[Illustration: 9111]
F the various studies to be made in Algiers, there are none at the same
time so quaint and characteristic, as the Moors in their own homes,
seated at their own doors or benches at work, or at the numerous cafés
and bazaars; and nothing seems to harmonize so well in these Moorish
streets as the groups of natives (both Moors and negroes) with their
bright costumes, and 'wares for sale. Colour and contrast of colour,
seem to be considered, or _felt_, everywhere. Thus for instance, no two
Orientals will walk down a street side by side, unless the colours
of their costume harmonize or blend together (they seem to know it
instinctively), and then there is always grey or some quiet contrasting
tone for a background, and a sky of deep, deep blue. A negress will
generally be found selling oranges or citrons; an Arab boy with a red
fez and white turban, carrying purple fruit in a basket of leaves; and
so on. The reader will think this fanciful, but it is truer than he
imagines; let him come and see.
It was not at all times easy to sketch in the open street on account of
the curiosity it excited; a crowd sometimes collecting until it became
almost impossible to breathe. The plan was to go as often as possible to
the cafés and divans, and by degrees to make friends with the Moors.
There was one café, in a street that we have been to so often, that it
is as familiar to us as any in the western world; and where by dint of a
little tact and a small outlay of tobacco, we managed to make ourselves
quite at home, and were permitted to work away all day, comparatively
unmolested. It was a narrow and steep overhanging street, crowded at all
times with Moors on one side embroidering, or pretending to sell goods
of various kinds; and on the opposite side there was a café, not four
feet distant, where a row of about eighteen others sat and smoked,
and contemplated their brethren at work. The street was always full of
traffic, being an important thoroughfare from the upper to the lower
town, and there were perpetually passing up and down, droves of laden
donkeys; men with burdens carried on poles between them; vendors
of fruit, bread, and live fowls, and crowds of people of every
denomination.
In a little corner out of sight, where we were certainly rather closely
packed, we used to install ourselves continually and sketch the people
passing to and fro. The Moors in the café used to sit beside us all day
and watch, and _wait_; they gave us a grave silent salutation when we
took our places, and another when we left, but we never got much further
with our unknown neighbours. If we can imagine a coterie in a small
political club, where the open discussion of politics is, with
one consent, tabooed for fear of a disturbance, and where the most
frolicsome of its members play at chess for relaxation, we shall get
some notion of the state of absolute decorum which existed in our little
_café maure_.
It was very quaint. The memory of the grave quiet faces of these most
polite Moorish gentlemen, looking so smooth and clean in their white
bournouses, seated solemnly doing nothing, haunts us to this day. Years
elapsed between our first and last visit to our favourite street, yet
there they were when we came again, still doing nothing in a row; and
opposite to them, the merchants who do no trade, also sitting in their *
accustomed places, surrounded with the same old wares.
There was the same old negro in a dark corner making coffee, and handing
it to the same customers, sitting in the same places, in the same dream.
[Illustration: 0115]
There is certainly both art and mystery in doing nothing well which
these men achieve in their peculiar lives; here they sit for years
together, silently waiting, without a trace of boredom on their faces,
and without exhibiting a gesture of impatience. They--the 'gentlemen'
in the café on the right hand--have saved up money enough to keep
life together, they have for ever renounced work, and can look on with
complacency at their poorer brethren. They have their traditions, their
faith, their romance of life, and the curious belief before alluded to,
that if they fear God and Mahomet, and sit here long enough, they will
one day be sent for to Spain, to repeople the houses where their fathers
dwelt.
This corner is the one _par excellence_, where the Moors sit and wait.
There is the 'wall of wailing' at Jerusalem; there is the 'street of
waiting' in Algiers, where the Moors sit clothed in white, dreaming
of heaven--with an aspect of more than content, in a state of
dreamy delight achieved, apparently, more by habit of mind than any
opiates--the realisation of '_Keyf_'.
Not far from this street, but still in the Moorish quarter, we may
witness a much more animated scene, and obtain in some respects a still
better study of character and costume--at a clothes auction in the
neighbourhood of the principal bazaar. If we go in the afternoon, we
shall probably find a crowd collected in a courtyard, round a number of
Jews who are selling clothes, silks, and stuffs, and so intent are they
all on the business that is going forward, that we are able to take up a
good position to watch the proceedings.
We arrived one day at this spot, just as a terrible scuffle or wrangle,
was going forward, between ten or a dozen old men (surrounded by at
least a hundred spectators) about the quality or ownership of some
garment. The merits of the discussion were of little interest to us and
were probably of little importance to anybody, but the result was in
its way as interesting a spectacle as ever greeted the eye and ear,
something that we could never have imagined, and certainly could never
have seen, in any other land.
This old garment had magical powers, and was a treasure to _us_ at
least. It attracted the old and young, the wise and foolish, the excited
combatant and the calm and dignified spectator; it collected them all
in a large square courtyard with plain whitewashed walls and Moorish
arcades. On one side a palm-tree drooped its gigantic leaves, and cast
broad shadows on the ground, which in some places, was almost of the
brightness of orange; on the other side, half in sunlight, half in
shadow, a heavy awning was spread over a raised daïs or stage, and
through its tatters and through the deep arcades, the sky appeared in
patches of the deepest blue--blue of a depth and brilliancy that few
painters have ever succeeded in depicting. It gave in a wider and truer
sense, just that quality to our picture--if we may be excused a little
technicality and a familiar illustration--that a broad red sash thrown
across the bed of a sleeping child in Millais' picture in the Royal
Academy Exhibition of 1867, gave to his composition, as many readers may
remember.
But we cannot take our eyes from the principal group, or do much more
than watch the crowd in its changing phases. To give any idea of the
uproar, the 'row' we ought to call it, would be to weary the reader with
a polyglot of words and sentences, some not too choice, and many too
shrill and fiercely accentuated; but to picture the general aspect in a
few words is worth a trial, although to do this we must join the throng
and fight our way to the front.
Where have we seen the like? We have seen such upturned faces in
pictures of the early days of the Reformation by Henry Leys; we have
seen such passion in _Shy lock_, such despair in _Lear _; such grave and
imposing-looking men with 'reverend beards' in many pictures by the old
masters; but seldom have we seen such concentration of emotion (if we
may so express it), and unity of purpose, in one group.
Do our figure-painters want a subject, with variety of colour
and character in one canvas? They need not go to the bazaars of
Constantinople, or to the markets of the East. Let them follow us here
crushing close to the platform, our faces nearly on a level with the
boards. Look at the colours, at the folds of their cloaks, bournouses
and yachmahs--purple, deep red, and spotless white, all crushed
together--with their rich transparent shadows, as the sun streams across
them, reflected on the walls. The heavy awning throws a curious glow
over the figures, and sometimes almost conceals their features with a
dazzle of reflected light. Look at the legs of these eager traders, as
they struggle and fight and stand on tiptoe, to catch a glimpse of some
new thing exposed for sale; look at them well--the lean, the shambling,
the vigorous, the bare bronze (bronzed with sun and grime), the dark
hose, the purple silk, and the white cotton, the latter the special
affectation of the dandy Jew. What a medley, but what character
here--the group from knee to ankle forms a picture alone.
And thus they crowd together for half-an-hour, whilst all ordinary
business seems suspended. Nothing could be done with such a clatter,
not to mention the heat. Oh, how the Arab gutturals, the impossible
consonants (quite impossible to unpractised European lips) were
interjected and hurled, so to speak, to and fro! How much was said to
no purpose, how incoherent it all seemed, and how we wished for a few
vowels to cool the air!
In half-an-hour a calm has set in and the steady business of the day is
allowed to go forward; we may now smoke our pipes in peace, and from a
quiet corner watch the proceedings almost unobserved, asking ourselves
a question or two suggested by the foregoing scene. Is expression really
worth anything? Is the exhibition of passion much more than acting?
Shall grey beards and flowing robes carry dignity with them any more, if
a haggle about old clothes can produce it in five minutes?
And so we sit and watch for hours, wondering at the apparently endless
variety of the patterns, and colours of the fabrics exposed for
sale; and perhaps we doze, perhaps we dream. Is it the effect of the
hachshish? Is it the strong coffee? Are we, indeed, dreaming, or is the
auction a sham? Surely that pretty bright handkerchief--now held up
and eagerly scanned by bleared old eyes--now rumpled and drawn sharply
between haggard fingers--is an old friend, and has no business in a sale
like this? Let us rub our eyes and try and remember where we have seen
it o before. Yes--there is no mistaking the pattern, we have seen it in
Spain. It was bound turbanwise round the head of a woman who performed
in the bull ring at Seville, on the occasion of a particularly high and
rollicking festival of the 'Catholic Church;' it was handed out of a
diligence window one dark night on the Sierra Morena, when a mule had
broken its leg, and the only method of getting it along was to tie the
injured limb to the girth, and let the animal hop on three legs for the
rest of the way. It found its way into the Tyrol, worn as a sash; it
was in the market-place at Bastia in Corsica, in the hands of a maiden
selling fruit; it flaunted at Marseilles, drying in the wind on a ship's
spar; and the last time we saw it (if our memory serves us well) it was
carefully taken from a drawer in a little shop, '_Au Dey d'Alger_' in
the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, and offered to us, by that greatest of all
humbugs, Mustapha, as the latest Algerian thing in neckties, which he
asked fifteen francs for, and would gladly part with for two.
It was a pattern we knew by heart, that we meet with in all parts of the
world, thanks to the universality of Manchester cottons. But the pattern
was simple and good, nothing but an arrangement of red and black stripes
on a maize ground, and therein lay its success. It had its origin in
the first principles of decoration, it transgressed no law or canon of
taste, it was easily and cheaply made (as all the best patterns are),
and so it travelled round the world, and the imitation work came to be
sold in, perhaps, the very bazaar whence the pattern first came, and its
originators squabbled over the possession of it, as of something unique.
But we can hardly regret the repetition of these Moorish patterns, for
they are useful in such a variety of ways. Wind one of the handkerchiefs
in and out amongst dark tresses, and see what richness it gives; make
a turban of it for a negress's head; tie it nattily under the chin of a
little Parisienne and, _hey presto!_ she is pretty; make a sash of
it, or throw it loosely on the ground, and the effect is graceful and
charming to the eye. In some Japanese and Chinese silks we may meet with
more brilliant achievements in positive colours; but the Moors seem to
excel all other nations in taste, and in their skilful juxta-position
of tints. We have seen a Moorish designer hard at work, with a box of
butterflies' wings for his school of design, and we might, perhaps, take
the hint at home.
But we must leave the Moors and their beautiful fabrics for a while, and
glance at the Arab quarter of the town. We shall see the Arabs bye and
bye in the plains and in their tents, in their traditionary aspect; but
here we come in contact with a somewhat renegade and disreputable race,
who hang, as it were, on the outskirts of civilization. Many of them
have come from the neighbouring villages and from their camps across the
plains of the Sahel; and have set up a market of their own, where they
are in full activity, trading with each other and with the Frank. * Here
they may be seen by hundreds--some buying and selling, some fighting
and not unfrequently, cursing one another heartily; others ranged close
together in rows upon the ground, like so many white loaves ready for
baking. Calm they are, and almost dignified in appearance, when sitting
smoking in conclave; but only give them something to quarrel about,
touch them up ever so little on their irritable side, and they will beat
Geneva washerwomen for clatter.
* This market-place is a sort of commercial neutral ground,
where both Arabs and Kabyles meet the French in the
strictest amity, and cheat them if they can.
Take them individually, these trading men, who have had years of
intercourse with their French conquerors, and they disappoint us
altogether. They are no longer true followers of the Prophet, although
they are a great obstruction to traffic, by spreading carpets on the
ground in the middle of the road, and prostrating themselves towards
Mahomet and the sun. Trade--paltry, mean, and cowardly as it so often
makes men--has done the Arab irreparable harm: it has taught him to
believe in counterfeits and little swindles as a legitimate mode of
life, to pass bad money, and to cringe to a conqueror because he could
make money thereby. He could not do these things in the old days, with
his face to the sun.
The Arab is generally pictured to us in his tent or with his tribe,
calm, dignified and brave, and perhaps we may meet with him thus on
the other side of the Sahel, but here in Algiers he is a metamorphosed
creature. The camels that crouch upon the ground, and scream and bite
at passers-by, are more dignified and consistent in their ill-tempered
generation than these 'Sons of the Prophet,' these 'Lights of Truth.'
And they have actually caught European tricks. What shall we say when
two Arabs meet in the street, and after a few words interchanged, pass
away from each other with a quickened, jaunty step, like two city men,
who have 'lost time,' and must make it up by a spurt! Shall we
respect our noble Arab any more when we see him walking abroad with a
stereotyped, plausible smile upon his face, and every action indicating
an eye to the main chance? *
* It may seem a stretch of fancy, but even the bournous
itself, with its classic outline and flowing folds, loses
half its dignity and picturesqueness on these men. It has
been rather vulgarised of late years in Western Europe; and
when we see it carried on the arm of an Arab (as we do
sometimes), there is a suggestion of opera stalls, and
lingering last good nights on unromantic doorsteps, that is
fatal to its patriarchal character.
A step lower, of which there are too many examples in the crowd, and
there is a sadder metamorphose yet--the patriarch turned scamp--one who
has left his family and his tribe to seek his fortune. Look at him, with
his ragged bournous, his dirt and his cringing ways, and contrast his
life now, with what he has voluntarily abandoned. Oh! how civilization
has lowered him in his own eyes, how his courage has turned to bravado,
and his tact to cunning; how even natural affection has languished, and
family ties are but threads of the lightest tissue. He has failed in his
endeavour to trade, he has disobeyed the Koran, and is an outcast and
unclean--one of the waifs and strays of cities!
As we wend our way homeward (as John Bunyan says), 'thinking of these
things,' we see two tall white figures go down to the water side, like
the monks in Millais' picture of 'A Dream of the Past.' They stand on
the bank in the evening light, their reflections repeated in the water.
It is the hour of prayer; what are they doing? They are fishing with
a modern rod and line, and their little floats are painted with the
tricolour!
[Illustration: 0131]
[Illustration: 0133]