it in
contemplating these Arab portals. The charming drawings of Mr. Thoroton,
here reproduced, accurately represent their general scheme and the
variety of their ornament. A common decorative feature appears to be
based on the artichoke; the precision of its symmetry doubtless appeals
strongly to Mohammedan prejudices.
When you have passed the portal the very contrast of the squalor without
heightens the effect of the splendour and refinement within. The usual
type of house is one which the Arabs owe to the Romans, or both to an
earlier source. The doorway opens on to a long vestibule, with a row of
marble seats on either side, divided at regular intervals by columns,
often twisted and generally suggesting the Ionic order. From this you
pass into the main dwelling, a square marble court open, or partially
open, to the sky, round which are grouped the chief rooms. Marble
columns support the gallery of the first floor, the walls are a blaze of
tiles, a fine dark balustrade of open woodwork surrounds the gallery;
and in the centre of the court-yard perhaps the pleasant plash of a
fountain emphasises the pervading peace. It is all very splendid, and
yet most dignified. Such a beautiful house is used as the Bibliothèque
Municipale, a library with 35,000 volumes, many Arabian and Persian
MSS., and an up-to-date card catalogue. Another is the residence of the
Archbishop. This is said to be a fragment of the ancient palace of the
Deys. It is a pleasant touch of humour which lodges the Archbishop in
the last remnant of the harem. To these may be added the Governor’s
Winter Palace, with a modern front and rich interior decorations; and a
few other houses occupied by officials, and not open to inspection
without an introduction.
A mere civilian must bow before the requirements of the military
authorities, but he may be permitted to regret that they should have
seen fit to turn the Kasbeh, the ancient fortress of the Deys, into a
barrack. As may naturally be expected, the decorations and many of the
original features have disappeared; marble columns have been replaced by
wooden posts, tiles have been picked off,—and the Dey’s pavilion has
been repainted! Worse than all, a public road has been driven right
through the centre of the old compact mass of buildings surrounded by
their embattled wall. The visitor will turn away with disgust from this
reckless spoliation, which will some day no doubt be bitterly regretted.
Of the mosques of Algiers, that of Sidi Abd er Rahman, adjoining the
tomb of the saint, is the most picturesque. The great mosque of Djama el
Kebir has a very handsome exterior, notably a magnificent colonnade
fronting the Rue de la Marine. The entrance is pleasing, but the
interior rather bare. The mosque in the Place du Gouvernement, known as
the New Mosque, was built in 1660 to the designs of a Christian slave,
and is in the form of a Greek cross. The Catholic Cathedral was formerly
a mosque, and is now an eclectic monstrosity.
[Illustration: ALGIERS: ENTRANCE-DOOR OF THE MOSQUE, RUE DE LA MARINE]
The interest which Algiers has for the traveller is closely bound up
with the hideous story of the Christian captives. Our literature,
especially of the seventeenth century, is full of allusion to their
miserable condition. Their numbers were prodigious. In 1646 it was
reckoned that there were not less than 20,000 such slaves. During our
Civil War the Channel was full of Algerine pirates, and their operations
extended to the North Sea. The Long Parliament passed an Act “whereby
they did manifest unto the world their resolution of undertaking that
Christian work of the Redemption of the Captives from the cruel thraldom
that they lay under,” and established a tax on merchants’ goods, called
“Algier duty,” to provide funds for the purpose. Many distinguished men
were at one time or another slaves in Barbary. Cervantes was in
captivity for five years, and has related some of his miseries in the
story of “The Captive” in “Don Quixote.” He who went to sea in those
days had to face the chance of “being taken by the insolent foe and sold
to slavery.” It will be recalled that before he set forth on his
immortal voyage Robinson Crusoe was captured by a Sallee-rover, and
worked as a slave. Samuel Pepys records (February 8th, 1660-1) a
conversation on the subject: “At noon to the Exchange to meet Mr. Warren
the timber merchant, but could not meet with him. Here I met with many
sea commanders, and among others Captain Cuttle, and Curtis and Mootham,
and I went to the Fleece Tavern to drink; and there we spent till four
o’clock, telling stories of Algiers, and the manner of the life of
slaves there. And truly Captain Mootham and Mr. Dawes (who have been
both slaves there) did make me fully acquainted with their condition
there: as, how they eat nothing but bread and water. At their redemption
they pay so much for the water they drink at the public fountaynes,
during their being slaves. How they are beat upon the soles of their
feet and bellies at the liberty of their padron. How they are all, at
night, called into their master’s Bagnard [prison]; and there they lie.
How the poorest men do use their slaves best. How some rogues do live
well, if they do invent to bring their masters in so much a week by
their industry or theft.” Other accounts give far more harrowing details
of the sufferings of the slaves and of the tortures they endured.
When a prize was brought in, the crew and the passengers were forced by
torture, generally the bastinado, to declare their quality and
condition. The Dey selected one in eight for himself, generally
preferring skilled workmen. The remainder were sold by auction for the
benefit of the owners and crews of the pirate vessels. The European
Powers maintained consuls at Algiers, and through them, and other
agencies, those of the captives whose friends could find the ransom
demanded, were, after much delay, redeemed.
That such an iniquity was more or less tolerated for centuries is one of
the curiosities of history. It can only be explained by the fact that
European nations found it a convenient scourge for their enemies. France
and England especially were continually intriguing to make infamous
treaties with the Dey to the benefit of each against the other. All
nations, including the United States of America, after they obtained
their independence in 1783, paid tribute to the Dey in one form or
another to secure the exemption of their vessels from capture; but the
Algerines never respected any treaty when they could violate it with
advantage or probable impunity.