THE COUNTRY-SIDE
Whatever people may think of Algiers itself,—whether they are most
attracted by its old-world side, or its up-to-date would-be Paris
quarter, with the wide, handsome boulevards and quays, the arcaded
streets, the crowded squares, or even by the endless pleasure of
treasure-hunting in the many curiosity shops, and the yet more endless
bargaining that this entails,—still it is generally with a sigh of
relief that they turn from the noise and clatter of the stone-paved
streets, and wind their way towards the heights of Mustapha Supérieur
and El Biar, where most of the foreign visitors and residents live.
At first the way is weary, up-hill as usual, and along a prosaic street,
almost the only interest being a few fragments of the city wall near the
English church, which till only a few years ago stood at the
meeting-place of town and country, and is now quite swallowed up by the
ever-growing town.
But though the ascent may be steep, the way long, and the streets not
very interesting, these little matters are soon forgotten as the road
passes quite suddenly at last into a region of shady trees and gardens,
and winds on and up past hotels and villas till at last the heights are
gained, and lovely, ever-varying views open on every side. It is a joy
to live in one of these white houses half-hidden by a mist of green, to
stand on the sunny terrace in the early part of the day and look out
over the sea—a joy which is new every morning and which increases day by
day.
In the distance, above the exquisite curve of the bay, is a long line of
mountains, imposing enough, and fine in form, sometimes dark and gloomy
with storm cloud, at other times so faintly blue that their outlines
barely show against the pale lightness of the sky. These nearer
mountains are things of every day, and their changing moods are always
visible, but above and beyond these come and go, for a few fleeting
moments, like a vision, the great snow mountains of Kabylia. Mysterious,
delicate, elusive, hardly to be distinguished from cloud masses, and yet
grand and majestic in outline as any in Switzerland—a strange, unwonted
sight to those who only know North Africa as it appears in Egypt. For
though we all know better, snow mountains on this scale will suggest a
northern landscape with pines and fir trees, and not the sort of
vegetation this garden land supplies as a foreground. As far as one can
see, a rich plain and softly wooded heights, olives and almonds, palms
and pepper trees, sycamores, stone pines in endless variety, and closer
still are tropical flowers, strange to see with a snow background. It
seems wrong, somehow, and the fact of its being January adds to the
oddness of the feeling.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM MUSTAPHA, ALGIERS]
But the view cannot be said to be all charm and dreamy beauty, for
unfortunately, or fortunately, there is a great deal more. Lower
Mustapha also lies spread like a map before you—a prosperous town, with
factories, government and otherwise, smoking chimneys, and barracks.
This is why early morning is the best moment, for then the veil of smoke
and mist hides the ugliness, and prevents the counting of those odious
chimneys, and leaves Upper Mustapha alone to act as foreground, where it
is still country, in its own way, the hills covered with trees and
gardens, and the endless houses simply showing as sparkles of light.
Still, it is one of those places that makes the new-comer long to have
seen and known a few years ago, before this sudden great prosperity; for
in those days when the factories did not exist, the villas were all
beautiful, and few and far between, and it was possible to walk through
fields, and over the hillside, gathering wild flowers all the way, to
the very gates of the city. And all this is a question of a few years,
so rapid has been the success of the colony when once it really started;
before that, the old descriptions of the place held true and still do
so, if only a little judicious shutting of the eyes is used
occasionally, such as the glowing picture, drawn by one of the English
officers of the squadron that came to Algiers in 1674, of the beautiful
country, houses white as chalk on either side of the town, with gardens
and vineyards abounding in all kinds of fruit and vegetables. Oranges
and lemons had only lately been planted, but they produced so
abundantly, that “he bought sixty for a royal”; although it was
Christmas they had apples, cauliflowers, roses, carnations, and “most
sorts of ffruights, flowers and salating.”
It would now take an immense catalogue, as large as any of the bulky
volumes issued by our English seedsmen, to sum up all the trees,
flowers, and fruits that can be found not only in the beautiful gardens,
or in the great Jardin d’Essai, but also growing wild on the whole
country-side. In January the trees and hedges along the roads and
by-ways are festooned by masses of white clematis growing like our
traveller’s joy, but with flowers whose petals are at least an inch
long. A little later there are irises everywhere: a dwarf kind with
large lilac-coloured flowers, and also, but rarely, a white variety has
been found. Then comes one of the chief pleasures of spring—drives far
out into the country, where the rolling hills, the coombes, and the
rich, red soil bring memories of Devonshire (memories a little disturbed
by the vineyards that clothe the hills, and the distant snow-clad
mountains). The object of these drives is to gather the wild narcissus,
which is found growing in marshy hollows on the wildest parts of the
hillside beyond Dely Ibrahim. They grow in such quantities, that large
bunches can be made in a few minutes at the expense of a little agility
and some rather muddy boots. Later on, the asphodel covers every waste
space with flowery spikes and ribbon leaves.
[Illustration: ON MY BALCONY, ALGIERS]
The roads, as is the way of French roads, are wide and good, with
gradients suited to military needs; but the lanes of Mustapha and El
Biar are a feature of the place—narrow, sometimes very steep, often more
like the bed of a torrent than a path, with stone walls full of plants
and ferns, overarched by trees, with aloes and prickly pear crowning the
banks; shady and cool in the heat, damp like a tunnel in the wet, lonely
and not always very safe—a point which perhaps adds something to their
fascination.
The real delight of the whole place lies for most people in the
possession of a villa, Moorish or otherwise, and a garden—and the garden
is the thing. This is why there are many who cannot feel the
indescribable charm which makes Egypt what it is. They talk of the
monotony of sand and hill, palm and river, and miss those months of
winter passed amidst the flowers and trees, and can hardly realise that
the still water, and the sunsets which seem to open the very gates of
heaven, can ever compensate even slightly for their loss. Naturally they
have sunsets too; only to enjoy them properly you must dwell on the
heights of El Biar and arrange to have a western outlook across the
plain. Then and then only can you sometimes feel that the glories, and
now and then the calm of the East reach even here. Flowers are better is
their cry, and perhaps this is true; at any rate it is good to live all
through what should be winter with the white walls of your house aglow
with colour, draped with purple Bougainvillæa, or, as in one well-known,
well-loved garden, with a fiery cross of the more uncommon terra cotta
variety upon that same fine whiteness, with the blue sea far beyond, and
peeps of mountains, plain, and harbour as a background, whilst all
around comes the scent of violets, sweet peas and roses, not to speak of
calycanthus and other fragrant shrubs. Here there are irises and
narcissus, and all the old-world English flowers, mingling in friendly
fashion with strange companions: cactus and aloes of every variety, arum
lilies, the white hanging bells of the datura, the birdlike brightness
of the strelitzia, the gorgeous scarlet of the Indian shoe-flower, all
flourishing happily together. The very fountains bring thoughts of Egypt
and Greece—full as they are of waving globes of feathery papyrus. There
are bamboos from Japan; eucalyptus or blue gum from Australia; oranges,
lemons, and bananas of the South; apples and pears from the North; and
stately groups of stone pines, a purely Italian feature. Strange fruits
are also to be found in this dream garden; the strangest of all, one
that rejoices in the name of _Monstera deliciosa_. It has large thick
leaves, slit somewhat like a banana, flowers resembling the wild arums
of our English lanes magnified exceedingly, the fruit a cross between a
pine-apple and a cone in appearance, and having a taste of the former
mixed with something quite its own.
[Illustration: BOUGAINVILLEA, ALGIERS]
Other gardens give lovely “bits”: in one a long border of arum lilies,
growing as freely as Madonna lilies in a cottage garden, backed by
flames of montbretia, and small queer aloes with paler flame-coloured
flowers edging the path before them. The great scarlet aloe is the
centre of many pictures, either solitary on a terrace, with trees and
the bay, or in an old garden amongst cypresses, its red-hot pokers
contrasting brilliantly with the rich green, or, better still, perhaps
in masses on a long border under an open avenue of olives on a hillside,
seen in the glow of evening, standing gemlike in the still blueness of
sea and sky. Roses may be seen everywhere, festooning walls and forming
hedges. The eye will rest with pleasure on some Moorish doorway
surrounded by goodly bushes of pomegranate, their bright orange-red
blossoms harmonising with the tones of the old building and with the
violets; for here even they come into the picture, as Algerian violets
are not occupied modestly hiding under their leaves, for they raise
their heads proudly on long stalks, carpeting the ground with their fine
purple, and the scent rises to the terrace far above them.
The old Moorish villas are all built on much the same plan as the houses
in the town, collections of white cubes from without, and within a two
storied arcaded court, on to which the various rooms open. In some there
is also a women’s court, and occasionally a garden court as well. One of
the most beautiful of these houses contains, under a glass let into one
of the walls, a most remarkable record, said to be the only contemporary
one of Christian slavery known to exist in Algiers. It was discovered
during some repairs done by its first English owner, when a flake of
plaster fell off and disclosed this writing roughly scratched as if by a
nail on a wet surface:—
John Robson
(wi)th my hand this 3rd day
Jany. in the year
1692.
This John Robson is known to have been released and restored to his
family and friends by William Bowlett, who paid £11:2s. for his
freedom—not a very high value for an Englishman even in those days. This
same villa has a beautiful garden-court, which as you walk into it makes
you feel as if you stepped backwards through the ages into a world of
old romance, solemn and stately; and as you look from the cool shadow to
the cloister arches and white twisted columns covered with bright
creepers, you hardly realise that old tiles upon the wall, old red
pavement at your feet, trees laden with oranges, a fountain covered with
maiden-hair, and surrounded by a square pool of water, like a mirror
reflecting the papyrus which grows in it, are the details that make up
the picture, so entirely do the stillness and the peace throw their
enchantment over all. Then with the opening of the great doors comes a
vision of sunlit paths and brightest green, formal almost to stiffness
in its lines—the old Harem garden. Many of the villas have beauties such
as these, though few so perfect as a whole; often only a doorway or a
window remains that still tells its tale of olden days.
[Illustration: THE GARDEN COURT OF AN OLD MOORISH VILLA, ALGIERS]
The pride of Lower Mustapha is the Jardin d’Essai, not properly a garden
at all, not even a park, though it is big enough for that. It is a home
for numbers of rare trees and shrubs of a more or less tropical
character, a sort of school where they are trained to stand another
climate, and from which some go forth and travel again to northern
lands; for it is said that the culture of palm trees alone brings in at
least £4000 a year, and that most of those sold in London and Paris come
from this garden. India-rubber trees, bananas, and oranges are on the
useful market-garden side, and to these might also be added its ostrich
farm; but from the scientific or artistic point of view usefulness is a
smaller thing than rarity and beauty. There are also trees of the most
rare kinds with imposing names to rejoice the learned; and for the
satisfaction of beauty lovers, long avenues of palms of every type,
cocoa trees, quaint alleys of yuccas, and lightest and perhaps most
graceful of all, the bamboo. Then for a change, just by crossing a road,
there is a real oasis of ordinary palms, making a delicious shade for
the little tables of two bright cafés; and from this spot, at the
water’s very edge, is a peep of old Algiers, the “white city,” the
harbour and the boats glowing in the soft afternoon light, and reflected
in the calm opalescent water.
Quite near to the Jardin d’Essai is another garden, the Arab cemetery,
very wild, and badly kept, its interest lying not in its own beauty, but
in the fact that Friday after Friday all the year round it is the place
of pilgrimage of the Arab women. It contains the tomb of a celebrated
saint called Sidi Mohammed Abder Rahman Bou Kobrin, who came at the end
of the eighteenth century from the Djurdjura mountains, and founded a
powerful sect or order, second only to that of Sidi Okba. His body was
brought to Algiers and buried in the Koubba, but his followers in the
wilds of Kabylia became furious until they discovered that all the time
the body was still in its first resting-place as well. Now all is quiet
and calm once more, as a wonder has been worked, so that henceforth he
is Bou Kobrin, the man of two tombs. At noon the gates are closed to all
men, and until six in the evening it is crowded with women and children.
Here they come, in carriages and on foot, in big parties in special
omnibuses, veiled, mysterious forms; but once inside they form laughing
groups on the various family tombstones, take off the veils that cover
their faces, showing glimpses of gay colours under the shrouding white.
Here they picnic and chat and pay each other visits, and return with
great interest the gaze of the European women who come to see them. The
Arab ladies of Algiers live such secluded lives that this is often their
only opportunity of going out, and it is quite their only chance of
being free and unveiled out of their own homes, so that naturally they
make the most of their time, and think as few sad thoughts as may be; so
that although we have seen tears and passionate kissing of the tombs,
and offerings of evergreens, the symbol of immortality, smiles and sweet
glances are much more common. Some of them are really beautiful with
their dark eyes and heavily painted eyebrows, some most surprisingly
fair, and, though it is hardly polite to mention it of such carefully
veiled dames, some are as surprisingly ugly. Often they talk a little
French, and though most of them are horrified and turn their backs when
they see a camera, sketching does not seem to be half such a terror, and
they smile, and point, and say something that sounds like _m’lyeh_, and
means pretty.
[Illustration: FRIDAY AT THE CEMETERY, ALGIERS]
From cemeteries to tombs and shrines is a natural step, and here, as in
Italy, there are endless places of pilgrimage. Mohammedan saints simply
abound. In this part of the world they go by the name of Marabout, and
the tomb-mosques built over their graves are called Marabouts also—a
most confusing arrangement, so that it is quite a relief when Koubba is
used as a substitute in discussing tombs. These tombs are mostly built
on a very simple plan—a small cube surmounted by a dome, the whole as
white as frequent whitewash can make it.
It is a delightful drive to the shrine of Sidi Noumann, at Bouzareah,
through some of the prettiest scenery in the whole neighbourhood.
Passing through Mustapha Supérieur and reaching the Colonne Voirol on
the top of the hill, and then keeping at a high level along a country
road, almost English with its high hedges, though most un-English in the
glimpses that come every now and then of Moorish villas, stone pines and
cypresses, with the deep blue sea on the one side, and on the other the
rich colour of the plain. After passing the busy little town of El Biar
it is all real hill country, up and down, and round through vineyards
and cornfields, smiling and prosperous, which bear witness to the
untiring industry of the _Colons_ or Colonists. Year by year the
moorland is disappearing, larger and larger tracts come under
cultivation, till soon there will be nothing but vines and corn as far
as the eye can see, the vines especially being an enormous success.
Farmhouses of European character nestle in hollows, or stand well
sheltered by pines or eucalyptus, and these buildings contrast oddly
with the Moorish houses, which resemble forts. Sometimes both styles of
architecture are as mixed as the races who toil in these same fields and
vineyards. French, Italians, Spaniards, men from the Balearic Isles,
Moors and Kabyles, work together, talking strange-sounding tongues, a
sort of patois at best, distinguished from each other by little touches
in their dress, mainly in their headgear, the size of their hats, or its
material, every sort of turban and handkerchief, and, ruling over them
all, a pith helmet in hot weather. At last, after many turns and twists
round wooded, waterless coombes, the carriage reaches the village of
Bouzareah, and turning up a shady lane stops at a small enclosure. Arab
boys promptly appear and insist on acting as guides, telling in very
broken French that here the great Saint was buried, and making every one
peep in to see the tomb itself in the dark interior of the Koubba.
[Illustration: KOUBBA OF SIDI NOUMANN, BOUZAREAH]
Another Marabout lives near by, and there is a minaret and small mosque,
another tomb or so, and a well-house which almost looks like one. Groups
of minuscule palms, whose heads of fan-shaped leaves seem too small for
the size of their trunks, throw flickering shadows over the white walls,
as the wind blows them to and fro. Outside the sacred place lies wild
moorland, broken by simple stones, marking other graves scattered far
and wide, pale purple iris growing half-hidden amongst them. Splendid
aloes fringe the sides of a little lane which separates the tomb of the
saint from the wind-swept lonely hill where his followers are
buried—aloes whose soft greyish-blue leaves form delicate contrast in
colour with the green of cactus and palm and the red of the crumbling
banks. In the evening the view is beautiful from any part of this ridge,
some 1300 feet above the sea, though too panoramic perhaps for a
picture. Miles and miles of plain, shimmering in the heat, tone after
tone of rich colour fading gradually into the blues and purples of the
long range of mountains which enclose it all, and stretch in a fine
curve far out into the sea, Djebel Chenoua stands out dark and fine
against the brilliance of the setting sun, a scene beautiful as the Bay
of Algiers itself. On a clear day may be seen many places noted in
ancient times, such as the “tomb of the Christian,” supposed to have
been the great sepulchre of the Mauritanian kings, built about 26 B.C.,
a great circular building standing on a hill, with a sort of pyramid on
the top of it, and with long passages and vaulted chambers within; but
it must have been ransacked in bygone times, for when opened by modern
explorers in 1866, nothing remained but bare walls. You may see also
Tipaza, founded by the Emperor Claudian, and Cherchell, originally a
Phœnician colony, but later on known to the Romans as Cæsarea, and to
the Christians as the place of martyrdom of St. Marcian and St.
Arcadius.
Nearer on the sea-shore the French landed, and the great battle which
gave freedom to the seas and Algeria to France was fought and won at
Staouëli on the 14th June 1830, under the command of General de
Bourmont. Staouëli is now best known for its great Trappist Monastery,
another favourite place for picnics, though it is a moot point whether
it is better to do a formal _maigre_ lunch in the solemn room of the
monastery, or to escape from its shadow and feed on forbidden things
under the trees. The Trappist colony is large and prosperous. The French
Government gave them a large grant of land, and they settled down soon
after the war, the foundation stone of the Abbey being laid on shells
found on the battlefield. The monks are celebrated for the wines which
they make and export in great quantities.
[Illustration: STONE PINES, ALGIERS]
These and many more are the sites pointed out with eager fingers by the
small Arabs, either from the little burying-ground, or, still better,
from the Observatory on a higher point just beyond the stone _gourbis_
of an Arab village. One of the roads runs along a ridge between two bays
with water almost all round, and there are many ways back to Algiers,
winding down amongst trees and villas. In fact driving, riding, walking,
and now motoring are a constant pleasure, for though the main features
of the sea and the _Sahel_, or great plain, with its encircling
mountains, are the foundation of each view, the effects are constantly
changing, and the views from the Bois de Boulogne, the Château Hydra,
the village of Koubba, Notre Dame d’Afrique, and the Casbah have all a
distinct individual beauty notwithstanding some sameness. Other reasons
besides the view take one to the two last. Notre Dame d’Afrique itself
stands finely on the top of a hill. It contains a wonder-working black
Madonna, and the walls are covered with votive offerings of every sort.
Over the high altar is the unusual inscription, “Notre Dame d’Afrique
priez pour nous et pour les Musulmans.” But it is the poetic service of
the blessing of the sea which draws multitudes up the steep hill on
Sunday afternoon. A procession crosses the terrace to the edge of the
cliff, where stands a cross to the memory of all those who have been
buried in deep waters. The priest wears a funeral cope, and the
realistic detail of a pall is not forgotten. Then there are prayers and
singing, and holy water is scattered out towards the sea on all sides.
The whole is very simple and quiet, not a pageant at all, but beautiful
in the idea and in the surroundings, city and sea seen through and over
a mist of almond blossom, white and pink—the emblem of hope, according
to the Mohammedans.
With the Casbah the attraction lies in its historic interest and
mingling memories—memories almost ludicrous when we remember the episode
of the fan: how the Dey in his anger used his to strike the French
Consul, forgetting that times had changed, and that it was no longer
possible to insult a European with impunity, thus commencing the war
which ended so disastrously for himself and so well for France;
humiliating, when we think of the bargains driven there for the freedom
of Christian slaves; ghastly, as we see the chain across the
throne-room, where heads of victims were once exposed after execution.
Memories of gallant knights toiling here as captives, and greatest among
them, as we reckon greatness nowadays, Don Miguel de Cervantes, the
author of _Don Quixote_. He was made prisoner by the Corsairs after the
battle of Lepanto in 1575, and brought to Algiers with his brother
Rodrigo. Their father made every effort to save them, but only succeeded
in releasing the less valuable Rodrigo. The Corsair captain considered
Don Miguel far too important to part with. He and his friends made many
dashing attempts to escape, which were invariably discovered or
betrayed, when he always chivalrously took all the blame himself. In
1580, just as he was being sent in irons to Constantinople, Father Juan
Gil managed to effect his ransom for the sum of a hundred pounds in
English money of the period.
[Illustration: THE RED ALOES]
Bitter memories mostly, but redeemed from sadness by the heroism of
Christian slaves, and by stories such as that of San Geronimo (or, to
give him his right title, the Venerable Geronimo), told by the Spanish
chronicler Hædo. He was an Arab child captured by the Spaniards,
baptized and brought up by the Vicar-General at Oran. Later on he fell
again into the hands of his own people, who made the boy a Mohammedan;
but when he grew older he determined to live and work for the Christian
faith, so he returned to Oran, became a soldier, and married. Then after
ten years, in 1569, he was unfortunately made prisoner by pirates and
carried to Algiers. The Mohammedans were furious that one of their creed
and race should be a renegade, but no threats or persuasions had any
power to move him from his faith. By the Governor’s command, he was
buried alive in a block of concrete in the walls of the “Fort des
vingt-quatre heures,” his last words being, “I am a Christian, and a
Christian I will die.” This happened on the 18th of September 1569, and
the story was long looked upon as a legend, but has now been proved to
be true by the discovery of the skeleton in 1853, in the very situation
where tradition had always placed it. Those who care for such sights may
go to the Museum and see a cast of the body, made from the original
block in which he was buried; a grim relic to be placed amongst Roman
antiquities and inscriptions. But the block itself, that “noble
sepulchre” as the old chronicler calls it, has now found a fitting
shrine in the Cathedral, where the bones of the saint rest after his
stern warfare, his faithfulness unto death. The marble sarcophagus bears
the inscription, “Ossa venerabilis servi Dei Geronimo.”