[Illustration: 9063]
E said, in the last chapter, that in Algiers there was very little going
on for the visitor or idler; but if the traveller have anything of the
artist in him, he will be delighted with the old town. If he is wise he
will spend the first week in wandering about, and losing himself in the
winding streets, going here, there, and everywhere on a picturesque tour
of inspection. His artistic tendencies will probably lead him to spend
much time in the Moorish cafés, where he may sit down unmolested (if
unwelcomed) for hours on a mat, and drink his little saucer of thick,
sweet coffee, for which he pays one sou, and smoke in the midst of a
group of silent Moors, who may perchance acknowledge his presence by a
slight gesture, and offer him their pipes, but who will more frequently
affect not to see him, and sit still doing absolutely nothing, with that
dignified solemnity peculiar to the East.
He will pass through narrow streets and between mysterious-looking old
houses that meet over head and shut out the sky; he will jostle often
in these narrow ways, soft plump objects in white gauze, whose eyes
and ankles give the only visible signs of humanity; he may turn back to
watch the wonderful dexterity with which a young Arab girl balances a
load of fruit upon her head down to the market place; and he will, if
he is not careful, be finally carried down himself by an avalanche
of donkeys, driven by a negro gamin who sits on the tail of the last,
threading their way noiselessly and swiftly, and carrying everything
before them; * and he will probably take refuge under the ruined arch
of some old mosque, whose graceful lines and rich decoration are still
visible here and there, and he will in a few hours be enchanted with the
place, and the more so for the reason that we have already hinted at,
viz.:--that in Algiers he is _let alone_, that he is free to wander and
'moon' about at will, without custodian or commissionaire, or any of the
tribe of 'valets de place.'
* How different from what we read of in _Æothen_. The cry is
not, 'Get out of the way, O old man! O virgin!--the
Englishman, he comes, he comes!' If we were to push an old
man out of the way, or, ever so little, to forget our duty
to a fair pedestrian, we should be brought up before the
Cadi, and fined and scorned, by a jury of unbelievers!
He may go into the Grand Divan; or into the streets where the
embroiderers are at work, sitting in front of their open shops, amongst
heaps of silks, rich stuffs and every variety of material; or where the
old merchant traders, whose occupation is nearly gone, sit smoking out
their lazy uncommercial lives.
He may go to the old Moorish bath, in a building of curious pattern,
which is as well worth seeing as anything in Algiers; and, if an Arabic
scholar, he may pick up an acquaintance or two amongst the Moors,
and visit their homes when their wives are away for the day, on some
mourning expedition to a suburban cemetery. He may explore innumerable
crooked, irregular streets, with low doorways and carved lattices, some
painted, some gilt; the little narrow windows and the grilles, being as
perfectly after the old type as when the Moors held undivided possession
of the city.
One old street, now pulled down, we remember well; it was the one always
chosen for an evening stroll because it faced the western sea, and
caught and reflected from its pavement and from its white walls, the
last rosy tints of sunset, long after the cobblers and the tinkers in
the lower town had lighted their little lanterns, and the cafés were
flaring in the French quarter. It was steep and narrow, so steep, in
fact, that steps were made in the pavement to climb it, and at the upper
end there was the dome of a mosque shining in the sun. It was like the
child's picture of 'Jacob's ladder,' brighter and more resplendent at
each step, and ending in a blaze of gold.
We are often reminded of Spain in these old streets; there are massive
wooden doors studded with iron bosses or huge nails as we see them at
Toledo, and there is sometimes to be seen over them, the emblem of the
human hand pointing upwards, which recalls the Gate of Justice at the
entrance to the Alhambra at Granada.
The Moors cling to their old traditions, and the belief that they will
some day reconquer Spain is still an article of faith. But if ever the
Moors are to regain their imaginary lost possessions in Spain, they must
surely be made of sterner stuff than the present race, who, judging from
appearances, are little likely to do anything great.
There are little shops and dark niches where the Moors sit cross-legged,
with great gourds and festoons of dried fruits hanging above and around
them; the piles of red morocco slippers, the oddshaped earthenware
vessels, and the wonderful medley of form and colour, resembling in
variety the bazaars at Constantinople, or carrying us in imagination
still further East.
Other sights and sounds we might mention, some not quite so pleasant but
peculiarly Eastern; and we should not forget to note the peculiar
scent of herbs and stuffs, which, mingled with the aroma of coffee
and tobacco, was sometimes almost overpowering in the little Covered
streets; and one odour that went up regularly on Sunday mornings in the
Moorish quarter that was not incense, and which it took us a long
time to discover the origin of--an Arab branding his donkeys with his
monogram!
Everything we purchase is odd and quaint, irregular or curious in some
way. Every piece of embroidery, every remnant of old carpet, differs
from another in pattern as the leaves on the trees. There is no
repetition, and herein lies its charm and true value to us. Every fabric
differs either in pattern or combination of colours--it is something, as
we said, unique, something to treasure, something that will not remind
us of the mill. *
* The little pattern at the head of this chapter was traced
from a piece of embroidered silk, worked by the Moors.
If we explore still further we shall come to the Arab quarter, where we
also find characteristic things. Here we may purchase for about thirty
francs a Kabyle match-lock rifle, or an old sabre with beautifully
ornamented hilt; we may, if we please, ransack piles of primitive and
rusty implements of all kinds, and pick up curious women's ornaments,
beads, coral, and anklets of filagree work; and, if we are fortunate,
meet with a complete set or suit of harness and trappings, once the
property of some insolvent Arab chief, and of a pattern made familiar to
us in the illustrated history of the Cid.
In the midst of the Moorish quarter, up a little narrow street (reached
in five or six minutes from the centre of the town) passing under an
archway and between white walls that nearly meet overhead, we come to a
low dark door, with a heavy handle and latch which opens and shuts with
a crashing sound; and if we enter the courtyard and ascend a narrow
staircase in one corner, we come suddenly upon the interior view of the
first or principal floor, of our Moorish home.
The house, as may be seen from the illustration, has two stories, and
there is also an upper terrace from which we overlook the town. The
arrangement of the rooms round the courtyard, all opening inwards, is
excellent; they are cool in summer, and warm even on the coldest nights,
and although we are in a noisy and thickly populated part of the town,
we are ignorant of what goes on outside, the massive walls keeping out
nearly all sound. The floors and walls are tiled, so that they can be
cleansed and cooled by water being thrown over them; the carpets and
cushions spread about invite one to the most luxurious repose, tables
and chairs are unknown, there is nothing to offend the eye in shape or
form, nothing to offend the ear--not even a door to slam.
Above, there is an open terrace, where we sit in the mornings and
evenings, and can realise the system of life on the housetops of the
East. Here we can cultivate the vine, grow roses and other flowers,
build for ourselves extempore arbours, and live literally in the open
air.
From this terrace we overlook the flat roofs of the houses of the
Moorish part of the city, and if we peep over, down into the streets
immediately below us, a curious hum of sounds comes up. Our neighbours
are certainly industrious; they embroider, they make slippers, they
hammer at metal work, they break earthenware and mend it, and appear to
quarrel all day long, within a few feet of us; but as we sit in the room
from which our sketch is taken, the sounds become mingled and subdued
into a pleasant tinkle which is almost musical, and which we can, if we
please, shut out entirely by dropping a curtain across the doorway.
Our attendants are Moorish, and consist of one old woman, whom we see
by accident (closely veiled) about once a month, and a bare-legged,
bare-footed Arab boy who waits upon us. There are pigeons on the roof,
a French poodle that frequents the lower regions, and a guardian of our
doorstep who haunts it day and night, whose portrait is given at Chapter
V.
Here we work with the greatest freedom and comfort, without interruption
or any drawbacks that we can think of. The climate is so equal, warm,
and pleasant--even in December and January--that by preference we
generally sit on the upper terrace, where we have the perfection of
light, and are at the same time sufficiently protected from sun and
wind.
At night we sleep almost in the open air, and need scarcely drop the
curtains at the arched doorways of our rooms; there are no mosquitoes to
trouble us, and there is certainly no fear of intrusion. There is also
perfect stillness, for our neighbours are at rest soon after sundown.
Such is a general sketch of our dwelling in Algiers; let us for a
moment, by way of contrast, return in imagination to London, and picture
to ourselves our friends as they are working at home.
It is considered very desirable, if not essential, to an artist,
that his immediate surroundings should be in some sort graceful and
harmonious, and it is a lesson worth learning, to see what may be done,
with ingenuity and taste, towards converting a single room, in a dingy
street, into a fitting abode of the arts.
We know a certain painter well, one whose studio it is always a delight
to enter, and whose devotion to Art (both music and painting) for its
own sake has always stood in the way of his advancement and pecuniary
success. He has converted a room in the neighbourhood of Gower Street
into a charming nook where colour, form, and texture are all considered
in the simplest details of decoration, where there is nothing
inharmonious to eye or ear, but where perhaps the sound of the guitar
may be heard a little too often. The walls of his studio are draped,
the light falls softly from above, the doorway is arched, the seats are
couches or carpets on a raised daïs, a Florentine lamp hangs from the
ceiling, a medley of vases, costumes, old armour, &c, are grouped about
in picturesque confusion, and our friend, in an easy undress of the last
century, works away in the midst.
Not to particularize further, let the reader consider for a moment what
one step beyond his own door brings about, on an average winter's day.
A straight, ungraceful, colourless costume of the latter half of the
nineteenth century which he _must_ assume, a hat of the period, an
umbrella raised to keep off sleet and rain, and for landscape a damp,
dreary, muddy, blackened street, with a vista of areas and lamp-posts,
and, if perchance he be going to the Academy, a walk through the parish
of St. Giles!
Perhaps the most depressing prospect in the world, is that from a Gower
Street doorstep on a November morning about nine o'clock; but of
this enough. We think of our friend as we sit out here on our
_terrasse_--sheltering ourselves on the same day, at the same hour, from
the sun's rays--we think of him painting Italian scenes by the light of
his gas 'sun-burner,' and wish he would come out to Algiers. 'Surely,'
we would say to him, 'it is something gained, if we can, ever so little,
harmonize the realities of life with our ideal world--if we can, without
remark, dress ourselves more as we dress our models, and so live, that
one step from the studio to the street shall not be the abomination of
desolation.' *
* It would be obviously in bad taste for Europeans to walk
in the streets of Algiers, _en costume Maure_; but we may
make considerable modifications in our attire in an oriental
city, to our great comfort and peace of mind.
Let us turn again to Nature and to Light, and transport the reader to a
little white house, overlooking a beautiful city, on the North African
shore, where summer is perpetual and indoor life the exception; and draw
a picture for him which _should_ be fascinating and which certainly is
true.=
_Algiers, Sunrise, December 10._
The mysterious, indefinable charm of the first break of day, is an old
and favourite theme in all countries and climates, and one on which
perhaps little that is new can be said. In the East it is always
striking, but in Algiers it seems to us peculiarly so; for sleeping, or
more often lying awake, with the clear crisp night air upon our faces,
it comes to our couch in the dreamiest way imaginable--instead of being
clothed (as poets express it) with the veil of night, a mantle seems
rather to be spread over us in the morning; there is perfect quiet at
this hour, and we seem to be almost under a spell not to disturb the
stillness--the dawn whispers to us so softly and soothingly that we are
powerless to do ought but watch or sleep.
The break of day is perhaps first announced to us by a faint stream of
light across the courtyard, or the dim shadow of a marble pillar on the
wall. In a few minutes, we hear the distant barking of a dog, a slight
rustle in the pigeon-house above, or a solitary cry from a minaret which
tells us that the city is awaking. We rouse ourselves and steal out
quietly on to the upper terrace to see a sight of sights--one of those
things that books tell us, rightly or wrongly, is alone worth coming
from England to see.
The canopy of stars, that had encompassed us so closely during the
night, as if to shut in the courtyard overhead, seems lifted again, and
the stars themselves are disappearing fast in the grey expanse of sky;
and as we endeavour to trace them, looking intently seaward, towards the
North and East, we can just discern an horizon line and faint shadows
of the 'sleeping giants,' that we know to be not far off. Soon--in about
the same time that it takes to write these lines--they begin to take
form and outline one by one, a tinge of delicate pearly pink is seen at
intervals through their shadows, and before any nearer objects have
come into view, the whole coast line and the mountains of Kabylia,
stretching-far to the eastward, are flushed with rosy light, opposed to
a veil of twilight grey which still hangs over the city.
Another minute or two, and our shadows are thrown sharply on a glowing
wall, towers and domes come distinctly into view, housetops innumerable
range themselves in close array at our feet, and we, who but a few
minutes ago, seemed to be standing as it were alone upon the top of
a high mountain, are suddenly and closely beleaguered. A city of flat
white roofs, towers, and cupolas, relieved here and there by coloured
awnings, green shutters, and dark doorways, and by little courtyards
blooming with orange and citron trees--intersected with innumerable
winding ways (which look like streams forcing their way through a chalk
cliff)--has all grown up before our eyes; and beyond it, seaward--a
harbour, and a fleet of little vessels with their white sails, are seen
shining in the sun.
Then come the hundred sounds of a waking city, mingling and increasing
every moment; and the flat roofs (some so close that we can step upon
them) are soon alive with those quaint white figures we meet in the
streets, passing to and fro, from roof to roof, apparently without
restraint or fear. There are numbers of children peeping out from odd
corners and loopholes, and women with them, some dressed much less
scrupulously than we see them in the market place, and some, to tell the
truth, entirely without the white robes aforesaid. A few, a very few,
are already winding their way through the streets to the nearest mosque,
but the majority are collected in groups in conversation, enjoying the
sweet sea breeze, which comes laden with the perfume of orange-trees,
and a peculiar delicious scent as of violets.
The pigeons on the roof-tops now plume their gilded wings and soar--not
upward but downward, far away into space; they scarcely break the
silence in the air, or spread their wings as they speed along.
Oh, what a flight above the azure sea!=
```'Quis dabat mihi pennas sicut columbæ;=
the very action of flying seems repose to them.
It is still barely sunrise on this soft December morning, the day's
labour has scarcely begun, the calm is so perfect that existence alone
seems a delight, and the Eastern aroma (if we may so express it) that
pervades the air might almost lull us to sleep again, but Allah wills it
otherwise.
Suddenly---with terrible impulse and shrill accent impossible to
describe--a hurricane of women's voices succeeds the calm. Is it
treachery? Is it scandal? Has Hassan proved faithless, or has Fatima
fled? Oh, the screeching and yelling that succeeded to the quiet beauty
of the morning! Oh, the rushing about of veiled (now all closely
veiled) figures on house-tops! Oh, the weeping and wailing, and literal,
terrible, gnashing of teeth! 'Tell it not upon the house-tops', (shall
we ever forget it being told on the housetops? ) 'let not a whole city
know thy misdeeds,' is written in the Koran, 'it is better for the
faithful to come to prayers!' Merciful powers, how the tempest raged
until the sun was up and the city was alive again, and its sounds helped
to drown the clamour.
Let us come down, for our Arab boy now claps his hands in sign, that (on
a little low table or tray, six inches from the ground) coffee and
pipes are provided for the unbelievers; and like the Calendar in Eastern
Story, he proceeds to tell us the cause of the tumult--a trinket taken
from one wife and given to another!
Oh, Islam! that a lost bracelet or a jealous wife, should make the earth
tremble so!
[Illustration: 0083]
[Illustration: 0085]