After a few days in Tuggurt, and a lengthened stay in the date-groves of
Biskra with my genial friend the General of Division, I found myself
once again in old El Djezair, that quaint Franco-Arab city known to
Europeans as Algiers. Here Western civilisation and Oriental fanaticism
mingle, but never blend. It is a city of glare and darkness, of mosques
and marabouts, of Parisian politeness and Berber barbarity, of wide,
modern-built boulevards and narrow, crooked streets, as yet untouched by
the hand of the colonising vandal.
Till a comparatively recent date it was a nest of fierce pirates who
were a terror to Europe, and even now one cannot look upon the gigantic
mole and other works prior to the French occupation without remembering
that they were constructed by Christian slaves, who were beaten,
tortured, and made to toil under the blazing sun until their gyves wore
into their flesh, and death relieved them of their miseries. The great
white Kasbah on the hill-top, once the gorgeous Palace of the Deys, now
echoes to the tramp of Zouaves and artillery. If those gigantic walls
could speak, what tales of outrage, torture, and butchery they, alas!
could tell! In the great harem, where hundreds of English and French
women captured by the Corsairs have pined and died, smart officers on
colonial service now lounge, smoke, and discuss the topics of their
beloved Paris as revealed by the _Petit Journal_ and the _Figaro_; while
down in the Rue de la Lyre British tourists in suits of astounding check
stare in abject astonishment at Fathma or Khadidja, who, veiled and
shrouded in her white haick, has descended the ladder-like streets of
the native quarter to make purchases in the Rue de Constantine or the
Marche de la Lyre.
This City of the Sun is one of violent contrasts. Seen from the sea, it
fully bears out its Arab comparison of being a "diamond set in
emeralds," for in terraces of intensely white, flat-roofed houses, each
with little square windows like pips upon a dice, it rises high upon the
bright green Sahel hills. In the centre the Arab town with its cupolas
and minarets is crowned by the great fortress, while right and left are
the pleasant suburbs of St Eugene and Mustapha, their white houses and
handsome villas gleaming forth from dark luxuriant foliage.
In the French quarter, the Boulevard de la Republique, running along
nearly the whole front of the town facing the sea, the wide Place du
Gouvernement, with its oasis of palms, and the Rue d'Isly, with its
avenue of trees, are all hot and full of busy, bustling French; but turn
away up any of the side streets from the Rue de la Lyre, cross the
Quartier Juif, and in a few moments one is in a bewildering labyrinth of
steep, shady, and tortuous streets, so narrow in places that two asses
cannot pass with their panniers.
Herein lies the charm of Algiers. Those narrow passages, where the
Arabs sit on rush mats outside the _kahoua_, drinking tiny cups of
coffee, smoking cigarettes, and killing time by playing _damma_, are the
same at this moment as they were in the days of Yousuf Zeri; and
although the religious prejudices of the Arab, the Moor, the Jew, and
the Biskri have perhaps become somewhat modified by contact with the
civilising Roumis, yet their mode of life is still the same, and at
heart they hate the Christians as fiercely as ever. Indolent and
content, they love to lean upon the long parapet of the Boulevard de la
Republique, gazing with deep-set, thoughtful eyes away over the bright
blue sea, to lounge in groups at street corners gossiping, to sit at the
garish French cafes driving bargains with European merchants, or
hand-in-hand to stroll leisurely across to the mosque to their daily
prayers. Side by side with dainty ladies in Paris-made gowns and the
high-heeled boots of fashion, Arab women, with foreheads heavily laden
with tinkling sequins, their dark, flashing eyes peeping over their
veils, and all looking exactly the same in their spotlessly white but
hideous out-door dress, shuffle along with waddling gait, and turn to
glance surreptitiously at the stranger after he or she has passed.
This wonderful old city of sunlight and shadow, of dazzling brightness
and sombre gloom, of strange incongruities of dress, of language, and of
religion, was by no means fresh to me. On taking up my quarters at the
Hotel de la Regence, in the Place du Gouvernement, I was welcomed as an
old friend, for on several previous occasions, while idling in El
Djezair, I had made it my headquarters in preference to the suburban
hotels on the hill at Mustapha. Before the house a cluster of fine date
palms throw a welcome shade, and beyond lies the bay, with the great,
misty mountains of Kabylia in the distance. Forming one side of the
Place stands the Djamaa el-Djedid, with its plain windowless walls,
dazzlingly white dome, and square minaret, whereon at sunset the
_mueddin_ appears and calls the Faithful to prayer. Here, again,
extremes meet. The monotonous voice of the priest mingles with the
jingle and chatter of the French cafe opposite, and Europeans, sipping
their bock or mazagran, watch the devout Moslems trooping into the
courtyard to wash before entering the house of Allah.
Here, in this the most charmingly cosmopolitan city in the world, where
subjects for the artist are presented in perfect panorama at every turn,
I wandered and idled at cafes, killing time impatiently, and eagerly
awaiting the day on which my mysterious desert acquaintance would go
upon her pilgrimage. At last that long-wished-for Friday dawned, and
leaving the city early by the gate Bab-el-Oued, I strolled through the
charming Jardin Marengo, under the intensely white walls of the handsome
mosque built over the shrine of Sidi Abd-er-Rahman, and then out on the
road which wound up through the dark, wild ravine of the Bou-Zarea.
In the fresh, cool morning air the walk up that well-shaded road to the
Frais-Vallon was delightful, even though the aloes and prickly pears
were white with dust and the sun had scorched the foliage of the almond
and orange trees. At the top of the glen, where the road narrowed into
a footpath, I found a little Arab cafe, and upon a stone bench before it
I seated myself to watch for the woman who held me under her spell.
This smiling, fertile country beside the sea, where grapes, olives, and
sweet flowers grew in such wild abundance, was charming after the great
wastes of arid sand; and while the birds sang gladly above in the
cloudless vault of blue, I sat alone, smoking and sipping a tiny cup of
coffee, watching the veiled women in their white baggy trousers and
haicks, in pairs and singly, slowly toiling past up the steep road on
their way to adore the koubba of Sidi-Djebbar.
That Zoraida should repair to this shrine was puzzling. It added
considerably to the mystery which enveloped her. Sidi-Djebbar is the
patron saint of divorced Arab women, and, according to a local
tradition, whenever a divorced lady makes three pilgrimages to his tomb
and drinks of the waters of Aioun Srakna, she will marry again before
the next fast of Ramadan. Was Zoraida the divorced wife of some man who
had bought her from her parents and had soon grown tired of her? Was
she an outcast from the harem?
Thoughts such as these filled my mind as I watched the veiled houris
pass in silent, pious procession. To distinguish one from another was
impossible. The only way in which I could tell a lady from a woman of
the people was by her feet and by the texture of her haick. The feet of
the lower classes were bare and thrust into heavy, roughly-made
slippers, while on the neat ankles of wealthier women gold bangles
jingled, their feet were encased in stockings of silk, they wore tiny
Paris-made patent-leather shoes, and as they brushed past, they left
upon the air a scent of attar of rose. The women of Al-Islam are seldom
allowed to visit the mosques, so on Friday, their day of prayer, they go
on foot to venerate the koubbas of their saints instead.
A weary journey extending over a month, had brought me at last to this
spot, yet how among all these shrouded figures could I distinguish the
woman I adored? Suddenly it occurred to me that, although I had taken
up a position of vantage, Zoraida would not approach me, an Infidel, at
any spot where she might be observed; therefore I rose and strolled
leisurely on up the steep shaded track that led in serpentine wanderings
among the fig trees, oranges, and vines.
Half convinced that her promise would never be kept, and that she was
still in the far Sahara, I walked on very slowly for some distance.
Suddenly, at a bend in the hill-path, where the wide branches of the
cork oaks, the ilex, and the chene-zeen met overhead, and the giant
aloes grew abundantly, a voice amongst the leafy scrub startled me, and
a short, stout figure appeared from among the foliage. Glancing round
to reassure herself she was unobserved, she ran towards me. Only her
eyes were visible, but they disappointed me, for I could see that they
were not those of the woman for whom I was searching. She was old; her
forehead was brown, wizened, and tattooed.
"Art thou the Angleezi whom Allah delivered into the hands of our master
Hadj Absalam? Art thou named the Amin?" she asked, almost breathlessly,
in Arabic.
"Yes," I replied. "Who art thou?"
"Know, O Roumi, that I have been sent by my mistress, Zoraida Fathma,"
she said, drawing her haick closer with her brown, bony hand. "My lady
of exalted dignity said unto me, `Go, seek the foreigner Cecil Holcombe,
_wakol loh inni moshtak ilich_.'" ("Tell him that I am desiring to see
him.")
"To see her? I expected she would be here!" I said.
"Alas! no. The koubba of Sidi-Djebbar cannot be graced by my lady's
presence this moon."
"Is she here, in El Djezair?" I asked quickly.
"Yes. Although thou hast not known it, her lustrous eyes, the Lights of
the Harem, hath already gazed upon thee since thy sojourn here. She
desireth to have speech with thee."
"When?"
"Two hours after the sun hath set."
"And where may I see her?" I asked, impatiently.
"Knowest thou, O Roumi, that in the Jardin Marengo there is a path under
the wall of the holy Zaouia of Sidi Abd-er-Rahman. If thou wilt meet me
there under the great cedar tree when the moon hath risen, I will
conduct thee to her presence. My lady hath named thee Amin, and must
see thee."
"I will await thee," I replied. "Go, tell thy mistress that the hours
have passed at snail's pace since we met, that the Amin weareth her
ring, and that he hath not forgotten."
"Behold! Some one cometh!" she exclaimed in alarm, as a tall Arab
appeared at the bend of the path sauntering slowly in our direction. "I
must not be seen speaking with thee, an Infidel, within the sacred
precincts of the koubba. Till to-night, _sidi, slama_."
And, turning quickly, the messenger from my mysterious enchantress
strode onward towards the tomb of the patron saint of divorce.