Part 9

From these heights—mountainous and æsthetic—it will probably be the lot of the traveller to descend by easy stages to the town of Oran, which, as a commercial port, is the rival of Algiers. Unless he desires to do deal in olive oil or esparto grass, or intends to become a shipper of fine clarets and burgundies, it will not detain him long. Yet it is pleasant for an hour or two to sit before one of its brilliant cafés and survey the palpitating life of the streets. Oran is more than half Spanish; it is historically almost wholly Spanish. To-day, if you inquire of a stranger your way in French he will very likely reply by asking if you have the Spanish, and if you have it not you must try again. But the Spaniards, great builders in Europe and beyond the seas, built little but fortifications on the African shore. Oran is frankly modern and European in aspect; the most Oriental-looking building is the railway-station. The French have built fortifications too; a picturesque fort crowns a hill to the west, a thousand feet above the town; and there is much show of strength below. And there is an important garrison. Brilliant groups of officers frequent a café at the corner of the Place d’Armes, and get through a most unconscionable amount of hand-shaking. I notice that one of them, apparently a Siamese, who yet sips his _sirop_ as to the manner born, is the object of much attention. With the mass of the café’s frequenters the soldiers appear to have no acquaintance. These men of business are Frenchmen in manner and speech, but there is a prevalence of that Levantine air which pervades the Mediterranean ports;—not quite Greek, not quite Jew, and yet not wholly European.

If there is one institution more characteristically French than another, it is the Café. And, further, it is an institution which no other people, unless it speaks French, as do the Belgians, can reproduce. France has set the mode to Europe for centuries, but it has reserved the café. The other Latin nations are content with bastard imitations; the northern peoples frankly own their failure. Who can conceive a café in Hull or Aberdeen? Not more incongruous was the attempted battle of flowers in a Lancashire town,—the mayor had visited Monte Carlo,—which ended in the choockin’ o’ loomps o’ coal and the military being called out. It is not a matter of climate; Brighton and Worthing have climatic advantages over Boulogne and Dieppe. It is rather a matter of character. The café depends for its existence on French moderation and French civility, in the widest sense. The German in his beer-garden piles empty glass on empty glass; the Englishman lolls at his reeking bar; only the Frenchman can be trusted to sit at his will at his little marble table, and contemplate his little drinks, and play his little games. He does not exceed, he does not quarrel; if he did either, the café were impossible. So is he a free man, while we for our sins must submit to stringent regulations of police.

Oran’s fine old Spanish fort and the ancient walls still speak of the Spanish dominion. It was a penal station to which convicts were sent, and the governors were in the habit of putting their labour to some useful purpose. An inscription records that the citadel was built at no cost to his Catholic Majesty but for the timber and scaffolding. After repeated struggles the town was surrendered to the Turks in 1791, a very convenient arrangement, as things turned out, for the French, who occupied it forty years later. And they have made it what it is. Yet among the lower orders the Spanish element is perhaps still preponderant. To paraphrase the words of a French writer[6]—"the peasants of Valencia and Murcia have only a few hours of sea to cross, and a bad season at home brings them in hundreds. If they find no work in and around Oran as gardeners they betake themselves to the country, and become field-labourers, or harvesters of esparto grass. Sober and industrious, they are especially fitted to the conditions of cultivation in Algeria, which without irrigation is unproductive. They have in their veins the blood of those Moors who taught Spain to husband her waters. Oran is for them almost their own country, the two sides of the Mediterranean have identical characteristics; and in the smallest villages of the province they find themselves at home among their own people."

Footnote 6:

P. Bourde.

It is interesting to recall in this connection that the increase of emigration from Spain generally is becoming a very serious matter. It reaches the annual average of 200,000 persons, or considerably more than one per cent of the total population. The late Government in 1907 dealt with the matter, and appointed a Conseil Supérieur de l’Emigration, which took the exceedingly futile course of endeavouring to check it by police interference with persons arriving at a port to emigrate, the arrest of emigration agents, and complicated regulations affecting steamship companies, which it has been found impossible to carry out. The chief effect has been to conceal a certain amount of emigration, which doubtless exceeds the official figures. The present radical Government, pledged to reform in every department of the national life, is attempting to check unemployment and emigration by a scheme of extensive public works. Meantime under French institutions, Spaniards are living contentedly and prosperously in a country marked out by nature for their occupation, which they were never able to secure for themselves.

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_VII—THE CITY OF PRECIPICES_

Road and rail to the eastward—Constantine—Its remarkable site—Its chequered history—French Conquest—Roman remains—Fronto—The Mairie— The road northward—The Aurès.

“A towered citadel a pendant rock.” _Antony and Cleopatra._

If the traveller intends to journey from Algeria into Tunisia, he will do well to visit Khabylia before he starts further east; if not he may proceed first to Constantine, and motor through the mountain districts from Sétif on his return. For the greater part of the way the great trunk road and the railway from Algiers to Constantine take a similar course; but towards the end they diverge, Constantine being situate north of the main line from Algiers to Tunis, at a distance of twenty miles from the junction of El-Guerrah, while the road passes through the city. Hence it comes that the distance by road is 434 kilometres, by rail 464. There are not many convenient stopping-places, perhaps Sétif is the best.

By train you may make the journey either by night or by day; the latter is preferable, as much of the scenery is beautiful and interesting. Leaving Algiers the line crosses the Metidja, the great plain which encircles the _Sahel_, the rocky promontory on which Algiers stands, stretching on either side of it from sea to sea. At Ménerville it begins to ascend, and shortly enters the Gorge of the Isser. The country here is very picturesque; the river roars through a narrow cleft in the rocks, Khabyle villages are perched on isolated points, and ruddy mountains stand bare against the deep blue sky. Palestro, a little further on, was the scene of a terrible and treacherous massacre in the Khabyle insurrection of 1871. The European residents, numbering over a hundred, were attacked in their residences. After a desperate resistance about half surrendered on terms, but were immediately killed. The remainder held out longer but about forty survivors, including thirty-two women and children, were ultimately captured and kept prisoners till the revolt was crushed.

Further on the line runs under the southern slope of the snowy Djurjura range, which is such a prominent object from Algiers. The view of the mountains is very fine. All the time the line is ascending, as it continues to do as far as Sétif, 200 miles from Algiers, and 3573 feet above the sea. Here we are in the centre of a vast corn-growing district, once the granary of Rome. The country-side is full of Roman remains, of towns and country-houses and farms. At this altitude the climate, if hotter in summer, resembles that of Central France. The landscape is very bare,—a vast sea of corn, without a tree to break its monotony. To the east of Sétif the plain begins to slope downwards; the railway diverges to the south, but the road enters the valley of the Roumel, the river which forms the moat of the rock-girt city of Constantine.

Constantine occupies one of those positions of natural strength which from the earliest times man has seized upon as a habitation secure from the attack of his fellow-man. It is too much to suppose that its beauty had any force in such a selection. Yet it combines picturesqueness and grandeur with strength to a remarkable degree. A circular chasm or ravine, nearly 1000 feet deep, and sometimes not more than 200 feet wide, creates a plateau which is in fact a peninsula of rock, only united to the mainland by an isthmus on the west side. Through the abyss roars the river Roumel. The plateau is not circular, but in the form of an irregular square, with sharp angles,—a formation which greatly increases the majesty of its effect. The length of the sides averages about 1000 yards. In this confined space are crowded together the habitations of men,—the European quarter, the Arab quarter, and the Jewish quarter,—the public buildings incident to an important town, and considerable barracks and fortifications.

“Le fantastique Roumel, fleuve d’une poème qu’on croirait rêvé par Dante, fleuve d’enfer coulant au fond d’un abîme rouge comme si les flammes éternelles l’avaient brûlé. Il fait un île de sa ville, ce fleuve jaloux et surprenant; il l’entoure d’un gouffre terrible et tortueux, aux rocs éclatants et bizarres, aux murailles droites et dentelées.”[7]

Footnote 7:

Guy de Maupassant, “Au Soleil,” 1904.

A great part of the attraction of a city occupying such a site lies in its suggestion of romance. It calls up visions of furious siege and desperate defence, of attempts to scale impossible cliffs, of hand-to-hand encounter at the only gate. And the actual records of Constantine almost surpass the possibilities of romantic imagination. It can lay no claim to that happiness which comes from having no history. Alike from its commanding situation and the richness of its surrounding lands it has been marked out by nature to be an incentive to ambition. It has known many masters. It is said to have stood eighty sieges. Its apparent impregnability has but invited attack. It has been a necessary mainstay to the support of every power which has aspired to the lordship of Barbary. It has seldom been a fitting residence for those who desired a quiet life.

Under its early name of Cirta it was the capital of that dynasty of Numidian kings who fought first for Rome against Carthage, and then for themselves against Rome. It became in due course a Roman colony. In the fourth century it was ruined in the wars which rent the empire, and re-arose as Constantine. Re-naming, with a spice of subservience, was a passion of the time; even so to-day do the Piazza Umberto and Boulevard Carnot obliterate ancient landmarks. The frenzied quarrels of Christians and Christian heretics, which tore Africa to shreds, raged within its walls, but spared its buildings. Genseric the Vandal, and the Byzantine Belisarius were its lords in turn. Then came the Arab. Darkness broods over its history for centuries, broken only by lightning flashes of capture and recapture. The Barbarossa brothers recognized the truth that he who would rule in Algeria must hold Constantine. They and their successors conquered it, and lost it, and conquered it again. Its Beys were nominally subservient to the Deys of Algiers, but Constantine breeds insurrection, and maintained its traditions during the Turkish domination. Even at the beginning of the nineteenth century, during a period of thirty years, twenty Beys succumbed to poison, the bow-string, or the sword.

“Here Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp Abode his Hour or two and went his way.”

At the time of the French invasion its Bey, Hadj-Ahmed, was in insurrection against the Dey, but made common cause against the unbeliever. After the capitulation of Algiers he retired to Constantine and declared himself independent, and took the title of Pasha, with the countenance of the Porte. His minister, Ben-Aissa, a humble Khabyle in origin, and a blacksmith by trade, was a man of marked ability. The two created an army of Khabyles, and breathed defiance to the French. In 1836 Marshal Clauzel advanced against Constantine with 8000 men. Among them was a young captain of the staff, afterwards Marshal Macmahon. Clauzel attempted an assault by the bridge of El Kantara, but was repulsed with great loss, and hardly retreated with his broken army to Bône. France could not brook such a defeat. Another army of 10,000 men was despatched under General Damrémont and arrived before the city on October 6th, 1837. To his summons to surrender came the response, “He who will be master of Constantine must cut the throat of the last of its defenders.” A few days later the General in command and General Perrégaux were killed side by side in the course of siege operations, and General Valée assumed the leadership. On the 13th he took the city by assault. Numbers of the besieged endeavoured to escape by ropes into the ravine, but the ropes breaking they perished. Hadj-Ahmed evaded capture, and for eleven years maintained himself in the Aurès mountains. In 1848 he surrendered, and died two years later. For seventy years an unwonted peace has brooded over the heights of Constantine; but who shall say that the end is yet?

As usual, the French have destroyed most of the remains of the Roman city; the exigencies of space are here a better excuse than exists elsewhere. But the antiquary may still ferret out endless evidences of the ancient town. The ordinary traveller may amuse himself by strolling through the Arab quarter; he may perambulate the gorge by the _Chemin des Touristes_; he may cross the bridge and ascend the opposing height to view in its majesty this unique city of precipices. With a map and moderate intelligence he will need no guide; but he will be pestered by the attentions of guides, responsible and irresponsible. They throng the door of his hotel, they mark his goings-out and his comings-in, and unless he succumbs to paying blackmail to one of the fraternity, they will strive to make his life a burden to him. Yet is there a certain fierce pleasure in denying them. The guide who haunts the hotel door is generally one of the least estimable of men, especially in Oriental countries. If you are weak, he will prey on your weakness; if you are vicious, he will reap his reward in ministering to your vices. He does not shrink from suggestion, and he seems to know no shame. He sometimes, when not guiding, fills a menial office in the hotel; one can hardly suppress a smile at the idea of the epicurean having his pleasures chosen for him by the Boots. To the credit of Algiers it may be said that one is there little troubled by these vermin; but Constantine has something to learn.

The Roman city of Cirta must have presented a marvellously beautiful spectacle. Classical architecture perhaps looks its noblest in buildings which crown a height. The temples of Cirta were of course not individually comparable with those which adorned the Acropolis of Athens, or the line of cliffs at Girgenti; but from a general scenic point of view the effect would be similar and on a greater scale. If the present city, which (like the belfry of Christchurch) has no architectural merits, looks so impressive at a little distance, the ancient city with its marble columns and triumphal arches must have been grand beyond our powers of realization. We know from the ruins at Timgad what a Roman city in Africa was like, and Thamagudi was a provincial town of no great mark, while Cirta was the capital. Its remains are to be seen everywhere, especially by the iron bridge of El Kantara, which replaces the ancient Roman bridge, a very remarkable structure which stood until 1857, when two of its arches fell. It was designed to carry an aqueduct, and a roadway, which was supported on a double series of arches, stood 400 feet above the level of the river. It excited the wonder and admiration of all travellers. Shaw saw it in 1740. He says it was “ indeed a masterpiece of its kind, the gallery and the columns of the arches being adorned with cornices and festoons, ox-heads and garlands. The keystones also of the arches are charged with Caducei and other figures.”

The gorge contains many other Roman remains. Numerous inscriptions, statues and ornaments have been removed, and are collected in a garden near the Place de la Brèche. In this neighbourhood was found a delightful epitaph of one Praecilius, a silversmith, written in very inaccurate and unclassical Latin, which may be thus translated:—

“Here I, silent myself, in verse describe my life. I have filled an honourable career in prosperous times; Praecilius my name, a householder of Cirta and a silversmith by trade; a man of acknowledged probity and unvarying truthfulness. I have been friendly to all men, and whom has my charity failed? Laughter and good cheer I ever enjoyed with my chosen friends. Life was not the same to me after the death of my virtuous wife Valeria; I found my happiness in holy wedlock. I have celebrated in honourable fashion a hundred happy birthdays. But there has come at last the day when I must shuffle off this mortal coil. The inscription you read while yet living I have prepared against my death. Let it be as Fortune wills; never has she deserted me. Follow my example. Here I await you. Come!”

To one illustrious citizen Cirta gave birth, Fronto the orator, friend of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, and tutor of his heir, Marcus Aurelius. Some of the correspondence of the master and his pupil has been preserved. It abounds in intimate and homely touches. The prince went out hunting one morning, and on his return wrote: “I betook myself to my books. I took off my boots and my clothes, and went to bed for two hours. I read two orations of Cato. I think I have caught cold, perhaps because I walked in sandals this morning. So I will pour oil on my head and go to sleep. Farewell, my dearest and sweetest master, whom I love better than Rome itself.” When Marcus Aurelius succeeded to his imperial throne he offered his old tutor the proconsulship of Asia, one of the greatest positions in the Empire, but Fronto, who perhaps preferred to remain in his native Africa, refused the office on the ground of ill-health. Nothing has been discovered at Cirta bearing on Fronto’s connection with the city, but an inscription built into a house at Guelma, the ancient Kalama, records his official appointment as patron of that town.

The Arab quarter, which is gradually being squeezed out of existence, is quite different in character from that of Algiers. Its lanes are equally tortuous and narrow, and even more dirty, but it is more full of life and more actual. In Algiers most of the native shops are in modern, Frenchified streets; here they line the ancient alleys. Merchants sit in the serene Eastern fashion beside their stores of merchandise; artisans ply their little trades in a very confined space. More than half the population appears to be occupied in making shoes. The general confusion is increased by the constant passage of animals, horses, mules, donkeys and camels. It is a little bit of an old world, and being in close contact, yet hopelessly out of touch, with the dominant world of the day, its hours are numbered. The march of improvement, especially when cribbed and confined as by the cliffs of Constantine, brooks no denial. And if we are compelled to hold our noses, we may nevertheless be disposed to shed a tear.

As becomes a city set on a hill, Constantine is more retentive of its ancient customs than a port like Algiers, which is subject to the levelling influences of the sea and its traffic. Here, for example, the Jewesses retain their distinctive dress. They delight in bright colours, and in heavy barbaric jewellery, such as broad bracelets and large circular earrings. They wear a peculiar head-dress, a sort of lace veil with gold or gilt ornaments, surmounted by a pointed cap. The girls affect a very diminutive form of this cap, generally of brilliant red or blue, stuck jauntily on one side of the head. They are very lovely, these Jewish girls, the finest type of their race, with noble features and clear olive complexions. In point of refinement and the carriage which marks good breeding perhaps no race touches such wide extremes as the Jewish; for some reason or other the Constantine Jews are at the top of the tree.

You may sit in a café of the Place de la Brèche and watch the endless pageant of commingled East and West. The military note is predominant; Zouaves and Spahis are everywhere. Behind a series of transport waggons of the Chasseurs d’Afrique a motor-car hoots impatiently. Next a group of little donkeys bearing loads, heads low, and ears wearily flopping. Then carts heavily laden with stone, drawn by five horses,—sometimes a grey team, sometimes a brown,—harnessed in single file, the driver walking by the penultimate horse; a group of neat French children on their way to school; an Arab lady of high degree veiled in the daintiest grey chiffon, riding on a caparisoned mule and holding a lovely child before her; an old Arab seated on a mass of saddle-bags which almost hide his donkey, waggling his feet up and down after the Arab manner, even as civilized man works a salmon-rod; and as you turn to go there comes a troop of men chanting a dull Gregorian measure, and bearing something on a stretcher covered with a green and gold flowered cloth;— an Arab on his way to his last resting-place.

Such is a fraction of the cosmopolitan and parti-coloured crowd. And as you watch you will reflect how much it owes to the fact that the natives, high and low,—you do not see much of the former,—wear a distinctive dress. The Arab’s robe is often shabby and often unclean; but it avoids the meanness and vulgarity of European clothes. The working classes of Northern Europe have discarded their suitable dress of the past;—even the lingering smock-frock, most appropriate and dignified of coverings, has gone,—they habit themselves in the cast-off clothings of the well-to-do, or in badly-made imitations of them. The women suffer in appearance more than the men, but both combine in their personal aspect to contribute to the grim squalor and hideousness of our meaner streets.

It is said that the plateau on which Constantine stands is honeycombed with caves and subterranean passages, and that formerly it was possible to walk round the city underground. Probably these caves were excavated by the river before it had carved out its present bed at a lower level. These great natural storehouses were used in troublous times for the keeping of provisions and munitions of war; and during the French attack of 1837 many of the inhabitants took refuge in them. They are now for the most part bricked up, but a very remarkable grotto lies beneath the Hôtel de Paris, and may be visited from the hotel.