Kitabı oku: «In the Land of Mosques & Minarets», sayfa 9

These fumeries de kif are to all intents and purposes low-class cafés, peopled with all the nomad riffraff of the Mediterranean from Mogador to Crete. Seemingly no one is proprietor, but each shuffles around for himself regardless of any apparent reckoning to come. It is a picturesque setting indeed for a theatre of crime.

For furnishings, a straw mat covers a part of the floor, and a few cushions of grimy embroidered, or embossed, leather are backed up against the wall here and there. A great carven coffer, presumably a strong box containing the stock, ends the catalogue, if one excepts the now smoke-dimmed arabesques and horseshoe arched decorations of the walls themselves.

In one we saw tied a bald-headed vulture, a dirty fowl, and an itinerant blind musician with a tanned skin, twanging out minor chords on a gambri, or Arab guitar with two strings, and those not even catgut, but a poor Arab substitute therefor.

Figuig is the end of the railway line into the Sud-Oranais, and, though it and its Grand Hotel du Sahara are of little interest to the tourist, the surrounding environment is as far removed from civilization as one could hope to get and yet find himself fairly comfortable between the four walls of a hotel of imposing proportions.

Figuig is the virtual end of encroaching civilization; eight hundred odd kilometres from the coast straight south into the desert. The railway is not intended to stop at Figuig; and, by this time, it may have reached Colomb-Béchar, a hundred kilometres further on, to which point it was projected when these lines were written. Fifteen miles an hour is the ordinary speed of this toy railway, and the journey takes from twenty-four to thirty hours of uncomfortable and dusty travelling, which costs, however, only a matter of a hundred francs or so, coming and going.

Going east from Figuig, four hundred kilometres, the only communication being by the caravan trail, is Laghouat, another outpost of civilization on the desert’s edge.

Laghouat, like most desert towns, like Touggourt, like Tozeur, like Biskra even, is an oasis. In its markets one may see the traffickings of all the desert types of the Sahara, from the M’zab – the Auvergnats of Algeria – to the wandering nomads of the south, – the tramps of the desert, not omitting the picturesque Ouled-Naïls and the terrible Touaregs, with their still more terrible-looking guns and their heads swathed in black veils.

At Laghouat and Figuig one gets the truest perspective of the life of the desert that one can have short of Oued-Souf in the Sud-Constantinois. Biskra is in the class of “exploited tourist points,” whilst these desert towns are practically inaccessible to all but the hardiest of travellers, – the real genuine travel-lover, not those who are averse to riding in creaky diligences with dusky Arabs for companions, or on mule, donkey, or camel back, for all these means of locomotion come into the desert itinerary.

CHAPTER XIV
THE MITIDJA AND THE SAHEL

THE whole region just west of Algiers is very properly accounted the garden of North Africa. Wheat, the vine, the orange, and all the range of primeurs which go to grace the tables d’hôte at Paris are grown here to the profit of all and sundry, native and colonist alike, who possess a garden plot of virgin soil.

Boufarik, in the midst of the great plain of the Mitidja, is a garden city if there ever was one. It is beautifully and geometrically laid out, like Philadelphia, though it doesn’t resemble the Quaker City in the least; it is more lively.

The great day at Boufarik is the market day, when a great cattle and sheep market is held (every Monday week). To-day this great market is a survival of one which has been held for ages.

The coming of the French made for the increased prosperity of Boufarik, and its former reputation of being a pest-hole has been entirely overridden by a series of civic improvements which not only resulted in cleaning up the town but made it really beautiful as well.

The Monday market at Boufarik is one of the things to come out from Algiers to see. For once put carriage or automobile behind and travel out by train or diligence, and mingle with the people and see what the real native life of Algeria is like, so far as it can be seen, uncontaminated by foreign influence. Better yet, go out the night before and sleep at the Hotel Benoit. It is unlovely enough as an inn, but the dishes served at dinner and breakfast are very good; reminiscent of North Africa, but bountiful and excellent. There is nothing offensive or unclean about the hotel, if it is crude; but the colour one gathers on the palette of his memory is very local.

From the afternoon of Sunday, on all the roads leading into Boufarik, from Cherchell and the Sahel, from Miliana, from Blida and Algiers, throng the thousands that will make up the personnel of to-morrow’s market. They come on camel-back, on horses, mules, and donkeys, on foot, by diligence, and by rail, herded in flat unroofed cars like cattle. Some are the pure Arab type of the sandy dunes and plains of the waste Sahara, others Berber-Kabyles, and others Jews, Maltese, Spaniards, French, Italians and – tell it not in Gath – Germans. The contrast of the types is as great as the contrast between their modes of conveyance, the contrast between the plodding little donkeys and the great, tall, lumpy camels. The comings and goings of the great native market of Boufarik are a perpetual migration, and there is nothing the Arab likes more than to participate in such an affair. It is his great passion and diversion, and the fact that he stands to gain a little money is not so much an object with him as to kill a little time.

From daybreak, the vast quadrangle on the Route de Blida, outside Boufarik’s rectangular fortifications, is given over to tents, shops, and booths. Here and there is a corral of donkeys or mules, or a pen full of sheep. Braying donkeys and bleating sheep are everywhere. The great avenues of plane-trees form a grove, and wherever they cross some more powerful or wily trader has squatted on the ground, to the discomfort of his less fortunate competitor, who, perforce, has to content himself with the shady side of a camel. Leading up to this unique market-place is a splendid avenue of orange-trees.

A superb disorder of trumpery brummagem cutlery, stuffs, firearms and pots and pans clutter the ground in every direction. Water-sellers and milk-sellers are threading everywhere, each loaded down with his peau de bouc, and fruit and bread sellers with their wicker baskets. Saddlery, horseshoes, ropes of hemp, jute, and camel hair all mingle in a picturesque chaos. There are even hand sewing-machines, of the little doll-house variety that the native populations of India, Japan, Patagonia affect as their sole intercourse with modernity.

A few women mingle among the groups, but mostly the crowd is made up of men. Rarely are these market women beautiful except in a savage way. They possess most of the male characteristics of manner, and but few of the wiles and little of the coquettishness of woman. Their visages are tanned to copper colour and sowed with ridges and folds. Many indeed are out and out negresses.

Here beside a stall sits a Soudan negress of fat, flabby visage and large round eyes, as amiable as some greasy animal in captivity – and about as intelligent. She is only a watcher or caretaker; the real owner of the stall, with its melons, its skins, and its baskets, is over yonder in a Moorish café playing dominoes.

From her head and shoulders hang great chains of silver, and in the lobes of her ears are pendants which may be gold or not. She is a barbaric savage, splendid in her savagery and indifferent, apparently, to everything and everybody. But she is part of the setting nevertheless, and she is good to see.

The coast plain west of Algiers, the Sahel properly called, is in strong contrast with the cultivated plain of the Mitidja. The whole journey from Algiers out to Cherchell and back, via Miliana, Blida, and Boufarik, gives one as good an idea of the ancient and modern civilization of North Africa as one could possibly have.

Blida sits calmly in its fertile plain at the foot of the imposing hills which, grouped together, form the mountains of the Beni-Salah. All round about are orange groves and olive-trees of the very first splendour and production. The Bois Sacré, Blida’s chief sight, is as picturesque and romantic a woodland as the sentiment of a poet or an artist ever conjured up.

Blida dates from the sixteenth century, when a number of Andalusian families settled here because of the suitability of the region for the cultivation of the orange, – and the commerce has been growing ever since. In the olden times Blida was known as Ouarda, the little rose; but afterwards when the Turks and Corsairs held their orgy there, it came to be called Khaaba, the prostitute. Since that day it has got back its good name and is one of the liveliest, daintiest, and altogether attractive small cities of Algeria. The native and the French alike know it is la voluptueuse or la parfumée.

Within Blida’s Bois Sacré is the venerated marabout of Sidi-Yacoub-ech-Chérif, one of the celebrated kouba shrines of Islam. No reproduction of it can do its cool, leafy surroundings justice. It is the very ideal of a holy man’s retreat and one of the most appealing of shrines to those possessed of the artist’s eye. Fragonard or Corot might have spent a lifetime painting the forest interiors of the unspoiled wild-wood of Blida’s Bois Sacré. The writer is not sure that the author of “Mignon” ever saw or heard of Blida, but his verses were most apropos:

 
“Connais-tu le pays où fleurit l’oranger,
Le pays des fruits d’or et des roses vermeilles?
 

…

 
Où rayonne et sourit comme un bienfait de Dieu,
Un éternel printemps sous un ciel toujours bleu
 

…

 
C’est là que je voudrais vivre,
Aimer et mourir… C’est là!..”
 

In connection with Blida it is worthy of record that the celebrated and venerable bach-agha Sid Ben Gannah, of Biskra, Grand-Chef of the Sud-Constantinois, recently underwent a “cure” at the military hospital at Blida. His malady had become a chronic one, and his complete restoration to health through the aid of the capable doctors of the hospital and the mild soft air of Blida has done more than anything else to allay the fanatical superstition of the native against the efficacy of the proper professional treatment of the sick.

The “cure” experienced by their favourite bach-agha, the friend of the King of England and bearer of a hundred personal decorations, the “grand old man” of the country, has been heralded wide amongst the natives, from Constantine to Beni-Souf, and Ouardja to El Oued, and has struck the death-knell of the voodooism of the indigène “toubibs” and quacks.

For many years yet, it is to be hoped, the native may continue to demand the benedictions of Mohammed for their respected chief:

“Ou sela Allah ala on moulano on ala hebel daro ou ala sahabou ou Salem!”

A peculiarity of the Mauresques of Blida is that they veil themselves in a most strange manner. Instead of covering their faces, leaving only two glittering black eyes peeping out, they cover all but one eye. A woman who veils after that manner looks suspicious. Beware!

At the Mediterranean extremity of the great plain in which lies Blida – a veritable Garden of Eden, with oranges, figs, grapes, pomegranates and even the apples of Eve – is the little hill-town of Kolea.

Kolea is extraordinary from every point of view. Kolea is a military town; the Zouaves are everywhere, and in their train have come a following of Greeks, Turks, and Maltese. But the little garden-town with its Jardin des Zouaves, its two mosques, its turreted fountain and its modern Renaissance Mairie is attractive throughout, albeit it is not the least Oriental.

The Hôtel de France, partly Moorish (the good part), and partly French (the ugly part), is one of those French inns that are indescribably excellent. There is a sure-to-be Gabrielle who presides at the cook stove and another who serves at table and orders up the vin rosé from the cellar when the red or the white wine is too strong (16 degrees) for one’s taste. They are wonderfully good, those wines of the Sahel.

It is a remarkably brilliant strip of coast-line extending west from Algiers, and it should be covered in its entirety as far as Cherchell if one would realize the varied beauties and attractions of the Algerian littoral. From Saint-Eugène and Point Pescade, suburbs of Algiers, a fine road extends all the way to Cherchell, a matter of nearly a hundred kilometres, the turquoise Mediterranean always to the right.

At Sidi-Ferruch the French troops first landed when on their conquest of Algeria. At Staouëli-la-Trappe is an abbey where there are a hundred and fifty lay brothers who grow oranges and fine fruits, and while their dull lives away comfortably under the brilliant skies of Africa.

Going still further along the coast, we come to Castiglione, sheltering itself behind a sand-dune, from whence it is but a few kilometres to the “Tombeau de la Chrétienne,” as imposing and extraordinary a monument as any of the pyramids of Ghizeh. Architecturally, if not beautiful, it is imposing, and mysterious, in that it is constructed on a most original plan. It is a great mound of superimposed cut stone, entered by a pillared portico, now somewhat ruined. This funeral monument has an appeal for the archæologist and the merely curious alike far beyond many a more conventional monument of its class. The gigantic monument is still supposed to contain many and wonderful treasures, unless they were removed and lost in the forgotten past, for as yet none have been brought to light. Tradition has the following tale to tell of this monumental sepulchre.

One day a Christian woman, fleeing from a rabble of unholy men and women, took refuge in this commemorative shrine, built by some holy person whose name is forgotten. Her pursuers, coming upon her in her retreat, would have fallen upon her and done her injury, even as she was at her prayers, when suddenly a myriad of flies, mosquitoes, and wasps put the invaders to flight. The frightened woman lived a hermit’s life here in her stronghold, and at the end of her span came to die within the impenetrable walls. Ever afterward the cone-like mound was known as the Tombeau de la Chrétienne.

The Arabs call this bizarre tomb Kaber-Roumia. In 1866 it was explored by a band of archæologists, who decided that it was the tomb of the Kings of Mauretania, built by Jubal II in the reign of the great Augustus.

The reader may take his choice of the reasons for the existence of this remarkable monument. One is about as well authenticated as the other. It existed already in 1555, for the records tell that a Pacha of Algiers, Salah Raïs, tried, but without success, to destroy the edifice by firing stone cannon-balls at the mass. Nothing happened; the monument was not despoiled of its outlines even. This fact speaks badly either for the old Turkish ammunition or for the skill of the gunners who fired it.

Tipaza, the chef lieu of a commune with a population of between two or three thousand, is a little coast town and comes next on the itinerary from Algiers to Cherchell.

At Tipaza are still more Roman ruins, covering an area over two thousand metres square. Tipaza was one of the cities of Mauretania where the Christian religion was practised with the utmost fervour. The patron saint of the place was one Salsa, a young girl, who, according to tradition, was put to death at the beginning of the fourth century for having destroyed a pagan idol. Such was religious partisanship of the time. A century later the Vandal king Hunéric, in order to subdue Christianity, caused all those professing it to have their right hands cut off and their tongues cut out. This was the extreme of cruelty and its effect on Christendom is historic.

The Roman monuments still existing at Tipaza include a theatre, which is in a poor state of preservation. This has been restored in recent years to the extent that commemorative dramatic performances have been held here in the open air, as at Carthage, and at Orange in Provence. The outlines of a great basilica of nine naves, where Sainte Salsa was buried, are still well preserved, and there are also something more than fragments of the baths and water-works, which supplied the drinking water for the surrounding country.

From Tipaza to Cherchell is thirty kilometres by road, which is the only means of reaching the latter place unless one goes from Algiers by steamer along the coast, a voyage not to be recommended for various reasons.

Cherchell possesses the best-preserved outlines of an historic occupation of the past of any of the old Roman settlements of the “Département d’Alger.” First as the Phœnician colony of Iol, and later, under Jubal II, as Cesarea, the capital of Mauretania. Cherchell came under the sway of the Roman Empire in the year 40 of the Christian era. The province of Mauretania extended from the Moulouia to the Setif of the present day. In the middle ages Cesarea lay dormant for three centuries; but before this, and again afterwards, its activities were such that the part it played in the history and development of the country was most momentous.

As late as the early years of the past century, the city and port was the refuge of a band of pirates which pillaged throughout all the western waters of the Mediterranean.

The ancient port of Cherchell was the scene of the comings and goings of a vast commerce in Phœnician and Roman times; and the present state of the preservation of the moles and jetties of this old harbour of refuge stamps Cherchell as worthy of comparison with Carthage.

The Roman ruins at Cherchell are stupendous, though fragmentary, and not overnumerous. In the inefficiently installed “Musée” are many of the finest gems of antique sculptures and statuary yet found in Africa. There is a catalogue of these numerous discoveries, compiled by M. Wierzejski, which can be had at the book-shops of Algiers, and which will prove invaluable to those interested in the subject in detail.

The chief Roman monuments remaining in place above ground are the Western Baths and the Central Baths: the Cisterns, the Amphitheatre, – where was martyred Sainte Marciane, – the Circus, and the extensive ramparts sweeping around to the south of the town from one part of the coast-line to another.

Cherchell has a population of nine thousand souls to-day, of which perhaps a third are Europeans. In Roman times it must have had a vast population judging from the area within the ramparts.

The ancient Grande Mosquée of the Arab occupation is now a military hospital. This has had added to it numerous beautifully proportioned columns, with elaborately carved capitals, taken from the ruins of the Central Baths.

South from Cherchell, back from the coast towards the mountains of the “Petit Atlas,” fifty kilometres or more by a not very direct road, and connected by a service of public diligences, is Miliana. One will not repent a “stop-over” at this unspoiled little African city. The country reminds one of what the French would call a “petite Suisse Africaine.” The valleys and plains have a remarkable freshness of atmosphere that one does not associate with a semi-tropical sun.

Miliana itself sits high on the flank of the Zaccar-Gharbi, and is the lineal descendant of the Zucchabar of the Romans. Actually, it was founded in the tenth century. At the time of the French occupation of Algeria Abd-el-Kader here installed Ali-ben-Embarek (who afterwards became the Agha of the Mitidja under the French). But with the occupation of Médea, in 1840, the stronghold fell and the Arab power was broken for ever in these parts.

Miliana is a walled town to-day, as it was in the days of the Romans and Berbers. On the north is the Porte du Zaccar, and on the south the Porte du Chélif. This snug little hill-town, with only a quarter part of its population European, not counting half as many more Israelites, has a character which places it at once in a class by itself. It has an attractive little commercial hotel, where one eats and drinks the best of the countryside and pays comparatively little for it.

A wide terrace, or esplanade, runs around one side of the town overlooking the walls, and a wide-spread panorama stretches away on the east and west and north and south into infinity, with the imposing mass of the Ouarsenis, called “l’œil du monde,” as the dominant landscape feature. The terrace is called locally the “coin des blagueurs.” Why, no one pretends to answer, except that all the world foregathers here to stroll and gossip as they do on the “cours” of a Provençal town.

Miliana’s mosque is a simple but elegant structure, graceful but not ornate, imposing but not majestic. It is dedicated to Sidi-Ahmed-ben-Youssef, a venerated marabout who lived all his life hereabouts. He had as bitter and satirical a tongue as Dean Swift when speaking of the men and manners of those about him.

Turning eastward again from Miliana towards Algiers, one passes the entrance to the Gorges de Chiffa, the road to Médea, and finally Blida, the centre of the little yellow, thin-skinned orange traffic.

From Blida a classic excursion is to be made to the Gorges de Chiffa, where, at the Ruisseau des Singes, formerly lived a colony of hundreds, perhaps thousands of monkeys in their wild native state. Nowadays the only monkeys one sees are on the frieze in the salle-à-manger of a most excellently appointed little wayside hotel.

Hamman-R’hira, on the road between Miliana and Blida, is an incipient watering-place, where one can get tea and American drinks, and play croquet.

Its mineral springs – much like those of Contrexeville in France – have been famous for centuries, and the old Moorish baths are still used by the Moors and Arabs round about. For the Europeans who, throughout the spring and winter season, throng to the great hotel, now managed by a limited company, there are other baths more luxuriously installed.

Hamman-R’hira is an attractive enough place of itself, and would be more so were it not filled with rheumatics and anæmics. The frequenters of the Moorish baths are more interesting than the European clientèle for the investigator of men and manners.