to be seen. The theatre, now marked by a mere depression in the ground,
was almost perfect. Here we have a genuine grievance against the French
conquest; but 1840 was in the dark ages. So Cæsarea has passed; the
Vandals, the Arabs, the earthquakes, and the French have all done their
worst: and between them they have made an end of it. Perhaps even a
systematic excavation would not yield us much of value. The statues to
be seen in the museum are for the most part copies of statues already
found at Rome, and suggest that there was little originality in the
artists employed by Juba and Selene. But nothing can impair the beauty
of the site, and not even the presence of a banal Franco-Arab town can
forbid us to dream of a white marble city beneath a deep blue sty and
facing a purple sea.
So we turn homewards. For a while we follow the Marengo road by which we
came; pass the great aqueduct again; but shortly turn to the left to
reach Tipasa and the seaside road to Algiers. As we approach the coast
traces of the Roman past are everywhere;—on every mound great shaped
stones, “the splendid wrecks of former pride,” lie in confusion, and
here and there a portico suggests the existence of a suburban villa,
“While oft some temple’s mouldering tops between
With memorable grandeur mark the scene.”
When we reach Tipasa itself the great stones lie in heaps, in most
admired disorder. The ruins in their extent seem to indicate the
existence of a greater town than the historians admit Tipasa to have
been. It is said to have been founded by Claudius as a colony of
veterans, and to have contained 20,000 inhabitants. It is rich in
memories of the great Arian controversy which played so important a part
in the history of North Africa after the triumph of Christianity. In
A.D. 484 the Vandal king, Huneric, imposed an Arian bishop on the
Catholic inhabitants. A great part fled to Spain; those who remained and
refused to accept the heresy had their right arms lopped off and their
tongues cut out. It would seem that different branches of Christendom
have often been inclined to treat their erring brethren with more
severity than they meted out to the unregenerate heathen. Perhaps the
heathen has ever been a more likely convert.
The situation of Tipasa belies the opinion that the ancients had no eye
for natural scenery. It stood on a fair promontory sheltering from the
east a little cove which is protected from the west by the great
mountain mass of Djebel-Chénoua, which lies between Tipasa and Cherchel.
The country around is singularly picturesque, and the _tout ensemble_
very beautiful, even for this beautiful coast.
Thence we start for a run of fifty or sixty miles by the seaside road to
Algiers, a road which has been splendidly engineered, and is kept for
the most part in a condition beyond praise. In front of us stretches the
coast-line past the Bay of Algiers to Cap Matifou; on our right are the
wooded hills of the Sahel. Here and there the land between the road and
the sea is laid out in gardens formed in small rectangular plots divided
by hedges of a tall reed to break the force of the wind. Even so the
Dutch nurserymen erect screens to protect their tulips on the wind-swept
lowlands of Holland. In these enclosures we particularly note frequent
plantations of the tall “silver” banana. And so in due time we reach
Algiers, conscious of a well-spent day.
Travel gives the death-blow to many illusions. If there is one tenet to
which British self-complacency has clung with more desperate energy than
another, it is that our people are the only successful colonists. We are
ready to admit that the German has hardly had a fair chance. He is
relegated for the present to desert tropical lands which failed in the
past to tempt even Portugal. That France owns colonies of a different
class we have been dimly aware, but the oracles of the club and of the
Press have consistently pictured to us the French colonist as a
miserable being who passes his time sipping absinthe in a café, and
longing for his return to _la belle France_. Possibly in the purlieus of
Algiers such a being might be discovered; at any rate, he is certainly
not more in evidence than the “remittance men” and bar-loafers are in
our own colonies. And a motor drive for twenty or thirty miles through
the rich plain which encircles Algiers will send our long-cherished
belief a-packing to the limbo of dead British prejudices. We have
recently discovered that the home-staying French, at any rate, know
something about practical gardening, and the raising of vegetable crops
for market; that their scientific methods and untiring energy combine to
get more out of the ground than we do; and we have even been led to
pocket our pride and to import certain practical French gardeners, at a
fancy wage, to show us how the thing is done. In this we are only
following the example of our ancestors, who acquired most of their arts
and crafts from French and Flemish refugees. Yet it was quite a shock
when one of these new-comers, looking round him at the fair fields of
the home farm on a great estate in a southern county, ingenuously
remarked, “But why is not this country cultivated?”
Of this great plain between the sea and the mountains no such question
could be asked. Some corn is raised, and some vegetables, such as
artichokes, but most of it is devoted to the culture of the vine. It is
all in the highest state of cultivation, and not an inch is wasted. The
vines are planted in open fields, with the precision of the hops of
Kent. Now is the time of pruning, and they are all being cut back to
within a foot or so of the ground. To an eye accustomed to the hill-side
and rocky vineyards of the Rhine, of Italy, or of Madeira, to the vines
which in Southern Europe throw themselves in reckless abandon over
trellises and wayside trees, these flat fields, which suggest turnips or
beet, have a very unromantic appearance. But it is easy to see that the
cultivation is conducted on the most scientific and business-like lines.
It was our privilege to be invited to visit a French gentleman and his
family at their residence about twenty miles from Algiers. Our host has
purchased a large tract of land, the whole of which he has turned into a
great vineyard. He has built a pleasant country house, and filled it
with treasures of Arab art, and the trophies of travel in other lands.
He has planted a garden of palms and sub-tropical shrubs—a garden not
kept up to the standard of English trimness, but rich in shade, and
pleasantly suggestive of a jungle. Not only are his vines planted and
pruned with mathematical precision, but all his machinery for the
extraction and treatment of the grape juice is of the latest and most
practical character. A long building lined with huge vats gives an idea
of the greatness of his undertaking, and is designed to enable him to
hold the produce of two vintages in the event of a bad market:—a very
important advantage to a producer. There is nothing of the model, or
pleasure, farm about the place; it is all intensely practical. “It is an
industry,” said our host; and indeed it is; a fine example of industrial
intelligence applied to agriculture. The presence on the farm of two
motor-cars and an aeroplane is evidence that he is otherwise abreast of
the movement.
It may be that our host is exceptionally gifted, both in enterprise and
resources, but at any rate his example must be of great value. And the
vistas all around of similar properties with pleasant houses bowered in
trees and gardens suggest that it is followed. It is agreeable to learn
that this industry meets its due reward. In 1910 it has been
exceptionally profitable. The chief buyers of Algerian wines are the
wine-shippers of Bordeaux and Macon, from whose cellars they emerge as
claret and Burgundy. The complete failure of the vintage in Europe has
caused a rise of fully fifty per cent in the price of the produce of
Algeria. In this happy climate, sure of its winter rain and its summer
sun, a failure of the vintage is unknown and almost inconceivable.
Viticulture has become the most important of the industries in which
Europeans in Algeria are engaged, and its prosperity is of great
importance to the Colony. Before the French conquest, the use of wine
being forbidden by the Koran, the vine was only grown to a small extent
for its fruit; the _raisin sucré_ of Khabylia was especially esteemed as
a sweetmeat for dessert. The first colonists made experiments in the
production of wine, but with insufficient knowledge and inadequate
equipment. Wine-makers are an aristocracy among agriculturists; a high
intelligence and inherited traditions count for much. The ravages of the
phylloxera in France created the opportunity of Algeria. The
wine-growers of the South thrown out of work were ready to emigrate, and
the deficit in the mother country’s production offered a great market
for the Colony. Since that time the industry has made steady
progression. In 1850 2000 acres were under cultivation as vineyards; in
1905 about 450,000 acres. The production of wine, which amounted to
370,000 gallons in 1878, is now over 150,000,000 gallons. The price
obtained for wine exported is subject to very wide fluctuations. In 1903
the 100,000,000 gallons exported realized £4,000,000. In 1906
110,000,000 gallons realized only £1,600,000.
Algeria has managed to keep comparatively free from the phylloxera; the
provinces of Oran and Constantine, west and east, have suffered
somewhat, but the central province, Algiers, has so far escaped.
Energetic measures are taken to guard against the extension of the
plague, and owners of vines which it is found necessary to destroy are
compensated by the State. The policy of the Government is now not to
encourage the extension of the vineyards, but to improve the quality of
their produce. An effort should be made to find other outlets than the
French market, and thus counteract the wide fluctuations in value which
arise from its varying demands. Some attempt has already been made to
produce rich dessert wines similar to those of Portugal and Madeira, of
which there is a considerable consumption in France, and it would appear
that there is no obstacle to its success. A delicious Muscat is already
made, which might conceivably obtain a great vogue.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_IV—A GARDEN AND SOME BUILDINGS_
Jardin d’Essai—A lost opportunity—Some suggestions—The villas of
Mustapha—A model museum—Arab art—Its origins—Its limitations—Its
significance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“There is an art to which I hold no key,
A tangled maze of curve and line I see;
Do you, my brother, keener-eyed, discern
A silent symbol of infinity?”
The amateur gardener, especially if he has any knowledge of tropical or
sub-tropical horticulture, will probably not be long in Algiers without
visiting the Jardin d’Essai. This modest title is given to an extremely
successful attempt at acclimatization, chiefly of tropical trees, on a
large scale. It was established by the Government eighty years ago, and
is now the property of the Compagnie Générale Algérienne, which grows
vast quantities of young palms and other trees for export to Paris and
London.
[Illustration: ALGIERS: GARDEN OF THE HOTEL ST. GEORGE]
The garden in itself will be a disappointment to the garden-lover. It is
a rectangular piece of ground, intersected by straight alleys, and with
the exception of a pool of water at the southern corner, containing a
small island, there is little attempt at what is called landscape
gardening. And the possibilities of a water-garden are neglected. One
wonders what an Algerian Wisley would be like. The whole aspect of the
place suggests a not very well kept nursery garden, which in effect it
is. But the wealth of its contents completely atones for its poverty in
design.
Perhaps the most striking feature is an avenue of india-rubber trees,
which have attained a gigantic size,—a height in some cases of sixty
feet and a girth of twenty feet. It is a wonder that this garden was not
“floated” on the London market during the recent “boom.” At any rate, it
does contain rubber trees, which it is understood some of the areas
offered to the public did not. Another species of _ficus_ covers a large
space of ground, throwing down fresh roots from its lateral branches,
and apparently prepared to travel in this way in every direction. It is
unfortunate that the trees and shrubs are very insufficiently labelled;
occasional fragments of labels more or less indecipherable, and in some
cases, I think, incorrect, may be discovered; but there is no systematic
attempt to afford information. This ought not to be so in a garden for
which the State is partially responsible.
The palms are very fine, and of many different species, including some
great rarities which I am unable to name. All the commoner bamboos are
in profusion, but being for the most part planted as hedges rather than
as clumps they lose their natural effect. Various Yuccas vie with the
india-rubber trees in their splendid growth. At the southern end of the
garden, where the formality of the avenues gives place to a little
wilderness, are some magnificent clumps of _Strelitzia augusta_,—finer
in size and growth than I have seen elsewhere,—and towering above them
are some lofty specimens of _Chorisia speciosa_ from Brazil. In the
drier spots are various species of aloe; and in the wetter papyrus
flourishes exceedingly. The fantastic _Monstrera deliciosa_ is quite at
home, and imbeds its constricting coils in the palm-trunks, in a way
which must be very painful to them.
Not much colour is to be expected in the early months of the year, but
two or three Bougainvilleas make a moderate show, and both _Bignonia
venusta_ and _B. Smithii_ are in flower. The exquisite _Plumbago
Capensis_ is coming into bloom; also the single red _Hibiscus_ and its
less attractive double variety. A little trouble spent on this garden
would soon make it one of the finest in the world, without in any way
impairing its commercial uses. The material is there, and a little skill
in rearrangement of walks and in grouping of specimens is all that is
wanted.
Perhaps a friendly critic may venture to be also an adviser. It is to be
presumed that Algiers welcomes the advent of strangers. And I find that
the local press records with satisfaction that hotels are full, and also
that great steamers with hundreds of tourists constantly arrive. These
strangers do good to trade, and it may therefore be worth while to pay a
little attention to their tastes, and to increase rather than diminish
the attractions which draw them hither. Even if the inhabitants of
Algiers care little about the beauty of the surroundings of their city,
they are part of its essential charm, and should be preserved from the
destruction which is everywhere threatening them. The ruthless felling
of ancient trees, the obstruction of points of view, the vulgarization
of pleasant places,—these may seem little things individually, but in
the mass they tell. There are, I believe, full powers to deal with such
matters, and the Minister of the Interior has recently addressed to the
_préfets_ of France a circular calling attention to the necessity of
safeguarding sites of artistic and natural beauty. Let Algiers lead the
way, and she will not repent it. But she may some day bitterly repent
inaction now.
[Illustration: ALGIERS: FOUNTAIN IN THE KASBEH]
Another suggestion. It would not be a great matter for the town to
purchase a block of buildings in the old streets below the Kasbeh, to
clean them out and to preserve them without undue restoration. Strangers
wish to see what the old town was like, and are not all able to battle
with the squalor and turmoil of the old streets as they are. Such a
little natural museum would more than pay for its cost. And—this is a
smaller matter still—it would be for the convenience of foreigners if
notices were affixed to public buildings, stating at what times they are
opened to inspection. It is annoying, for instance, to arrive at the
Bibliothèque in the morning and to find it closed, with nothing to
indicate when it will be open.
I could extend these suggestions. But perhaps it would be too much to
expect in a town largely peopled by Mohammedans that strangers visiting
the mosques, or even passing in their neighbourhood, should be relieved
from the importunities of irresponsible and worrying touts. The town is
generally so well policed; the importunity of beggars is so trifling
with what one suffers in Egypt, for example; that, like Oliver Twist,
one asks for more.
The suburb of Mustapha takes its name from the last Dey but three who
erected the palace now used as the official summer residence of the
Governor. The vast sums he expended on it excited the anger of the
janissaries, and led to his disgrace and death. There are many other
Arab villas now modernized; they are well described by the artist
Fromentin, a painter in words as on canvas: “To-day without exception
they belong to Europeans. So the deep mystery which veiled them has
vanished, and much of their charm has disappeared. The architecture of
these houses has no great meaning when applied to European uses. We must
therefore accept them for the pleasure of their exterior aspect, and
study them as the graceful monuments of an exiled civilization.
Inhabited by the people who built—I might say, dreamed—them, these
dwellings were a creation both of poetry and genius. This people knew
how to make prisons which were places of delight, and to cloister its
women in convents where they were unseen yet seeing. For the day, a
multitude of little apertures through stretching gardens of jasmine and
vines; for the night, the terraces;—what more malicious, and at the same
time more full of care for the distraction of the prisoners? The gardens
resemble those playthings which are designed for the amusement of the
Arab woman, that singular being whose life, long or short, is never
anything but childhood. You see there only little gravelled walks,
little rivulets in marble channels, where the water meanders in moving
arabesque designs. The baths, too, suggest the invention of a husband at
once a poet and a jealous lover. Imagine vast cisterns where the water
is not more than three feet in depth, flagged with the finest white
marble, and open through vaulted arches to a wide horizon. Not a tree
reaches this height; when you are seated in these aerial bathing-places
you see only sky and sea, and are seen only by the passing birds. We
have no understanding of the mysteries of such an existence. We walk
through the country to enjoy it; when we return it is to be indoors.
This secluded life near to an open window, this motionless existence
before so vast a space, this household luxury, this enervating climate
and radiant country, the infinite perspective of the sea—all this must
give birth to strange dreams, must throw the vital forces into disorder,
and mingle a sentiment beyond the power of words to describe with the
sorrows of captivity. But,” concludes our author, “ne me trompe-je pas
en prêtant des sensations très littéraires à des êtres qui assurément ne
les ont jamais eues?”
Those who are fortunate enough to have access to some of these villas
will find their original features of house and garden carefully
preserved; the gardens improved and extended in accordance with more
intelligent views of horticulture. Others may see in the spacious and
well-ordered gardens of the Hôtel St. George, the largest of the hotels
frequented by English visitors, what in the way of vernal loveliness the
soil and climate of Algiers are capable of producing. In the grounds of
the Hôtel Continental, another large house with a sunny situation and a
magnificent view, are some curious and interesting trees, a dragon tree
which is considered to be six hundred years old.
[Illustration: DRAGON TREE IN THE GARDEN OF THE HOTEL CONTINENTAL]
There is an excellent Algerian museum at Mustapha Supérieur in a
pleasant garden, close to the Governor’s Summer Palace, built with a
court-yard, in the Moorish manner, an admirable form for a museum. It is
laudably confined to Algerian antiquities and Arab art; there are no
irrelevant South Sea Island curios; it has not been used as a receptacle
for the rubbish of the local collector, a dumping-ground of the
perplexed widow and the embarrassed executor. Algerian history is
thoroughly represented; there are the flint implements of primitive man,
a collection of Punic pottery from Gouraya, Roman antiquities of every
kind, and numerous examples of Arab and Berber handicrafts. These
treasures are exhibited with the taste which distinguishes the French in
such matters, as is evidenced in their dressing of shop-windows. Of the
Roman antiquities perhaps the gem is a bronze figure of a boy with an
eagle, two feet high, and of fine style. It was found at Lambessa. From
Lambessa come numerous other exhibits, including some gold coins of the
period of Septimius Severus, an emperor of African origin, of Julia his
wife (with filigree mounting), and Caracalla and his son, of Macrinus
and Severus Alexander. These are in mint condition. And there is a very
fine gold medallion of Postumus. There are numerous mosaics,—in Roman
Africa mosaic pavements were very popular and well executed,—marbles of
all kinds from Cherchel, and a very interesting stone tablet recording
the rules for the distribution of water from an aqueduct to Roman
colonists. The Arab portion includes arms, jewellery, the elaborately
embroidered saddlery of Arab cavaliers, pottery, carpets, woven stuffs,—
a fine assortment of Arab and Berber handiwork. Altogether a most
creditable museum,—a very model of what a local museum should be. In a
neighbouring building is a “Forestry” collection;—stuffed examples of
Algerian wild animals, and fine specimens of Algerian woods, and so on.
Some magnificent examples of slabs of the native _Thuja_ are worth
notice.
As with other public buildings in Algeria, the usefulness of this museum
is somewhat curtailed by the short time it is open,—only in the
afternoon and not every day,—and, what is worse, by the absence of any
notice of the hours during which it may be visited. In my ignorance I
tried to enter on two or three occasions. Goaded to desperation one
morning I rang the bell, and found the amiable custodian at leisure to
admit me, but only by favour. Such a collection is worthy of a
notice-board in French, Arabic, English, German, Spanish, and Italian,
setting forth the hours it is open, and to a foreigner (I make the
suggestion with diffidence) it appears that the morning hours should not
be forgotten. This is too good a museum to be circumscribed by such
antiquated and provincial arrangements as prevail at present. The object
of a museum should be to get people to come in, not to keep them out. I
was informed that it was closed on Monday afternoon because there were
too many people about! The British workman’s Monday is evidently not the
insular institution I had supposed. But a museum is not a fortress.
We are wont to speak of “Arab Art,” but the term, if consecrated by
usage, is incorrect and misleading. There is, in fact, no such thing.
The Arab has never been an artist. The nomad had of necessity no
architecture, and architecture is the mother of the arts. Artistic
incapacity and an effort to break away from anthropomorphism in religion
went hand in hand among the Semitic races;—“Thou shalt not make to
thyself any graven image, nor likeness of any thing that is in heaven
above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth.” And
when Solomon builded his temple he turned for assistance to the King of
Tyre; and one Hiram, a brassworker of Tyre, “wrought all his work.” To
this day the Jews, who have excelled in finance and statecraft, in
literature and in music, have made little mark in art.