great and the attraction strong. They do not lie altogether in the
brilliance of its sunshine, in the shade of its palms, in the richness
of its colouring, in the exuberance of its life. These things we may
meet elsewhere. Biskra has other qualities; it is barbaric, African to
the core, tropical in its intensity.
Biskra is barbaric. To one entering by rail or road its trim streets and
squares, and housing himself in a hostelry which might be anywhere
within the bounds of the civilized world, this is a hard saying. Yet he
may soon perceive that its veneer is very thin and understand that it is
very transitory. A hot wind from the desert in April, and it is gone,
and the real Biskra will reassert itself. But even during the months of
the incursion of the _hiverneurs_, the barbaric note is never absent; to
the ear that listens it is predominant; it rings more shrill by force of
contrast. The troops of snarling camels, with their loads from the Great
Beyond, the clash of African musicless music, the thronging crowds of
jostling races in its markets, the hooded figures crouched motionless
round its cafés, the bedizened native harlotry which stalks unashamed,—
nay, proudly as mistress of the town,—in its streets; all are there to
mark its essential savagery. A few hours ago in the upper lands behind
the desert gateway we breathed the chill atmosphere of Europe; at Biskra
we have passed the bounds; sun and sky and earth and man and outrageous
woman combine to tell us that at last we have entered Africa.
It may be that therein lies Biskra’s attraction to the jaded European.
It is all a little unnatural from the European point of view. There is a
sense of walking on the slopes of a volcano, or of playing with fire;
and if we may believe our novelists, European nature under its influence
tends to eccentric and eruptive manifestations. Yet its frequenters
exhibit little outward sign of disturbance. German tourists, arrayed
indeed as if about to combat a Touareg onslaught, yet read novels
peacefully in the pleasant seclusion of the hotel garden; the Kodak
fiend stalks his prey; the traffic in post cards goes merrily along; but
we cannot escape an uneasy feeling that this nonchalance is a cloak.
Perhaps the novelists have got on our nerves.
Biskra consists of a modern French town and garrison, and several more
or less distinct native villages grouped together on a large oasis, a
strip of cultivated ground between three or four miles in length, with
an average width of half a mile. It contains an immense number of palm
trees, the chief source of wealth in the great Sahara. There is abundant
water from springs, and during winter from the river, which conveys the
snows of Aurès to the desert, and is finally lost some miles further to
the south. It has a swarming native population, of every North African
race, and every hue. There is obviously a very great infusion of negro
blood; no doubt because Biskra is situate on a highway of the nations,
at a point where the caravan routes from the extreme south reach the
mountain lands of Barbary. These natives of various races are collected
in great numbers in the morning market, and throng the neighbouring
cafés throughout the day, where squatting figures play interminable
games of dominoes and backgammon. Conspicuous in the crowd are the
dancing girls of the Ouled Naïl tribe dressed in tawdry finery, hung
with barbaric jewellery and masses of gold and silver coins, their hair
mixed with wool and plastered with grease, their faces tattooed and
darkened with _khol_ and _henna_. These women delight their patrons with
their _danses à ventre_ in the Cafés Maures at night, and later sit—
waiting and watching—on little balconies in the street which is assigned
to them. Many attempts have been made by French and English writers to
shed a halo of romance over these unfortunate beings. The whitewashing
of the harlot is a common literary pose. The story that they come to the
desert towns to earn their dower and subsequently return to their own
tribe and marry may have some foundation; such a procedure is not
unknown in other parts of the world; but to judge from the appearance of
some of them they are a long time thinking about settling down.
It may, at any rate, be said of these girls that they are not a mere
“exploitation of local colour,” got up for the benefit of the tourist.
They are a genuine native product, flourishing no less in the oases of
the Sahara seldom visited by Europeans than under the shadow of the
hotels of Biskra. Their _danses_ excite their native admirers to great
enthusiasm, they often provoke furious jealousies, and are sometimes the
object of extraordinary prodigality. Some of them appear to affect an
air _très grande dame_. “Celles des Ouled-Naïl qui sont de grande tente
apportent dans leurs relations avec leurs visiteurs toute la générosité
et la délicatesse que comporte leur origine. Il suffit d’admirer une
seconde l’épais tapis qui sert de lit pour que le serviteur de la noble
prostituée apporte à son amant d’une minute, dès qu’il a regagné sa
demeure, l’objet qui l’avait frappé.”[8]
Footnote 8:
Guy de Maupassant, “Au Soleil.”
Biskra may be compared with a Nile town such as Luxor, if one can
imagine Luxor without the river, without the temples, and, it must be
added, without the flies. But it is a desert town, the town of an oasis,
born of springs of water rising in a dry place, and it revels in the
desert sun and sky. It is most pleasant when the sky is cloudless and
the air still. But its beauty is greater when a moderate wind is blowing
and light clouds are passing. Then are glorious deep blue shadows thrown
on scarred cliffs of the tawny Aurès range. The tower of the Royal Hotel
is a vantage point from which to view Biskra and its landscape. Thence
you may note the extent of the oasis, the belts of palm trees in the
distance which mark the existence of other oases, and miles to the south
the dunes of shifting sand which to the imagination of most of us
represent the real Sahara. Especially beautiful is the scene at sunset.
The changing lights on the mountains, the ruddy glow all around, the
peculiar quality of transparency in the sky when the sun has set, and
perhaps Venus appears and hangs like a lamp between earth and heaven,—
only in the desert may we behold these last glories of departing day.
The shady, bird-haunted garden of this hotel is a very haven of shelter
when the desert wind blows strong and raises the light dust of Biskra in
the street without. It is surrounded on all sides by the hotel buildings
built in the spacious Oriental manner with corridors opening to the
garden and pleasant balconies above.
Biskra of the tourists, _urbs circumcurrentium_, is in a fair way to
rechristen itself Hichenstown. The novelist and his not very edifying
story pervade the place; they are thrust at you everywhere with damnable
iteration. And the worst of it is that however mawkish the book it has
undeniable power, and if you are unfortunate enough to have read it you
will be unable to avoid recognizing at every turn the scenes in which
the much-longing-to-be-loved heroine and her uncouth lover played their
parts. You will probably not have been in the town many hours, perhaps
not many minutes, before a guide will accost you and produce with much
dignity a visiting-card of Mr. Hichens, on which something is written.
If you express neither interest nor emotion he will regard you with a
mixture of incredulity and pity. What are you here for but to worship at
the shrine of the marabout Hichens? Hichens has made—or marred—Biskra,
and Biskra is not unmindful. There is little or nothing to guide you to
in Biskra, wherefore is it full of guides. They are an ever-present
nuisance. The easier course is to engage one, he will at least keep off
the others; if you have more grit you may set out to prove yourself
unguidable; every guide’s hand will be against you at first, but you
will reap your reward. You will have no difficulty in hiring a guide
when you really want one, and he will respect you the more. The Arab is
no mean judge in such matters. The authorities have endeavoured to
mitigate the nuisance by licensing certain men to act as guides; but
they have not altogether suppressed the unauthorized, and the licensed
merely give themselves additional airs. Silly sentimental visitors have
aggravated matters, and have, moreover, turned many of the boys and
girls into impudent beggars. Books have actually been written embodying
the views on life and religion of these petted striplings; their
remarkable inaccuracies in serious matters suggest that the youth of
Biskra is not averse from “pulling the legs” of its amiable patrons. It
is all rather sad. But the debasing effect of the inconsiderate tourist
is not peculiar to Biskra.
The garden of Count Landon is botanically interesting, and a delightful
refuge from glare and dust and importunity. It is not in the ordinary
sense a garden; it is rather a great plantation or shrubbery divided by
winding paths. The excessive neatness of these paths, built of hard mud
and carefully sanded, rather spoils the effect of the wilderness to an
English eye. There is abundance of running water, and the palm, which
likes to have “its toes in the water and its head in the sun,”
flourishes exceedingly. With it are many bamboos, peppers, oranges, and
various species of _ficus_,—the usual subtropical assemblage. I observe
no tree-ferns; yet the conditions appear very suitable. It is one
continuous jumble; there is no attempt at grouping, which would perhaps
have produced a more noble and more natural effect. But as you come
suddenly here or there to the verge of this thicket, you are startled
and delighted by the contrast of mellow shade within, and the shimmering
glare without;—a contrast quite after the manner of Biskra, which revels
in the juxtaposition of the incongruous. Those who come to the desert in
search of peace and quiet may find themselves in the plight of the
guests of a Swiss innkeeper who advertised: “My hotel is recommended to
those in search of solitude; thousands come here in search of solitude
every summer.” But in the garden of M. Landon you may be at rest, and
dream dreams and see visions, as I did. I had been reading certain
modern French writers who are concerned to prove that the inhabitants of
this country, the _indigènes_, are not Arab at all. They don’t deny the
Arab conquest, but hold that the claim to have “come in with Okba” is as
empty a boast as among us is the assertion, “We came over with the
Conqueror.” They are arguing to a case. If the native is not of Semitic
origin there is hope for him. He has been more or less Christian before,
so he may be Christianized again, or anti-clerical radical socialized,
or whatever is necessary to make him an up-to-date Frenchman. But with
all their theorizing nothing is effected. The Arab,—or Berber,—goes on
in his Arabian,—or Berberic,—way, unmoved by any attraction of French
politics and irreligion. How is he to be broken in? A chance remark of
an American fellow-traveller opened to me the great discovery. History
supplies other instances of idle words changing its course. There is
to-day a great civilizing influence at work on cosmopolitan lines such
as the world has never seen before. It has already profoundly affected
some of the greatest of human interests,—religion, commerce, and
clothes. It will ultimately bring about the abolition of war, because no
one will have time to fight. It is permeating the most unlikely
quarters; if I mistake not my German neighbours this evening at dinner
were continually alluding to it; and what Germany thinks to-day, Europe
will think to-morrow. The Arab, or Berber, must be brought into the
movement. He must play golf. My American friend informed me that golf
has changed the habits of the American business man. It appears that
since Columbus arrived this individual has never taken any exercise; he
has sat in his office glued to his desk from dewy morn till long after
sunset. All that is over, and in a moment. At 3 p.m. he now furtively
affixes to his office door a notice, “Back in ten minutes,” and is off
to the American Sandwich. Saturday is a whole, not a half, holiday; and
Sunday has become a day of especial unrest. If in the twinkling of an
eye such a slave of ingrained habits may find salvation, need we despair
of the poor Arab, or worry ourselves about his pedigree? To all
appearance he is usually short of a job; his posture of seemingly
permanent repose is explained to me as one of waiting till his dates are
ripe. Golf will alter his whole attitude of mind as of body. Local
conditions are most favourable. The Sahara contains the finest
sand-bunkers in the world. The creation of greens is merely a matter of
sinking Artesian wells, a laudable process on which the French
Government is already embarked, but with no full appreciation of its
real significance. Temporary club-houses of galvanized iron would meet
all requirements for the present. At once the Arab’s (I must continue to
call him the Arab, in spite of my French authors) distinctive dress
would go. No one who has not put it on can realize in what a cuirass, in
what folds, he is involved. As he is he could never hope to drive a
decent ball. Array him in a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers and
putties (I observe that his French conquerors are greatly affecting
putties) and his aloofness disappears. At a stroke he enters the
world-movement; Colonel Bogey will oust the Lord Okba; and when Hadji
ben Mohammed ben Yakoub comes over to represent the Biskra and North
Sahara Golf Club at St. Andrews may I be there to see him win.
[Illustration: OLD BISKRA]
A little way further south than the garden of Count Landon, on the
Touggourt road lie the scattered native hamlets known to the French as
_La Vieille Biskra_, the crumbling houses of a ragged population. Here
is the very _ne plus ultra_ of Arab untidiness. But the play of sunbeams
through the palm trees’ grateful shade turns squalor into beauty. Arab
villages are often half in ruins. Their irregular construction of blocks
of dried mud gives them the aspect of the homes of animals rather than
of men,—the creation perhaps of some gigantic ant. When it rains they
not infrequently fall down. And the labour of rebuilding is not lightly
undertaken.
Biskra is soon to lose its present distinction as the end of the railway
line. The rails are being rapidly laid towards Touggourt, 212 kilometres
to the south, a desert town where splendid gardens flourish beneath the
shade of 200,000 palm trees. The irrepressible motor-car has already
stirred its dust. The prudent Michelin guide describes the road thither
as _piste carrossable mais imprudente à suivre par mauvais temps_. You
are advised to take mats to lay down in the softer places for the car to
run over. But what happens in the event of a serious breakdown is not
explained. When the rail is finished the enterprising tourist may pass
by Biskra as a mere wayside station and continue to the end. But he may
be only going farther to fare worse. It does not appear that the distant
towns of the Sahara present any special points of interest beyond their
existence. Yet perhaps there are some to whom the desert calls as to
others the veldt. But they will stick to their camels and their mules,
and merely use the railway extension as a jumping-board for further
explorations.
[Illustration: BISKRA: STATUE OF CARDINAL LAVIGERIE]
To him who strives to peer beneath the obvious surface nothing in Biskra
is more significant than the statue of Cardinal Lavigerie. It stands in
the main street close to the luxurious Royal Hotel, hard by the quarter
of the Arab cafés and the street of the Ouled-Naïl dancing-girls, a
symbol of the eternal amidst the evanescent, a protest for God against
the Devil and the world. And it looks south. Thousands of miles away,
across the vast expanse of the continent, another statue looks north.
Rhodes and Lavigerie, two types of our civilization, further apart in
intention and in ideals of human conduct than are their statues, look
forth over Africa from their separate standpoints, the Africa for which
each spent his strength. Both worked to bring to the Dark Continent the
accumulated wealth of light to which Europe is heir; they drew perhaps
on different departments in the great storehouse; they directed the
illumination to different points; but to evolve order from chaos, to
substitute freedom for tyranny, to impose peace even, if need were, by
the sword,—these were the objects which both pursued.
The neighbourhood of Biskra is rich in memories of Sidi Okba, the barber
of the Prophet, and the first of the Arab conquerors. It was he who
pushed westward from Kairouan through Barbary to the Atlantic, having
defeated the Berbers under Koceïla and other chieftains. Arrived at the
shore of the ocean he raised the standard of the Prophet crowned with
the crescent, and indicating with it the course of the sun from its
rising to its setting, dashed forward and breasted the waves with his
horse, crying, “God of Mahomet, were I not stopped by the waves of this
sea, I would go to the ends of the earth to carry the glory of thy name,
to fight for thy religion and to destroy those who will not believe on
thee!” On his return journey he was attacked by a force of Berbers under
Koceïla near Biskra and killed with three hundred of his followers. He
was buried in the oasis which bears his name, and his tomb is an object
of pilgrimage and veneration.
But the Berbers, if they had killed one leader, did not succeed in
maintaining their independence. That they adopted the invaders’ religion
is not very surprising. Their previous religions seem to have sat
lightly on them: idolaters, pagans, converted in numbers to Judaism,
orthodox Christians, Donatists,—they had been all in turn. The dogmatic
simplicity of Islam is summed up in the words, “There is no God but God,
and Mohammed is the Prophet of God.” It only demands a belief in this
one God and the veneration of Mahomet, last of the prophets, invested by
God with the mission to bring back men to the religion of the ancient
patriarchs and to the acknowledgment of the Unity of the Godhead. It is
completed by belief in three revealed books, the Bible, the Gospel, and
the Koran. It denies the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ, who
is regarded only as a prophet, but allowed to have possessed a special
nature.
The simple formula of Mohammedanism was not very difficult for a man
with no prejudices to accept. It meant, of course, more than appeared
from its positive assertion; it was directed alike against the
Trinitarianism of the Christians and the idolatry or image-worship of
pre-Mohammedan Arabians. In its rejection of anthropomorphism it stands
on a high intellectual plane; and it is one of the marvels of history
that such an abstraction as the God of Mahomet should have been
sufficient to rouse the Prophet’s followers to their pitch of conquering
enthusiasm. Races beaten in battle no doubt easily accepted its primary
proposition. “People follow the religion of their kings,” says an Arab
proverb. But there was more behind. The Prophet attached to his
religious doctrine a very precise ethical code, a moral system admirable
on the whole in its exposition of the duties of man to man; yet in its
permission of polygamy regarding women as inferior to men. And on the
political side he united the functions of the priest, the judge and the
king. It follows that however enlightened the main basis of
Mohammedanism it is fundamentally opposed alike to Christianity and to
modern theories of democratic government and the equality of the sexes.
“Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with which God
has gifted the one above the other,” says the Koran.
After the manner of organized religions all sorts of complicated
additions have been made to the originally simple rule of the Prophet,
which enjoined prayer, ablutions, fasting, abstinence from wine and the
flesh of the pig. These accretions are largely concerned with the
veneration of saints and the exorcising of spirits. Among the former not
the least is Sidi Okba, canonized rather, we may suppose, for his
prowess as a conqueror and his zeal as a propagandist than for any
peculiar sanctity of life.
The oasis of Sidi Okba lies about twenty-one kilometres south-east of
Biskra. The road crosses a level plain, and is at present in a rather
rough condition, but is being re-metalled. The drive is a pleasant one,
with the long line of mountains on the left fading away into a blue
distance; on the right the desert with an occasional oasis marked by its
group of palms. As we approach Sidi Okba the dark belt visible from
Biskra takes shape. The little town lies in the midst of an immense
group of date-palms, of all sizes, some of great age; one has the honour
of being described as the oldest palm in Africa. Sidi Okba has not been
in any way Europeanized, it is still the unadulterated East; its houses
built of mud, of one story; its streets narrow, winding and very
unclean. It appears to be greatly over-populated, and the mass of its
inhabitants to be very poor. The streets are thronged with men, but
scarcely a woman is to be seen. The stranger, who will do well on this
occasion to bring a guide, will be quite unmolested, and to all
appearance totally disregarded. A main street full of little shops,
curious and interesting, leads to the market-place, which is the very
climax of Arab untidiness. Sidi Okba is not a place for the squeamish.
The chief object of interest is the mosque, which is considered to be
the oldest Mohammedan building in Africa. It is a square building
surrounded by a portico, with a flat roof supported on twenty-six rudely
carved columns. The saint’s tomb is contained in a little chapel which
it is unlawful for the unbeliever to enter. The mosque and its porticoes
are greatly resorted to by students and pilgrims; it contains little
cells in which they are lodged, and endowments have been created by
pious benefactors for their support. There are many present to-day: here
a single student reading laboriously a passage of the Koran written on a
wooden slab; there a little group of doctors squatting in a circle
apparently discussing a knotty point, but in reality only capping each
other’s quotations from the sacred book. In an adjoining room is the
usual Arab school—a number of boys surrounding a seated master who is
armed with a long cane, and yelling their lesson (the Koran again) with
all their might. It is all very far apart from the workaday western
world. Yet even into this very shrine of esoteric Islam has the West
edged its way. On the walls of the mosque hang highly-coloured prints of
the holy cities of Arabia, Mecca and Medina. My guide pointed them out
to me as objects of interest. In the corner of the view of Medina I
noticed the words, “All rights reserved. The Cairo Punch.”
[Illustration: SIDI OKBA: A STREET]
On one of the pillars is engraved in early Cufic characters the grandly
simple inscription, “This is the tomb of Okba, son of Nafè. May God have
mercy on him.” The wooden door of the mosque is very finely carved in a
curious design. It is said to have been brought from Tobna, in the high
plateau of the Hodna, and to have been formerly covered with precious
metals and jewels, which were sold for the benefit of the mosque; but
this may be doubted.