Algeria from within

by R. V. C. Bodley

FOOTNOTES

[1] Quotation from Make Believe, by Clare Sheridan.

CHAPTER X
LIFE AMONG THE ARABS

We must now turn our attention to the inner life among the Arabs, to their customs, to their religious observances; and though it is always difficult for a foreigner, and especially a foreigner in a Mohammedan country, really to see the life as lived by its people, it is believed that sufficient intimacy has been developed between the author and the Arabs to give a very accurate picture of what goes on among them.

The word “Arab” will be used, as it is not intended in this chapter to touch again on the subject of the pure Berber, mentioned before; neither is it considered necessary to mention the Europeanized natives who have adapted themselves to a great extent to the life of the big commercial towns of the north and who are all in favor of the Young Turk Movement and the modernizing of the excellent systems handed down to them by their ancestors.

These pages will be devoted to the average Arab household living either in the native quarters of the smaller communes mixtes, in the farms or away in the southern oases and under the tent in the Sahara.

The first thing which strikes one very forcibly is the extraordinary respect shown to the head of the family. It is usual for a great many people of one family to live in the same house, but it is only the head who counts. Moreover, among the nomads the caïd of the tribe estimates his people by heads of families. In the home the father reigns supreme; he usually has his meals apart or with his eldest son. In some cases there are three groups of diners, the chief with the older men and the guests, the sons and their friends, and the retainers. The food is brought in and placed before the first group, who eat what they want, then it is passed to the second group, and finally to the third. After dinner the older men talk and laugh and smoke, but the younger men will either sit quiet or, if they want to talk and smoke, they will go outside. In the presence of the head of the family the younger generation show the utmost deference; it is unusual for them to sit down when in conversation with their father, and they never smoke in his presence.

If a dinner-party is being given and some light or inappropriate subject of conversation is brought up in the presence of the father and son, the son will endeavor to change the subject or even leave the room. Apart they will tell as good a story as any one, but together it is not considered respectful. Should a chief come into a café with friends, and a younger member of the family happen to be there, the latter will leave immediately so as to lay no restraint on the older man. Many is the time when Europeans, ignorant of all this etiquette, have asked a party of Arabs to dinner and have suddenly found that four or five of the party have not put in an appearance. The host may be hurt, he may be puzzled, but the solution of the riddle is easy—those four or five guests have found out that one of the party was a senior man with whom they could not sit down at table.

In return for all this the head of the family looks after the whole of the welfare of his descendants, and any relatives are welcome to eat and reside in his house or tent as long as they like.

By nature the Arab is very easy-going. Even the shopkeepers do not worry people to buy, and will often tell a customer that the article he requires is not stocked rather than interrupt a conversation with a friend over the counter. Their prices are usually rather vague, and bargaining is quite normal, the result of the deal depending a great deal on the mood of the shopkeeper. If the deal is not brought off there is no ill-feeling, and the customer will often be asked to come in and drink a cup of tea.

The very poor people, and there are a great many, live on charity and the wages of odd jobs, but it is amazing to see how body and soul hang together with practically no clothes or substantial nourishment.

Their occupations and pastimes are varied. They are either landowners in the northern districts, or sheep-farmers and date-growers in the south—all very profitable occupations and the source of great fortunes quite unsuspected by the visitor. In their leisure they ride and hunt with falcons, and shoot; they enjoy horse-racing and everything to do with riding, and though a great many of them have motor-cars they consider them merely as conveniences, and the greatest ambition of a young Arab is to own a horse.

As in all Oriental countries, European vices become exaggerated, and once a native starts gambling or drinking he does little else.

Otherwise their existence is very simple, and the way they spend their days is adapted to nature and very healthy. An Arab gets up early and also quickly. This is due to two reasons. The first is that he does not usually sleep in a bed, but on a rug on the floor with another rug over him; the second is that he does not wash on rising, and he very often goes to sleep in his clothes. How many times have I been away in out-of-the-way places with Arab friends, either shooting or attending sheep-markets; coffee has been ordered for five A. M. They have somehow vaguely wakened me at four-forty-five, and at four-fifty-five my companions have appeared, all dressed, to ask why I wasn’t ready! And my reply has always been the same:

“Because I have a strange and curious habit of undressing when I go to bed and of shaving when I rise.” And it is considered a strange and curious habit. But that does not mean that these Arabs are dirty in their persons—far from it. Before and after meals they wash their hands and faces, before their prayers they do the same; sometimes they take a bath. Regularly once a week they go to the hammam, or steam bath, where there is an unlimited quantity of hot water, and where they wash from head to foot, and there is nothing cleaner than washing in a Turkish bath. Moreover, there are first-rate masseurs who for a moderate fee take pounds of fat off the patient in an hour.

What I have never been able to discover is how often the average Arab changes his underclothing. The exterior dress is often sent to the laundry and I have an idea that in many cases the change is made four times a year, at the various seasons. Speaking of clothes, it may perhaps interest the reader to know of what an Arab’s garments consist:

Next to the skin there is a shirt; there are socks, there are sometimes drawers, a pair of baggy trousers and leather slippers, rather like unfinished pumps and not embroidered as may be supposed. Embroidery on shoes is considered effeminate and can only be worn on the long red boots used for riding. Over the shirt is usually a sweater and over that a jacket; it may be a smart embroidered affair with many buttons, or it may be a simple tunic, or it may be a European coat, but it does not matter much as it is entirely covered by the gandourah, which is like a long white nightgown with a low neck, made of wool or silk or cotton.

On the head is a turban which consists of three separate pieces—the gannoure, which is the high framework made of felt on which is placed the chech, which entirely covers it, surrounds the face, covers the neck, and is tucked away inside the coat. Round the chech is wound either a band of silk or else the camel’s hair cords, known as khiete. The origin of the wearing of cords was for the purpose of always having a rope handy to attach to any receptacle to draw water from the wells in the Sahara.

Over the whole thing the Arab wears one or two burnouses. These are long cloaks with a hood and are made of wool, camel’s hair, silk or cloth. The poor shepherd possesses only a woolen or camel’s hair cloak, but the well-to-do chief has in addition to his rough burnous for country wear one made of silk over which he wears one of blue or green or maroon cloth embroidered with silver or gold. It is a most convenient garment, as in winter it keeps the wearer warm and the hood pulled over the turban protects him from rain. Moreover, when it gets hot one or both burnouses can be removed. At night they take the place of rugs or blankets.

During the morning the Arab will go about his business either in the town or out on the plain. If he is at home he will eat a light lunch at eleven-thirty, but this is not an important meal, and out on the Sahara he will content himself with a piece of bread and some milk. Time to an Arab is a very vague convention once he has got up. At first it exasperates the European who has been brought up to regular habits, but one realizes little by little that one’s exasperation is a complete mystery to them, and one gives up worrying about punctuality. It is very annoying sometimes when one has made all one’s plans to begin a long excursion early in the morning to find the start fixed for noon, or to invite a lot of men for dinner at seven-thirty and find some arrive at six-thirty, some at eight-thirty, and some not at all!

Photographs by Mr. Julian Sampson

A “Propriétaire”

Numidian Type: Musician of a Marabout

A Moorish Villa

That is another custom which it takes a long time to understand, and one is left hurt that people invited do not arrive, and often do not even make an excuse or consider that one is necessary. It comes from the fact that in all their houses dinner is always going for a dozen or so of people, and one more or less does not count. Every one sits down when the meal is ready, and no one troubles to count the guests. Of course this does not apply to a regular invitation to dinner made with the definite purpose of meeting some one or listening to music; in cases like that no one would dream of being discourteous. At the same time it is very rare for an Arab definitely to accept or refuse an invitation. To your request that he will take a meal with you to-morrow he will reply, “Inch Allah”—“If God wills it”!

Against this, if you are on friendly terms with the Arabs, you can arrive about meal time—no surprise will be shown, and you will squat down and share the meal as if it were your daily habit. In the same way, if some man came in to see one about six-thirty in the evening he would expect to be asked to dine, which is often awkward in a European household.

If the Arab has eaten a midday meal he will probably sleep for an hour after, and then continue doing what he has to. About six-thirty comes the dinner, and this meal is important. There is always the highly spiced soup with pieces of meat floating about, usually another dish of meat and vegetables, and always the kous-kous, with more meat. They drink water or milk, for even those who are in the habit of taking wine and spirits rarely do so in their own houses if Europeans are not there. After dinner they drink their mint tea or coffee, and friends come in to see them, or they go out themselves and sit in the shops or cafés and drink more tea, and talk and laugh until it is time to go to bed.

Their meals are eaten on the floor. They keep a kind of narrow mattress on which they sit, and the dishes are placed on a small table about a foot high known as a maïda. A common napkin some eight feet long is placed on their knees all round the circle. All the food, except the soup and sometimes the kous-kous, is eaten with the hand, and before the meal and after, soap and warm water are carried round and every person washes his hands and face. It is said that these ablutions bring prosperity. There are usually no glasses, and a common mug is handed round from which sips are taken.

Of course, when receiving guests of note, or Europeans, the meal is much more sumptuous, and among the Europeanized chiefs there is a gaudy dining-room kept for the friends from over the seas. Crockery of all kinds is produced, knives and forks, a jumble of wines and a general atmosphere of inconsequent confusion. But the meal is excellent, though sometimes a trifle long.

This is an average menu for a short dinner:

• Chorba. Soup with vermicelli, highly spiced.
• Bourak. Mutton minced with mint and sage, rolled up in a light pastry—this is a kind of sausage roll.
• Leham Lalou. A kind of mutton stew in a dark sauce, cooked with prunes and sweet almonds. The words mean sweetmeat.
• Mechoui. The lamb roasted and served whole. Even to Europeans no knives or forks are issued, and it must be torn to pieces with the hands.
• Kous-kous. Looks like semolina and is made of hard wheat kneaded into tiny round balls and steamed. With it is served a kind of vegetable soup called marga, a highly spiced sauce, and often mutton or chicken. There are countless varieties of kous-kous varying according to localities.
• Heloua. Sweets and cakes made of flour and honey and almond paste and orange water.

There are many other alternative dishes; game often appears, but as a general rule the chorba, the mechoui, and the kous-kous are de rigueur for the set dinner. In the place of the sheep there may occasionally appear a gazelle, and if an Arab wants to show his deepest respect for you he will serve a baby camel roasted whole. But this is very rare.

Generally speaking, therefore, the Arab’s life is very simple and peaceful. He is courteous and hospitable, a rather lazy country gentleman, not very intelligent, but wiser and more philosophical than many Europeans on problems of daily life. Men who lay tremendous stress on points of honor, and who rarely forgive an injustice or an insult, disliking any sort of encroachment by non-Mohammedans, they have drifted into inertia behind the precepts of the Koran.

“What Allah has destined will occur, so why worry?”

CHAPTER XI
ARAB WOMEN

Having now cast a cursory glance over the life of the Arab man, let us look into the inner life of the homestead—that is to say, the life of the women, of the children, and of the servants. Placing them in the same category does not in the least suggest that the Arab woman is in any way a slave. Far from it. This is quite a fallacy, which must be added to the list of legends to be dispelled in this book.

With the exception of the Kabyles, the women in Algeria have almost as many rights as the men. They are, of course, not nearly so free as European women, and they are often obliged to share the home with other wives, but, as they have been brought up to know no other mode of living, they do not wish for anything else.

We will take as an example the life of an Arab girl belonging to a respectable family of moderate means. The daughters of the family when little girls will help their mother in the household duties, accompany her when she goes out, learn to cook and to weave and all the duties of a good housewife. Sometimes they are sent to the convent of the White Sisters, where they earn a little money and are taught to make carpets on regular lines. The Sisters will give them a rudimentary education, but it will only take the form of lectures on morality and hygiene. It is very, very rare to find an Arab girl who can read or write. As soon as she reaches a marriageable age offers will be made to her father by the fathers of eligible young men, and if any union seems opportune terms will be discussed.

Apart from guaranteeing the bride a home, with enough to live on, it is usual for the bridegroom’s parents to pay a sum down and for the bridegroom to give his bride a trousseau, while she in return will bring a dowry of a few household goods and golden jewelry—family heirlooms, which may be of great value. When all is arranged the date of the marriage is fixed, and up to the actual first contact bride and bridegroom will not see each other. The young man however often sends his female relatives to inspect the young woman and to report on her appearance. The wedding lasts for seven days and is conducted at the girl’s home and at the man’s. For a week the bride’s mother will entertain all her friends and the friends of her daughter, while the bridegroom is giving parties to his companions. After the formality of going to the kadi the husband has access to the bride. She is brought to his house and let into a room where he is hiding behind the curtains or under the bed. When she is alone he suddenly leaps out and seizes her. This is the first time they meet face to face.

After a quarter of an hour or so an old woman comes in, makes an examination, and informs the assembled guests that the marriage has been consummated, and cries of joy are uttered and the newly married couple separate. It is not until the end of the feast that the husband and wife live entirely together. Once she is with her husband she sets about making his home comfortable. If they are well off she will keep a female servant to do all the rough work such as sweeping and polishing, but the preparing of the meal is always done by her. The food is carried by her to her husband, and he eats alone. She has her meals apart or with the other wives.

In the case where a man is already married the new wife, though she may be the husband’s favorite, will take a secondary place with the other wives, who will give her all the odd jobs to do. If she is tactful she will be nice to them, and if she is clever she will get her husband into her hands and make him dispose of the other wives. As a matter of fact, this sort of intrigue is getting rare. In the first place, polygamy is on the decline; this is due partly to the contact of soldiers with the European method of living during the war, and partly from reasons of economy. In cases where the first wife is getting old—and Arab women get old very quickly—she is often glad to have a young wife as a help.

In the homes of well-to-do Arabs the women are kept under lock and key, and they practically never go out for a walk. They will be taken for drives in closed carriages or motors, and occasionally they will pay visits at nights to their women friends, but they go heavily veiled and accompanied by many attendants. Once a week they go to the Turkish bath, and once a week to the cemetery. Sometimes among the poorer class the women are forced to go out to do their shopping, but they are veiled from head to foot, and even this is rare, as the husband usually does the marketing on his way to and from work.

All this caution, however, does not prevent intrigue and infidelity, which is facilitated by old women and friends. A visit to another girl is arranged, the visit is made, but there is another exit, and the woman goes to see her lover. Unfortunately this is also becoming common among unmarried girls who escape the supervision of their parents.

However, in really good families the women are usually straight, and they know, moreover, how to keep their husbands. In fact, the wife is very much the mistress in her own home, and she lets her man have just enough liberty and no more.

The laws of divorce are very broad, and are on an equality for men and for women. The first case for separation is that of the couple who, after three days of marriage, go before the kadi and ask for their release, because they realize that they can’t stand the sight of each other. In this case they each take back what they gave and return to their respective homes free, and shortly marry again.

The other main bases for divorce are the same as in Europe, but there are also excuses which make things much easier than with us. For instance, if a woman complains that her husband is out every night and does not come home till midnight or so, the kadi will pronounce the necessary decree. In this case the wife keeps all the man has given her, and he also pays the eleven francs which is the fee for dissolution of marriage. A man gets his divorce at once if he finds that his bride is not the pure jeune fille he supposed her to be. This entails many complications and family feuds, but, as it is hard to prove, it is usually allowed to go by. There are cases of divorce after long years of marriage, and there are cases of the reunion of divorced parties who have lived separated for long.

The main point to realize is the facility of getting judicially separated, and the fact that the woman has just as many rights as the man.

Of course the life the wife leads if she is humble and docile is not very amusing. In addition to cooking she must weave burnouses and carpets, either for the home or, if they are poor, for sale, and the man, having the position of lord and master before the world, takes advantage of his wife’s docility if he can. But then this happens in Europe!

As a matter of fact, the Arab man is not a bully, and one notices that whenever he goes to the sheep and cattle markets he always buys something for his wife, and with his children he is very kind and thoughtful.

The wives of the nomads lead very much the same life as their sisters in the towns, the only difference being that they do not veil themselves when out in the plain.

It is not permitted for a woman to go to the mosque, and it is unusual for them to say their prayers—in fact, their ignorance of anything outside the homestead is complete. It is perhaps because of this that they make good wives and do not hanker after the supposed joys of the great world.

There is one flaw in all this peaceful life, and that is the state of widowhood. When the husband dies the woman has nothing, unless she has been allowed to put money aside herself or has property of her own. She may be the wife of a marabout or of an agha—the moment she is a widow she loses all her status. There are three alternatives open to her. The first is to go on living with her sons, if they are big enough to keep her; the second to return to her family or to that of her husband, if they are alive and willing; or thirdly, to marry again. In well-to-do families the first two alternatives are the most followed, but the third is not common, as, though, curiously enough, a man will marry a divorced girl, he rarely mates himself with a widow.

Of course, if the woman has independent means it is a different story; but this is rare, and if none of the above openings are possible her fate is very sad. A lone woman is regarded as having no position, and she must at once make one for herself. Here again she has three further alternatives: to enter the local zaouia, where she practically becomes the slave of the marabout and lives the rest of her life weaving and working in this kind of convent; or, if she prefers it, she can become a servant; or, as a last resource, enter the ranks of the dancing-girls in the reserved quarter. In fact, if she has no occupation and no house of her own, the French authorities force her to take up her residence in that special part of the town.

But, except in these particular cases, the Arab woman is not the bond-slave of the man, and I have no doubt that the majority are much happier than many European wives. It is, of course, very difficult to get any definite information about all this, as it is against the laws of etiquette to mention Arab women to their men. The above facts have been gathered by little bits of talk here and there with intimate friends, who have now and then voluntarily unburdened their hearts, by talks to some of the rare few of the older generation who have traveled a great deal and who don’t mind airing their views, and by actual contact with respectable married women. Of this the less said the better, as such meetings were strictly against all the laws of propriety, and were contrived by friendly intrigues.

Secrecy about the womenfolk is so great that the stranger is not even allowed to hear the sound of their voices, and I have stayed with an Arab chief for a week, where we were eighteen to dinner every night, and where there must have been twenty women and as many children in the same house, and I never heard a sound which suggested female presence. Even in the Sahara, where the women are only divided from the men by a rug hung across the center of the tent, I have passed the night, and only realized that women were present when a child cried and its mother hushed it.

Some Arab chiefs allow European women to visit their wives, but it is not very interesting. They can’t speak a word of French, and they sit staring at the visitor with curious eyes, and touch her clothes to see how they are woven and put on. Occasionally one meets with women who have been to Europe, but, with few exceptions, they regret their ventures and are glad to return.

There is one famous case of an Arab girl who drifted away from the South, crossed the sea, and eventually found herself in Paris, where she started dancing. She had an instantaneous success, and in a short time had visited London and New York, acclaimed wherever she went. It would be too long to go into all her adventures—suffice it to say that she was courted by all, that she met all kinds of interesting people; dressed in the smartest frocks, and lived on a lavish scale. One day she returned to Laghouat and she remained six months; during those six months she lived again as an Arab, then she went back to Paris, but it was too late. The South had seized her, her people had clutched her heart again, and she could no longer keep away.

She returned to her home in the oasis. Nothing will now make her return to Europe, and she says that the only possible life for a woman is to be married to a nice Arab and shut up. The last time I saw her she was sitting on the floor of a roughly furnished room, barefooted, eating kous-kous with her hands out of the same bowl with her servants!

CHAPTER XII
ARAB LOVE AND THE WOMEN OF THE RESERVED QUARTER

By bracketing these two subjects together I do not wish it to be supposed that in Algeria the two are synonymous, though curiously enough there is none of that sordid atmosphere which is associated with women of easy morals in Europe. It is generally believed that the Arab man is a brute who uses women only for his pleasure, and that the Arab woman is a piece of furniture and accepts the situation. It is another legend.

There are few men in the world who are such ardent lovers as the Arabs, and few women who know as well the art of holding a man and making him dance to her tune. The Arab goes quite mad when he is in love, and forsakes his home and his people to lead the life of a lone savage. In the meanwhile the object of his adoration is laughing at him coldly, without the smallest emotion and without any encouragement. The lover can continue performing the utmost follies—the woman won’t flinch if she doesn’t love him.

The moment she does it is quite a different matter. Her love dominates all, and she becomes the adorer of her man. And yet in the midst of all this adoration her woman’s instinct never leaves her, and if she feels that the man is taking her as a habit she just slips off and leaves him to wonder if he is standing on his head or on his heels. Many succeed by this method in keeping their husbands for ever. If a man has a mistress she will in no way mix up in his family life, but at the same time she will be respected by him and by his friends as if she were his wife, provided she remains shut up. Generally speaking, however, this is rare, and a man’s mistress either lives in the reserved quarter or keeps open house at her lover’s expense. Under these circumstances, though she may have a few women friends, they are not of the best class, and even the men who visit her house will only do so under cover of darkness.

The reader will at once ask:

“With polygamy, why is there any necessity for mistresses?”

I suppose it is the spirit of adventure, the desire for forbidden fruit, which characterizes all intrigues of this kind, but it is also the attitude of the woman who does not want to bind herself and prefers her free life until the day she is too old to enjoy it. Arab women are very capricious, and they love to have the man dancing attendance on them, bringing them presents, and never really the master of his own reason.

This atmosphere can only be created in an irregular situation, for once she is his wife she has certain obligations and his authority counts. Arab women are more than capricious, they are heartless as long as they do not love. Certain European women are too, but never to the extent of the Arabs. They will keep some infatuated man hanging about them with just the hope of favors for months, even for years. If they see that he is taking a pull at himself they will give him just sufficient encouragement to haul him back, and then drop him again into the depths of despair. And if the poor chap goes mad or ruins himself it is treated as a triumph—another conquest.

But once in love the Arab woman is quite a different being, and her devotion is without end. I have known a woman who had riches, houses, position, adulation by men of note, everything a lovely woman could desire, give up everything she had for a man she loved and live with him in a state of complete poverty, with just enough but no more. Before that man came into her life all were fair play to her, and her moral scruples did not exist. After she had met that man all the millions in the world would not take her from his side.

Women all the world through are capricious, and swayed by their whims, and it is by these traits that the skilful ones cause men to make fools of themselves. The art is dying out in England, and is on the wane in France, but in Algeria it is at its height, and sorry is the lot of the unwary one who inadvertently falls in love with an Arab girl who does not return his love.

Though the same characteristics apply to the women of the reserved quarter, it is not quite the same thing.

First of all, a few words about this part of the Arab town. It is, of course, a creation of the French, as it is against all the laws of the Koran for a man to live with any woman who is not married to him legally or who is not a recognized concubine. In fact, it is to avoid this that polygamy was instituted. However, with the French conquest French civilization had to come too, and the Quartier was created, primarily for the troops.

It is usually walled in, and entered by a single door which is guarded by a sentry. Inside there is quite a little city—shops, cafés, miniature squares, where the dancing takes place in the summer. The women have their little apartments, where they receive their friends to drink tea and give little dinner-parties. It is an atmosphere of frank gaiety quite impossible to realize without seeing it. Some of them have their babies with them, others live with their mothers. The majority of the inmates are of the tribe of the Ouled Naïl, but there are, of course, many girls from the local tribes too, the great difference being that those who come from the Ouled Naïl are not in any way lowering their prestige by living this life. They have come with the full consent of their parents, and one day they may leave and honorably marry. It depends a great deal on the dowry. In the old days the girls always tried to collect gold pieces, which they strung into necklaces, and one saw a woman all dressed up and her neck weighed down with hundred-franc and twenty-franc pieces. Now that gold is no longer current in France the women convert all the notes they have into bits of gold, which they have beaten into bracelets and ear-rings and tiaras. Some of them manage to buy hoarded collections of gold pieces to make into necklaces, while others have inherited them from their mothers.

However, the main point is to have the dowry in gold actually on the person, so that there is no danger of its depreciating in value, and when the girls leave the quarter to go to some private party in order to dance, they are accompanied by a constable and by a soldier with a rifle. The result of this system of buying gold has, of course, made the girls very rich. Paper currency has depreciated, so that a hundred-franc piece sells for a high price, and the money, though not fructifying in actual interest, is a capital ever increasing in value.

Of course these jewels are not common only to the girls of the Quarter; all Arab women strive to have as much jewelry as possible, but naturally they have other expenses to consider, whereas a girl of the Quarter invests all she has in jewels, and keeps only a small proportion of her earnings to buy her frocks.

An Arab Type

Arab Women Veiled

Girl of the Quarter

The frocks of the Arab women of all classes are the same, and they are disappointing. In fact, they are almost grotesque, and do not in the least show off the wearer to her advantage. For daily use they employ calico or print, tied round the waist with a ribbon, while on the head there is a colored scarf. When they are all dressed up for a party their outer garment is of silk or of taffeta, sometimes of velvet, sewed about with ribbons and embroidery, and of all shades of brilliant colors. The hair is long and smeared in unguents, and plaited round the head, about which they wear two scarfs bound one above the other, also of very striking hues. Those who have golden tiaras fix them in front of the scarf head-dress, with golden chains hanging down from the sides, passing under the chin and up the other side. Round the neck are the necklaces of gold pieces, in the center of the breast a round golden brooch, and about the waist a silver or golden belt. Their arms are covered with bracelets, which are rarely beautiful because they are too heavy; the same applies to the anklets. What strikes one first as a jarring contrast are the feet.

In the first place, Arab women’s ankles are rather thick, but, instead of wearing attractive Arab slippers associated with the illustrations of the Arabian Nights, they buy themselves cheap French shoes and encase their fat legs in cotton or woolen stockings, which have no connection at all with the color-scheme of the dress. They also spoil their figures by wearing layers of coarse underclothing. A group of Arab girls a few yards away, about to dance, is a picturesque spectacle, but their individual appearance in those gaudy clothes is not attractive. And yet some of the girls when young are lovely, their big black eyes especially, and their mouths full of fun and inconsequent gaiety. With the exception of the hair they keep themselves clean, and they attend the Turkish bath regularly.

It is most amusing to stroll into the cafés of the Quarter at night and sit down on one of the benches among the Arabs under the flickering light of the oil-lamp or the hiss of the acetylene, and watch the girls in their semi-party dresses dancing slowly up and down the center. The raïta squeals and the tam-tam beats in regular cadence while the dance proceeds.

There are all kinds of different steps and figures, and though the danse du ventre, which is a hideous muscular distortion of the abdomen, is always carried through, there are many other dances which are pleasing to the eye, and the movements of the hands remind one of the wings of a butterfly. Moreover, simple as these dances may seem, there is a tremendous amount of technique about them, and the poise of the body, and the movements of the feet, quite apart from the hands, take long years to learn. A little girl will begin her apprenticeship at the age of twelve, and at seventeen she will be proficient. Some of the dancers become famous, and are as well known among the Arabs as European stars.

There are also some Arab women who sing and play the mandolin. Their voices are, on the whole, rather harsh, except in the sad ballads of the South, which drone out into the plaintive notes so hard to copy.

Since the introduction of the gramophone into Arab life the girls who are known to be appreciated are paid large sums to make records, and the result is deplorable, as the harshness of the voice is only accentuated by the needle.

The saddest part about Arab women is the rapidity with which they grow old, or, rather, mature. They attain the status of womanhood between the ages of twelve and fourteen, and between fifteen and twenty they are at their best. After that they suddenly seem to fade, and all at once look near to thirty-five. But there it stops, and they don’t get any older for ten or fifteen years; then another sudden leap forward and a woman of fifty is a wrinkled old lady.

Such is the Arab woman of to-day, and such she will remain until civilization finds its way in and destroys all the good traditions of the past. The task will be a hard one, but the action of Mustapha Kemal in Turkey, though it has probably shocked the Arabs, has given them much to think about. However, for the time being the life goes on as it has done for the past twelve hundred years, and long may it do so.

CHAPTER XIII
ARAB MUSIC AND DANCING

I have talked a great deal about music and dancing in Algeria without describing their characteristics. There are three very distinct classes of music: that for dancing, that for ballads about war or love, and that for religious chants.

These various forms of music have their respective instruments, which, though few in number, differ considerably one from the other. The first is the raïta: in shape it resembles a short trumpet bored with holes, on which rest the fingers, and with a bell-shaped mouth. The sound is created by vast quantities of air being blown through a reed mouthpiece, producing a sound not unlike the bagpipes, only much louder. In fact, I have rarely heard one man produce such an ear-piercing and strident squeal as the raïta-player, and sitting close up to the music is pain and grief. This instrument is used exclusively for dancing, and it is accompanied by a man with a tam-tam or a derbouca.

The tam-tam resembles in shape a very large tambourine, and is played with both hands, producing a rather dry, rhythmical cadence. The derbouca looks like a large flower-vase with a round body and a long neck. Over the farther end is stretched a piece of skin, and the playing is the same as the tam-tam, but with a much deeper sound.

In addition to the above, one often sees a tambourinist; but the usual orchestra for dancing consists of two men—the raïta-player and the drummer, with his tam-tam or derbouca.

The second type of wind instrument is the flute. This is either the ordinary penny whistle made out of a reed and producing the same sort of music, only softer, or the long flute, chiefly found in the southern areas. The flute is the most interesting of all the Arab instruments and the hardest to play. It consists of a long reed hollowed out, about half an inch in diameter and from two to three feet long. It has eight stops, but there is no sort of mouthpiece.

The sound is produced by the player blowing across the top of the flute at some particular angle which I have never been able to discover, and producing the softest, saddest, deepest note one can possibly imagine.

To the most unmusical the sound of the long flute must appeal, and when accompanying one of those love ballads of the far South it is enchanting.

These two flutes are used to accompany all kinds of songs, but chiefly those concerning the exploits of heroes and the love lays which hold such a big place in all Arab melodies. Occasionally it is used to follow religious chants, but not always.

The flute is usually accompanied by the tam-tam or the derbouca, which is played very softly. Moreover, the accompaniment to the song is more often only heard between each verse, while during the singing it is just a faint drone with a distinct time-beating, and sometimes no music at all.

The religious chants, which are not, as might be supposed, sung in the mosques but at the shrines of saints or in private houses, have usually no accompaniment except the tam-tam. These chants consist of either hymns in praise of some saint or marabout, or else in long passages of the Koran telling one of our well-known Bible stories. At first sight it would seem that such music without any sort of instrument would be singularly dull, but when one hears the singer bending over his tam-tam, pouring out a volume of sound, keeping a wonderful time with his hands, one is carried away by the rhythm.

At the end of each verse or group of verses there is usually a chorus in praise of Allah or of Mohammed, which is taken up by the audience.

The performers in the cases of the dance-music and the ballad-singing are professionals who either earn their living by playing nightly in the local cafés or by wandering about the country earning their supper as they go. Some of them are poets, and will extemporize songs about the host or about his mistress.

There are also mandolinists and violinists, but these are usually found among private individuals who perform for their own amusement or for that of their friends. They play the same sort of music, both religious and otherwise, and if one has a friend who owns a mandolin a very pleasant evening may be passed with delightful music. It is much gayer, and there are some airs which could almost be used for modern dancing.

The violinists are disappointing from the European standpoint. The player does not place the instrument to his shoulder, but holds it upright on his knee and draws the bow across the strings rather after the fashion of a man with a double bass, emitting a somewhat corresponding sound.

At first Arab music seems all the same, and the unaccustomed listener can not differentiate between the melodies, but little by little the ear becoming accustomed, he can tell at once if the air is from Oran or from Algiers, from the mountains of the Tell or from the far South; and the beat of the religious chant is unmistakable.

There are occasionally companies of musicians who travel around with a variety of instruments and singers, male and female, and dancers. There are also those who sing only the Koran, and serious marabouts almost always have their private musicians. One also sees troupes of actors, usually Tunisians, who give small plays interspersed with music and dancing. The performance goes on for hours and hours, and the audience sits spellbound without uttering a sound of approval or disapproval. Occasionally a comic scene provokes laughter, but generally speaking a dramatic performance is carried through in absolute silence.

The dancing is as varied as the music. It is usually carried out by women, who start learning at a very youthful age. The danse du ventre, which is essentially of the North, or of Turkish origin, is decidedly ugly. It is, however, much appreciated and takes endless practise to learn.

The dance of the Ouled Naïls, on which is based most of the other dances, is very picturesque, and the movements of the hands, like the wings of a hunting hawk, and the feet, are a delight to watch.

Occasionally men dance too; sometimes in the cafés with a woman executing strange figures, but usually alone or with other men. One of the finest exhibitions of this kind I ever saw was at Ghardaia one warm evening in April.

A great fire of alfa grass had been lighted in the market-square illuminating the unsymmetrical arches; masses of men in white squatted all round, while above, on the flat roofs of the houses, could be discerned rows and rows of veiled women peering down on the scene below like ghostly gargoyles. The music was the raïta and the tam-tam, and even in the open air the volume of sound produced by the musicians was sufficient to fill the whole square.

Suddenly a dozen or so men rose, formed themselves into two lines facing one another, and then majestically, with slow steps, they advanced toward each other; when they met they hesitated and then retreated. It was like the opening of a quadrille. At first it was all very solemn, and the figures consisted mostly of slow rhythmical steps, then as the music inspired them, their bodies seemed to stiffen and their feet to move more rapidly. Suddenly and simultaneously, as the raïta broke into a wilder air, the two groups stopped for a second and then, raising their arms, brandished their sticks in the air.

Again they advanced, but this time much more quickly, and as they met struck the sticks of the opposing group; back they retreated to the original post, again they advanced, and, passing through the other group, took up a place at the other end of the square. The fire blazed up and lit up the faces shining in the flickering light as they looked forward with bright, excited eyes.

A group of men detached themselves and started dancing alone; they moved slowly round the group of spectators, then as the music rose they went faster and faster until they were spinning in a mad whirl round the fire. Faster, faster, faster, until, with a gasp, a dancer fell in a state of exhaustion and another took his place.

And so the dancing went on; the few Europeans who were present gradually slipped away, but long after I was in bed I could hear away in the distance the skirl of the raïta, and I could imagine those wild men whirling madly round and round the market-square.

Another form of music and dancing seen in Algeria, but much less common than that which I have described above, is that carried out by negroes. The fact that a man is black does not confer any lowering mark on him in Algeria. He is not the common coarse nigger, but of the Senegalese and Sudanese type, and probably a blood descendant of the Numidians who ruled parts of the country before the Arab invasions.

The dances these men, and sometimes the women, perform are remarkable chiefly for the fact that the dancers and the orchestra are one and the same thing. Six or eight persons will get up, among whom one carries a drum and others two or three heavy cymbals and an instrument like an enormous iron castanet. The dancers form a compact circle and begin slowly chanting, accompanying their voices with the drum and the cymbals. Then gradually the voices rise, and with them the clashing of the instruments, until the whole develops into a wild war-song which increases in speed at every bar. The black men dance round and round, first on one foot and then on the other, perspiration pouring off their dark foreheads, their eyes starting out of their heads; nothing stops them; in fact, once they begin it is impossible to quell the dance until exhaustion has done its work.

I remember once going to a party at a private house where eight of these dancers, six men and two women, had come to perform. They started, and it was a wonderful sight to see them gyrating round the pillared court, with the setting of Arabs all round and the stars shining down from above. But after an hour or so of this, the audience got rather bored, and an attempt was made to get them to stop; this was, however, impossible, and on, on they went. Finally the host got angry, and with difficulty the performers were pushed into the street, still dancing and quite oblivious of all about them.

Our party continued, and some hours later, when I was walking home, I suddenly came upon the negroes still dancing. It is true that only a few remained, but these went on and on with their terrible chant, and on and on they whirled, unable to stop, unable to think, until their bodies gave out and they fell upon the ground.

Yes, dancing and music in Algeria is varied, and its charm, though an acquired taste, is something quite unlike anything else, and takes hold of the senses in a most extraordinary way.

CHAPTER XIV
RELIGION

With sudden contrast, we turn our attention to the most important problem in the daily life of the Arab— religion. Now, it is a curious thing that in practically all European countries religion has not much sway over the general masses, and that frequently it is subject-matter for controversy and discord. Even among those members of the community who are still faithful believers, the church is not really interwoven in the hum of daily life. Not so in Algeria. Every Arab who has not been degenerated by Europe into atheism— and it must be admitted that there are very few of these—believes in Allah, believes in Mohammed, in the world to come, with eternal damnation or salvation. But not only does he believe it to the extent of practising the religion in the mosque as European believers do in the church, but he continues following the precepts of the Faith in every moment of his life.

After living a while with the Arabs it comes as a revelation quite unexpected, and it makes one wonder whether Mohammed, thirteen hundred years ago, had any idea what effect his preaching would have on his followers; probably not. He always strikes one as a man who was almost forced into the path which he followed by circumstances about him. However, these pages are not the place to raise this question. What is certain is the immense change which swept over North Africa when the Arab invasions began in the seventh century, bringing with them all the doctrines of the new faith into a land full of rival beliefs.

There is less difference in Algeria between that period and the present than there was between the sixth century and the days of Carthage in all its splendor, and whether we are discussing the Arabs of the north or of the Sahara, or whether the Berbers of the Kabyle Mountains or those of the Mzab, there is one expression which covers them all:

“They are Mohammedans.”

Not all Mohammedans are of the same denomination, but they are much less divided than the different sects in England, and all with the same fervent belief:

La ilahah ill Allah, Mohammed Rasoul Allah.

There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet.

Mohammedanism is, moreover, in itself a complete solution to all the problems of life, both temporal and spiritual. It is not only a teaching of religious principles, but also the framework of all social laws, and a person who follows its precepts will have not only a clean soul, but also a clean body.

The ablutions, the forbidden meats and wines, the many postures taken during the prayer five times a day, were all invented with a purpose. The Arab was dirty by nature; he was told to wash before saying his prayers; in cases where water lacked, to clean himself with sand. It was known that pork was bad for people living in hot countries; it was forbidden. The laziness of the Oriental is proverbial; physical exercises were devised for him in his daily prayers before Mr. Sandow and his disciples thought of the present-day training.

He was told not to frequent women of easy morals; knowing his nature, the task was made less difficult by allowing him more than one wife, while at the same time, realizing the inconsistency of human nature, laws were provided which enabled him to free himself easily from the bonds of marriage if he felt that it was necessary.

To make him rise early in the morning the first hour of prayer was ordained before sunrise; in the middle of the day there are prayers, which prevent a too-long siesta. Realizing that women in religion are the cause of much trouble, they were excluded from the mosque and from anything to do with its rites. Furthermore, remembering that two great religions had passed before, there could be no question of ignoring them. One therefore finds practically the whole of the Old Testament in the Koran, as well as the coming of Jesus (Aïssa). Here the belief stops and states that God substituted another man for the Christ to be crucified, while Jesus went straight up to heaven like Elijah. The Koran further states that Jesus will come again at the day of judgment, but that Mohammed will not.

These doctrines completed what Judaism and Christianity had begun, and made them stronger by the precept of “Equality of all men in the fold and fierce hatred for all outside it.”

Talking casually to Arabs, it is hard to realize this hatred, but it is there at all times. We are not merely Englishmen, or Frenchmen, or Italians—we are infidels, we are unbelievers, we are not chosen to go to Paradise. We shall not sit by the river under the shade of the trees and be fed on delicious meat and drink wonderful wines which do not intoxicate, while women go about unveiled and we are married spiritually to those we love.

That is the great barrier between Mohammedans and all other creeds, and, being one of the great principles of the religion, is unsurmountable. The reward, the great reward of the Faithful is paradise— for all others it is hell.

As a matter of fact, the picture drawn of the life to come for a good Arab is very attractive, much more so than our rather vague golden city we read of. All that has been forbidden on earth will be permitted above, and the faith in this is absolute.

The number of Arabs who do not follow all the principles of the religion is few. Even those who drink wine when guests are present rarely do so when alone, while those who do carry it to excess are usually very low characters. The origin of the interdiction of intoxicants is said to be because once at Mecca the imam leading the prayer was drunk and he went through the ceremony all wrong, with the result that all the followers did the same as he did. Hence a sacrilege owing to wine-drinking, hence the forbidding of its use among the Faithful. As evidence of the evil caused by drinking the following story is told with much solemnity.

A Mohammedan was once caught by two unscrupulous scoundrels who said they would kill him unless he agreed to do one of three things: drink a bottle of wine, rob his father, or murder the marabout. The poor man chose what he thought was the least of these evils and drank the bottle of wine, with the result that he also robbed his father and killed the marabout!

Prayers are said either collectively in the mosque before sunrise, at noon, at three, at sunset, and at eight at night, when the muezzin comes out and calls the Faithful in that high-pitched voice which is almost a chant, or else they are said individually. If they are said in the mosque they are led by the imam, who afterwards reads the Koran, and sometimes a kind of sermon based on the Holy Book is given by the mufti.

The individual prayer can be said anywhere—in the house, on the roof, in the street. It is done without any sort of self-consciousness or ostentation. The man just turns away from his daily task, faces Mecca, and goes through all the forms of prayer. It is extraordinary to take an Arab on a starless night in the desert and see him always turn instinctively to the East. At first it is a little disconcerting for a European suddenly to see a member of the party get up and start this performance; he feels that there ought to be some awkward silence; but not at all—the chatter goes on and the prayer returns and continues talking as if he had never left his place.

Some people maintain that many Arabs say their prayers publicly just in the same way as did the Pharisees of the Old Testament, and that if they had to commune with God in private they would not do so. I consider this quite a fallacy, and from the age of fifteen, when a boy is supposed to know the Koran and therefore be able to learn his prayers, they pray before the world without the smallest thought of who is looking and who is not. The actual prayer is a fixed formula, and when it is over the supplicant turns his head first to the right and then to the left saying “The blessing of God and His mercy be on thee.” These words are addressed to the two guardian angels who accompany all Mohammedans on earth, the angel on the right noting all good actions, the angel on the left recording all the bad.

After the prayer, which refers only to the greatness and goodness of God, private blessings may be asked for, but it is not usual to bring temporal matters into this private communion with the Almighty. If the supplicant is to be recompensed on this earth it is not necessary to remind God of what He has already ordained.

What seems so simple and right in this religion is the absence of any sort of intermediary in the shape of priest or minister. The good Mohammedan can observe the whole of his religion from the age of fifteen until he dies without ever setting foot inside a mosque or speaking to an imam. The mosques are all very simple indeed, with very little decoration, as pictures and statues are forbidden.

The pilgrim who has been to Mecca and Medina is much respected, and has the prefix hadj (pilgrim) attached to his name. Yearly ships from Algiers transport bands of Arabs who have saved up to do this journey. There have been cases of men who have walked all the way across Tripoli and Egypt to perform the rites at the Kaaba and to see the tomb of the Prophet.

It would take too long in this book to go into the various divisions or sects which have created themselves in the Mohammedan religion, as in all other faiths. It will suffice to mention some of the main groups:

The Sunnites are orthodox;

The Shiahs, followers of Ali;

The Ibadites, followers of Abd Allah ben Ibad;

The Sofrites, followers of Abd Allah ben Sofar;

The Kharedjites are dissenters.

It was this last form of religion which the Berbers accepted and which is practised to this day in all their centers in Algeria. These groups are divided and subdivided into some seventy sects which it would require years of study to examine, and, unless one is a specialist in this matter, are of little interest to the average traveler.

What is interesting, however, is to read a well translated edition of the Koran, with a short life of Mohammed. This will give more insight into the religious side of Arab life than endless treatises on the matter. And it would be a good thing if more of our soldiers who come into contact with the Moslems all over the British Empire were more acquainted with these details.

Women in the Cemetery, Algiers

A Beggar Woman

An Arab Tam-Tam Player

At first the French did not grasp the significance of Islam in their North African territories; now that they have, they use it to advantage, and they give absolute liberty on these questions to their subjects. Even the orders of the White Fathers and the White Sisters do nothing to try to convert the Arab. They realize the little good it would do and the general hostility it would create. They therefore set a good example, teach the boys and girls how to work and lead a clean life, and, if one or two lean toward Christianity, they help them; but it is rare, very rare to find converts.

The Arab dislikes domination, but he realizes the advantages brought by a civilized race who give him roads, laws, railways, commerce; yet he will not tolerate his private life or religion being encroached upon, and if this liberty is granted him he will accept all the rest.

Unfortunately there are missionaries, I hastily add well-meaning missionaries, chiefly from England, who have settled in North Africa, as they have in other Moslem countries, in order to convert the natives. They are too few to do any real harm, but they are wasting their time and their money on people who consider that their own religion is far superior to any other and who see no necessity to change it—a religion which preaches charity and which carries it out, for it is by the rich that the poor live.

“After all,” said an Arab chief one day, “our religion is six hundred years younger than yours, and therefore based on later experience, but, even if it wasn’t, what would you say if a band of Arabs, chiefly women, landed in England and tried to interfere with your faith?”

There is no answer. It is folly of the well meaning, who would do better to turn their attention to their own people, who as a whole do not believe, or, at any rate, do not practise their beliefs in the same conscientious manner as do the followers of Mohammed in Algeria.

CHAPTER XV
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES

Apart from the daily prayers there are various feasts which are celebrated regularly by all good Mohammedans. They do not come at regular dates as, owing to the fact that the Moslem year is lunar, all the months begin ten days earlier each year.

In order of rotation these feasts are as follows: Race el Ame, new year; Aschana, the tenth day of the first month, sometimes known as the Feast of Moses; those who observe it are promised ten times of all they have; Makante, or Mouloud, the birth of Mohammed; Aïd Serrir, which is celebrated at the end of Ramadan or Mohammedan Lent, and the Aïd el Kebir. The most important are the Aïd Serrir, or Lesser Feast, in opposition to Aïd el Kebir, the Greater Feast or Feast of the Sheep. As a matter of fact the Aïd Serrir causes more rejoicing and lasts three days, probably because it succeeds the Ramadan.

The austerity of this Ramadan fast has given cause to much controversy; it is not for us to discuss its merits, but until one has seen the people actually observing the rites it is difficult to realize how strictly they are kept. The Ramadan starts the day after the mufti or kadi in some definite center has seen the new moon of the season with the naked eye, or, in the event of a cloudy evening, on the report of some trustworthy person in some other place. Far away in the South the local muftis or kadis are permitted to judge the moment for themselves, but generally speaking the fast starts at the same time all over Algeria.

It ends as soon as the next new moon is visible, and sometimes, owing to bad weather, the inhabitants of a town may fast one or two days longer than people who live where the night has been clear. From the moment the decree is sent abroad that the Ramadan has begun all believers must observe the fast for thirty consecutive days. During this period they must neither eat nor drink nor smoke from two hours before the dawn until after sunset.

The time-table on the opposite page published for the Ramadan of 1926, which took place in April, gives some idea of the length of time passed without nourishment or water:

The decisive moment of the evening is that at which the imam can no longer distinguish a white hair from a black, held at arm’s length. A gun is then fired, cries of joy rise from the populace, and the first meal is hungrily attacked. Those who are out on the plain pull out a few dates which they munch until they get home. From the firing of the gun they can eat and drink as much water or milk as they like until two hours before dawn. As a general rule they begin with a big dinner. Then they rest, after which they go out and visit their friends or walk about the streets till midnight, when they return home and have a second big meal followed by bed. At first sight this penitence may not seem rigorous. Perhaps not for those rich men who can convert the night into the day; but to the average worker it is a terrible ordeal.

Fifteen hours or so with nothing to eat and nothing to drink! This last privation is especially trying when the Ramadan falls in the summer months and when consequently the period of fasting is longer.

What is most astonishing is to see how strictly the rules are observed, and even those who in ordinary times take wines and spirits are not only completely sober for thirty days, but do not touch any intoxicant for some weeks before the fast begins. Some men suffer physically a good deal and their faces become pinched; others who are heavy smokers develop jumpy nerves. Almost all become bad tempered and easily offended and they work as little as possible, their only incentive to do anything being the necessity to have liquid cash to purchase their new clothes for the feast of the last day. Even this does not rouse them much, and they usually end by selling some of their household goods or their wives’ jewels to supply the necessary funds. It is a great time for the Jews and rich Arab merchants, who buy up all they can at low prices to resell to the tourists.

If by any chance the fast is not observed according to letter it does not count, and it must be caught up after the Ramadan. For instance, during this period a man may not touch his wife; if he sees a woman and she creates in his mind any sort of emotion, it is sufficient for the day’s fast to be considered as unaccomplished. If he touches the palm of a woman’s hand, he can not go to the mosque until he has washed all over. All is a matter of conscience, and it would be quite easy for any one to retire to the privacy of his room and eat a piece of bread or drink some water; no one would be any the wiser, but it is a certain fact that it is not done. Those few who do not observe the fast are thoroughly despised.

When the next new moon has been observed a final gun is fired and the people rise early in the morning dressed in their new clothes to go to the mosque. The Grande Prière takes place in all its solemnity, and for an hour robed figures bow and prostrate themselves in regular cadence. When it is over every one streams into the street and hand in hand marches leisurely up and down the main ways. As friends or relations meet the brotherly kiss is exchanged; jokes are passed and gaiety reigns supreme.

The girls from the Quarter come out in all the gaudiness of their multi-colored clothes; their jewels glint in the sunlight contrasting with the white burnouses of the men.

At eleven the muezzin calls to prayer from the minaret; the more conscientious return to the mosque before the first midday meal since the Ramadan moon.

The poorest household has scraped together enough to have something extra to eat, and among the rich the meal is interminable. In the afternoon every one is out again wandering hand in hand through gardens and alleys, or sitting under the palm trees chatting and smoking—chiefly smoking. Toward dusk the city takes on another aspect. In the reserved quarter the streets are thronged with soldiers and nomads; the strident skirl of the raïta with the beat of the tam-tam, and the dances, which have practically ceased during the fast, rebegin. It is a gay spectacle, and it makes one realize the joys of forbidden fruits.

In the European quarter too the younger renegades are flocking, consuming excessive quantities of forbidden wine and beer. As the night draws on, voices are raised, some in laughter, some in song, others in anger, and it is rare for the feast to pass without several nasty knife wounds, while broken heads are numerous. After all, the fast has lasted long enough, the Ramadan must be celebrated, and he who can not contain his emotions must suffer the quick flash of the dagger or the clenched fist of the followers of the Prophet liberated from the fast.

The Aïd el Kebir, which is the great feast of the year, falls two months later. On this day every one who can afford it is supposed to kill a sheep and divide it among the family. Those who are very rich kill several sheep and give them to those who can not afford it. The belief is that when the soul goes to enter paradise it will have to follow a narrow path which consists of a razor-like blade. The soul whose mortal self has killed many sheep will be met by the slaughtered ones, who apparently have no thought of reprisals, and will be carried across the knives. The gratitude of the sheep seems a little unexpected.

The other feasts, such as the Birth of the Prophet, New Year’s Day, the Aschana, are not observed with any great feasting. Candles are lit in the mosques, the Grande Prière is said collectively, and a little more food than usual is eaten.

Quite apart from the orthodox or dissenting religious observances associated with the mosque, there are other rites, which are really private affairs, observed by independent groups of men who venerate some particular saint. They are really little clubs, and though all its members are strict Mohammedans belonging to one of the sects, believing in all the prophets, they are very proud of the particular saint whom they venerate.

There are the followers of Sidi Abd-el-Kader, the great marabout, second only to the Prophet; of Sidi-el-Hadj-Aïssa, who founded Laghouat; of Sidi Abd er Rahmane, patron of Algiers, and many others. Twice a week these members of the clubs meet, either in the private mosque dedicated to the marabout, or, if it is fine, before the edifice erected in his name out-of-doors. Here they drink tea, which is either provided by themselves or is often sent by people of the town who wish to find grace in the eyes of the saint.

The men sit round in a circle and sing religious songs in unison while the time is kept by a man with a tambourine. On a clear moonlight night it is a most impressive sight to see the earnest faces of the singers as they sit rigidly intoning the long verses of the chant, which is repeated in a chorus, rising finally into a wild rhythm until it stops suddenly and unexpectedly. Visitors are rare on these evenings, and they sit apart with their shoes off; women occasionally come, but they are heavily veiled and are hidden away in a corner.

The actual tombs of marabouts are much venerated, as are also the little domes erected at places where some holy man has rested; candles are lit and offerings made in their names. Though actual sacrificing of beasts does not take place in the way in which we associate it in the Old Testament, there are many who vow that if they are granted some favor they will kill a sheep in the name of the marabout invoked. When the sheep is killed it is cooked and eaten by the supplicant and by any poor friends who like to come in. Occasionally a bullock is slaughtered to bring rain.

There are other beliefs which would be considered by Europeans to be mere superstitions, but they so form part of the religion that practically every one admits them,—the power of spells, the evil eye, the charms against disease. A woman with a headache will wear a piece of paper with words written by a marabout upon it, and believe that it will remove the pain. In fact, into all the daily life religion is woven until it becomes part of the people’s existence, and from the prayer said in public to the abstinence from wine one can not keep away from it. Its simplicity, its absence of all unnecessary intermediaries in communion with the Almighty, make it very easy to follow. Its laws which, with all their sternness, are yet adapted to the frailty of mankind, seem to give one an assurance of its sincerity. Its recognition of all the prophets we know of gives it a feeling of broad-mindedness, and the picture of its future is easy to grasp.

There is one God and He is alone. God is all-powerful. “What He has destined will take place,” and in their belief of the mektoub the secret of the Arabs’ peace of mind is found. Nothing can alter fate. And if things go wrong it is no good saying, “If I had done this, or done that, I should have avoided this.” No; “Allah willed it, and the puny human can do nothing against mektoub.”

CHAPTER XVI
“MEKTOUB” AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS

Having now seen the principles of the faith as set out by the Koran, we must turn our attention to the more superstitious side, which, as in all faiths, has grown up with the course of time.

As stated before, the first great fundamental point which dominates the whole of Islam and makes it unlike other beliefs is summed up in that word mektoub—“It is written.” Generally speaking, every Mohammedan is a fatalist, and believes that nothing can occur which is not ordained; there is no free will and all is in the hands of Allah. There are, however, certain philosophers who discuss this point and who say that it is wrong to lay every evil action on the back of the mektoub.

For instance, they say that a man who deliberately buys a bottle of wine and drinks it has no right to say that God predestined this. These philosophers are, however, in the minority, and ninety per cent of the Arabs believe that they are powerless to avoid what is fated.

The Arabs say, “When God created the world he took a handful of dust in either hand, cast it to right and to the left. The dust to the right was destined to be people who would always be happy and inherit paradise; the dust to the left only contained woes and eternal damnation.” “God created you, you and all your actions,” Koran Sourate, XXXVII. That is to say that all, good and bad, are decided and determined by the Almighty. Sins are predestined and are divided into two categories, the greater and the lesser. The greater comprise theft, adultery, usury, wine-drinking, false witness. The smaller are the weaknesses of human nature, but, whatever they may be, man is destined to commit them, and nothing can prevent him from so doing.

That is why Arabs take life so calmly, never hurry, or get into unnecessary tempers when things go wrong. They firmly believe that what is written is written, and that no power but God can alter it. Taking them as a whole, it makes them seem very happy, and it would appear to be the only solution to the worries of modern life.

From this point of view are developed many other beliefs, and it is the basis of the strength of the Moslem faith. Mohammed, though a great religious genius and a reformer, was not a theologist, and it is even curious to note the lack of dogma in the Koran. His great merit was the way in which he created a great and living organization. His successors developed the theological side of the matter, but, if one examines the Koran itself, one is struck by the absence of mysticism. It is, in itself, more a book of laws, such as the Old Testament. The whole of the theology is really compressed into two passages occurring in Sourates II. and IV., which, summed up, convey that the true Mohammedan who wishes to be saved must believe in God; the prophets or envoys of God, with Mohammed as the greatest; the angels, the inspired books—that is to say the Bible, with the Koran as the most important; and the Day of Judgment.

They further believe in heaven and hell, which are depicted very roughly as places of happiness and torment. Above hell is a bridge as narrow as a hair and as sharp as a knife-blade, across which the souls of the dead departed must pass to enter heaven. The sinners slip and fall into hell, while the righteous cross safely with the aid of the sheep into heaven. Mankind is divided into three categories—those who deny Mohammedanism are destined to eternal fire; those who believe in one God, but who, being sinners, pass through a state of purgatory before going into Paradise; those few strict Mohammedans who go direct to heaven.

Hell is very hot; there is nothing to eat but dari, the bitter fruit of a thorny desert bush, and only boiling water to drink. Heaven is a glorious garden where youth always remains and where the blessed lie on carpets beside ever-flowing streams beneath the shade of fruit-trees, drinking a delicious wine which does not intoxicate, while young girls, ever virgins, sit beside the water and live in a state of contemplative happiness. In other words, hell is an accentuation of all the hardships of life in the desert, while heaven promises all those things which an Arab has never seen on earth.

Quite apart from the Koran, and apparently contrary to its principles, is the belief in saints. The origin of this cult is difficult to find, as the whole basis of the faith is that there is only one God. It is, however, generally supposed that it is a relic of other religions which existed prior to the spread of Islam. This theory is rather confirmed by the fact that more saints and marabouts exist in North Africa, where the Carthaginians and the Romans held such long sway, than in any other Mohammedan country. Other people will say that the worship of saints is necessary owing to the inexpressible greatness of God—his distance from all things human, which necessitates some kind of intermediary; but this has little foundation to stand on, for even among the most superstitious Mohammedans, who are always invoking some holy man, you will always hear them murmur during their prayer, “There is no God but Allah.”

The veneration of saints is in reality a respect for the life of the person concerned. It may be that his asceticism and his charity have raised him above others; it may be that his exploits in the name of Islam have made him famous; it may merely be the fact that he is easier to visualize than God—the fact remains that he is venerated and that his aid is invoked in times of trouble. But whether he be merely respected as an example of what a true believer should be or whether he be actually called upon as a protector, he is not considered as divine, nor in any way approaching the one and only God.

Apart, however, from what we call superstitions of the actual faith, there are countless others which do not come into the religion, and which, while all have the same origin, differ according to countries.

A few words have already been said on this subject, but it is felt that, in order really to understand the Arab, the question must be further developed.

The belief in spells and witchcraft seems a contradiction in a people wrapped up in religion, but it will never enter their heads that bringing supernatural powers to bear on the matters of this world, be it for good or for bad, is placing oneself on the same footing with the Almighty.

They maintain that, as angels exist, djinns and other creatures of the underworld are just as comprehensible, and can be invoked in the same way to carry out requests. Again and again one will meet people who will tell you that dragons live, and that there are people who have seen them and have spoken to them! All sorts of animals are supposed to bring good or evil luck, and amulets with the feet of lizards, the feathers of the hoopoe, the tooth of a jackal, can be seen attached round the necks of babies.

The Koran is always placed in the cradle of the newly born, and there are people who keep pages of the Holy Book to hire out to those who can not afford to buy one.

It would take far too long to go into all the details of these superstitions which are held in reverence all over North Africa, and, though at first sight they may seem to be much the same as those told in more civilized countries, they are not really believed elsewhere to the same extent as in North Africa. I will give an example of a case of witchcraft which occurred only the other day in a family which I knew intimately, a family educated and acquainted with the way of the modern world.

A man tiring of his wife and wishing to marry some one else who refused to share the home, divorced his first wife, who was devoted to him. She made no protest, but, with the aid of certain learned talebs, set about weaving spells about her ex-husband. The night of his wedding the taleb said to the woman:

“Prepare a great feast for all your friends, with music and dancing, and at midnight your husband will return to you.”

She complied with his instructions, and at the midnight hour there was a banging on the door, and the husband in a dazed state appeared, imploring his wife’s forgiveness. She at first refused to see him, and it was not until he had returned a third time that she allowed him in.

I made an investigation of the case, and I talked to those involved, who all corroborated the story. The husband told me that, just as he was about to see his new bride, he felt himself impelled toward his first wife. He struggled against the feeling, but in vain, and before he knew where he was he had left his wedding and was before the door of his late parents-in-law’s house. All this was explained, of course, by the working of the spell, and any contradiction of this was considered as the disbelief of an infidel; the facts were there, and there was nothing further to be said.

I have known cases where some one has desired to spread discord in a household, and in a short space of time the discord has arisen without the mischief-maker speaking a word to the parties concerned. I have seen men commit the greatest follies and trace them to the intention of some other person who has invoked the aid of a djinn.

To my mind the explanation is hypnotism—the effect of strong will on the mind of some weaker person; perhaps auto-suggestion, but certainly mesmerism carried out secretly.

This, combined with the absolute belief in fate, assures that thorough absence of any sort of free will which makes the weaving of spells easy, and it is difficult to make even the better educated Arabs scoff at its possibilities. All is predestined, and the casting of spells therefore can not be avoided.

What is the good of going into the matter further? It would only lead to unnecessary controversy and a disbelief in God’s power. Mektoub!

CHAPTER XVII
ABD-EL-KADER

It would take too long to cast even a cursory glance over the many holy men venerated in Algeria, and it will suffice merely to touch on the two most important. Some confusion appears to exist in the minds of many as to who Abd-el-Kader really is. The name is spoken of all over North Africa, and is often discussed at cross-purposes. The fact is that there are two Abd-el-Kaders, both of great importance to the Arabs, but as different one from the other as possible.

The first, whose kouba, or shrine, can be seen in practically every town all over North Africa, and whose full name is Abd-el-Kader-el-Djelali, was born in the twelfth century A. D. at Djel near Bagdad. God said of him:

“If I had not sent Mohammed before thee to earth, I should have chosen thee as my prophet.”

He is, therefore, venerated as only second to the founder of the Faith. He was apparently a man of proverbial goodness, who spent his life in protecting the poor and the oppressed, whose broadness of mind extended to listening to the prayers of Jews, as well as to Christians, and who was the most merciful of all saints. The miracles attributed to him are innumerable, and the legends would fill volumes, but to the practical mind the greatest miracle seems to have been the range of his travels. Quite apart from the places he visited in other countries, he seems to have sojourned in every center of importance in Algeria.

With his roan horse he stopped in the cities of the coast, in the villages of the mountains, in the oases of the Sahara, doing good to those about him, helping those in distress who invoked him at great distance. Space seems to have meant nothing to him, and in every place where he rested a kouba was erected in his honor, and thither the faithful flock regularly and light candles in the shrine and pray for his blessings, while on fine nights they congregate and sing his deeds.

It is said that his death was caused by God selecting him to suffer three-quarters of the diseases which fall yearly on the earth, and that, when suffering and near to death, the angels came and placed him between the third and fourth heavens, for the Koran says:

“God created the seven heavens, and placed them one above the other.”

From this point of vantage Abd-el-Kader remains, and watches over the sufferings of the Faithful.

The other Abd-el-Kader, already mentioned earlier in this book, was a no less famous character than his predecessor, the marabout after whom he was named. The son of Mai-ed-Din, who claimed direct descent from the Prophet, he was born in the year 1808, and when quite a boy made a pilgrimage to Mecca. During this pilgrimage it is recounted that an angel in the form of a Numidian appeared to Mai-ed-Din and prophesied that one day his son would reign over all North Africa. The boy was intelligent, and spent much of his time studying and interpreting the Koran; and when, therefore, the French landed at Sidi Ferruch in 1830, he felt that his day was at hand. His father had been appointed leader of the Holy War, but it was felt that he had not sufficient personality nor prestige to carry the Faithful to victory, and, remembering the prophecy of the dusky angel, Abd-el-Kader was elected emir, and made his solemn entry into Mascara on November 25, 1832.

For the next fifteen years his military career is one of the most remarkable in history. His successes were no doubt slightly due to the ever-changing principles of the government in Paris, but a man of smaller personality would not have succeeded in not only holding at bay, but in defeating an army containing veterans of the Napoleonic campaigns and equipped with all the modern implements of war. Furthermore, he was an able diplomatist, and employed all kinds of intrigue to compromise with the French when he felt that he could not meet them successfully with the sword.

His renowned piety and his descent from Mohammed raised him in the eyes of the Faithful to a position above all his followers, and one of his greatest achievements was the uniting of all the tribes of Algeria in a common cause. Even when reverses lost him some of his adherents, he was always able to gather them together again at the most critical moment and turn upon his astonished enemy, who thought that his end had come. General after general was sent in his pursuit, but returned with the same tale to tell: an elusive enemy, all mounted, which retreated before an advancing column until it was exhausted or on ground suitable for their maneuvering, then a rapid encircling movement, wild attacks on horseback, and the destruction of the expedition. The French would then try pacific measures and make a truce. Abd-el-Kader accepted these overtures, and employed wise emissaries, which allowed him time to reconstruct for further victories. Now and then he was badly beaten, and, evading capture, would flee with a few faithful followers to the mountains or across the Moroccan border. The tribes which fought for him would disappear, disowning their leader, and for a time there would be peace. Then the French would make some blunder, expose some lonely garrison to attack, and the emir would be up and at them. One small victory would be sufficient to bring all the diffident tribes flocking about his standard again, and the wearying war would recommence.

Arab Band and Dancer about to Perform in a Southern Town

Pilgrimage to One of the Shrines of Abd-el-kader

Arabs with Flutist Waiting to See the Caravans Going North

What strikes one most in all his career of victories, of reverses, of days of triumph, of moments of desertion, is the perseverance and the faith of the man. At no time was he sure of his people, at all times he was certain of the fate that awaited him at the hands of his enemies, and yet he continued fearlessly to the end. His mobility is almost unbelievable. In a country where roads were unheard of, where the land was overgrown with thick brush, among towering mountains and flooded rivers, he moved with the utmost rapidity. His victories at Mascara in the far west, at Constantine in the east, in the plain of the Metidja, and at Aïn Mahdi in the south give a slight idea of the enormous area covered.

Moreover, it was not merely an army of lightly armed horsemen who swept over the land behind the youthful general. His smala consisted of thousands of camels, with tents and jewelry and armories, and the families of all the great chiefs, who, though they were kept well in the rear, were always present to celebrate the victories.

It was finally Bugeaud, the veteran of Soult’s army in the Peninsular War, who succeeded in conquering Abd-el-Kader. The old Marshal realized that it was useless to employ the methods of orthodox war against this elusive enemy, and he therefore decided to create mobile columns to pursue the rebels. In the year 1843 a terrible blow was dealt to the emir’s prestige. His great smala, which had now become a sort of perambulating capital, with schools to teach the children and kadis to administer justice, was surprised by the Duc d’Aumale near Taguine and completely destroyed.

In spite of this, however, the struggle was kept up, and, after taking refuge in Morocco for a short time, Abd-el-Kader reappeared again. But, though he won a few more victories, his end was near, and in December, 1847, he asked for peace, specifying, however, that the French, in return for his surrender, should allow him to retire to some other Mohammedan country. His terms were accepted, but unfortunately were not kept by the Government of Louis Philippe. He was taken to France, and imprisoned first of all at Toulon and then at Pau, and finally at the Château d’Amboise. Finally, in 1852, Louis Napoleon, then Prince President, visited the exiled emir and granted his wishes. He was transported to Damascus, where he lived in peaceful retirement until his death in 1883.

These pages are too short to go into all the detail of the astonishing career of one who wished to be the hero of Arab independence in Algeria, and to those whom the subject interests let me recommend the excellent work of Colonel Paul Azan.

Some people have wished to compare Abd-el-Kader to Abd-el-Krim of the present day. It would take too long to discuss these points here, but it can be safely said that there is no comparison possible. In the first place, the caliber of the two men is very different; the intelligence of the hero of a hundred years ago was far superior to that of his Moroccan cousin, and, though possibly Abd-el-Krim may have had the same dreams as those which inspired Abd-el-Kader, he never held the same prestige in North Africa. Abd-el-Kader was alone, with ill-armed followers fighting against a trained army, and beating them in the open over an area as large as France, while Abd-el-Krim, supported by all kinds of European adventurers, merely held at bay the armies of two European nations where the conformation of the ground made his task comparatively easy.

Abd-el-Kader will always remain a great figure, not only in the history of North Africa but also in that of Islam, as one who defended the Faith against the invasion of the infidel and who died a friend of his former enemies.

This work is not a history nor a political treatise, but merely a handbook for tourists and students of the country, and the name of Abd-el-Kader has only been used to clear up any misunderstanding which may arise when the name is raised: the one Abd-el-Kader, saint and reformer; the other warrior and defender of Islam.

CHAPTER XVIII
ARAB EDUCATION

Generally speaking the Arab of Algeria is uneducated, and though he is lazy, this lack of education is not fundamentally his fault. In the first place, the instruction he obtains from his own people is singularly primitive. The Koran decrees that all children shall be taught their religion; at the time of its compilation this involved reading and writing of Arabic, but as in Algeria the original pure language has disappeared, and its place has been taken by this mixture of Berber and other tongues which have crept into it during the course of the various invasions, its object as a channel of education has disappeared.

The language of the Koran has, however, not changed in the least, with the result that to read the Holy Book an Arab must learn a completely new language, richer perhaps than any other in the world and full of grammatical rules which take time to fix in the mind.

It stands to reason, therefore, that the number of people who can talk this language are in the great minority, but the order of the Koran must be obeyed. What, therefore, is the result?

A little boy is sent to the local taleb or Arab teacher at the age of seven, and he is supposed to remain there until he is fifteen or sixteen. Here he learns the Koran in the old tongue by heart, reciting in chorus with the other pupils the verses and chapters without the smallest idea what he is saying. Occasionally he finds a teacher who will take the trouble to explain the scripture and give a few comments on what he is learning, but usually the lad leaves his school with the Koran engraved on his mind like some incomprehensible poem. Naturally he forgets all this very quickly, and though his family teach him his prayers, which are extracted from the Book and are translated, this is all he knows of Arabic. The rest of the sense of his religion is picked up by hearsay, and it may seem astonishing to a stranger to note how much he does know about the laws of the Prophet. It is not, however, as astonishing as might be supposed if one realizes what I have said before, that the whole of his daily life is interwoven with religion, and that if he did not know all this it would be just as if a European remained all his life ignorant of the simplest laws of his country.

The girls are not taught anything by the taleb, as, though the Koran implies that all children should attend the school, the Arabs consider that if their daughters were thus educated they might get to know too much, and as an old kadi once said to me, “A woman who could read and write would find it too easy to communicate with her lovers.”

At home a few have to say the various prayers, but usually their only instruction consists in weaving burnouses and carpets. They also are instructed in the art of cooking; their apprenticeship on these lines is very thorough, and they would beat any professional in a carpet-making competition. Their cooking is, of course, entirely Arab, and is often excellent, especially the pastry and the cakes. The rolling of the kous-kous is their speciality, and though in European households only men act as cooks, they have to hand over the preparation of the kous-kous to women.

It will be seen, therefore, that as far as the Arab teaching goes, little boys and girls of an Arab family are practically ignorant of anything except the Koran by heart and household duties. There is, however, a French law which orders all parents to send their male children to the local school. This law is enforced more or less according to its locality. Generally speaking, in the north the children are sent to school as the parents realize the benefit gained by a knowledge of the Roumis’ affairs; the Kabyles are an exception, and they do all they can to escape from this foreign imposition.

In the south, too, education is avoided by the nomads, for no natural dislike, but merely because the parents of the children consider that they are more useful at home helping them with their work than in learning to read and write. As, however, there is a law about school-attending, it would seem difficult to evade it, and whereas in the case of the nomads it is quite an easy matter, the people of the oases have to try to get round the schoolmaster. This seems incredible at first unless one knows the mentality of the French fonctionnaire far away in the desert. Isolated from his kith and kin and living on small pay, he does not feel really bound to educate all the little wanderers who, he knows, will not profit by his labor.

Those who do attend school are taught to read and write, geography, French history, and a little arithmetic. They usually leave their studies at fourteen and remember nothing a few years after, except the reading and writing. Those who stay on can develop their studies until they reach a standard which permits them to go up for the local examination enabling them to get small scholarships in secondary schools or at Lycées. Those who do very well are educated free at the École Normale, and on leaving are posted as teachers in the French schools. For others there is the Medersa and all the legal situations mentioned in a previous chapter.

These pupils have to learn literary Arabic at the local school, and on this one subject they are, generally speaking, very thoroughly educated.

Quite apart from the official masters, there are the White Fathers and White Sisters. These good people have posts in all the far-flung posts of the French colonies, and their devotion to duty is an example to all. Founded by Cardinal Lavigerie about 1865, their work in North Africa is beyond all praise, and they have done more to pacify the country than any soldiers or politicians. They do not try to convert their pupils, but teach them some trade or occupation, at the same time instilling into their minds principles of good living and moral obligations. The White Fathers produce some wonderful leather work from their workshops, and the Sisters’ carpets are the best examples of Arab workmanship one can find. They also run a small school where they teach all elementary matters, including religion. The Arab children do not usually attend these classes but the Jews do. I have talked to Jewish parents on this apparent contradiction of their principles, but they have replied that the teaching of the Sisters is so much superior to that of the lay schools that they prefer their children to receive it, and the parents can always counteract at home any of the Christian doctrines.

The Lycées in Algiers, and for that matter in France, are open to all Arabs who like to pay to send their sons there. Some Arab chiefs make a point of doing so, but it is noticed that the boys do not really reap the benefits of this education but return to their homes without much more knowledge than their brothers who have studied in the local schools, and with all the vices of the Europeans with whom they have come in contact.

What does strike an Englishman is the enormous proportion of Arabs who talk fluent French. In India it is the officer and the official who have to learn Urdu to make themselves understood among the natives; in Algeria it is the native who must learn French. This is carried to such an extent that in some of the communes mixtes of the north the little Arab boys are not learning their own language as a channel of conversation.

The south is different, as only a few nomads can say a word of French, but in time the language of the conqueror will impose itself into the farthest recesses of the Sahara. It is another example of the results obtained by an administration which at first sight seems a contradiction to all sense, and which yet produces wonderful results.

CHAPTER XIX
SPORT AMONG THE ARABS

The Arab who has not become softened by life in European towns thinks more of sport than of anything else. His greatest ambition is to own a horse, and the possession of a breech-loading gun is a dream he rarely realizes. With his old muzzle-loading blunderbuss, however, he does wonderful shooting, and rams down the charge with amazing rapidity.

Game of all kinds abounds in Algeria—partridge, hares, woodcock, bustard, pigeons, quail, wild boar, gazelle, moufflon, and occasional panthers in the mountains. I will discuss the various methods of shooting the animals as employed by the Arabs, as, with rare exceptions, sport in the country is organized by them. Small game is either walked up or driven; usually driven, as the areas are so wide and open that it is difficult to approach within range of the birds. Hares can be walked, and they make very pretty shots as they dart round the tufts of alfa; the bustard seems to be a bulky target and does not appear to fly very fast, but is not too easy to hit. Dogs are taken out, but they are badly trained, and it is preferable to leave them at home and rely on native boys to pick up the game.

The most interesting way of hunting the small game in the south is mounted, with hawks. The breed is a kind of small falcon, and unlike those trained in India and other countries, which once captured are kept as long as they can fly, these hawks of North Africa are caught in the autumn and are released again in the spring as soon as the molting season begins. What is still more curious is that the same birds are found again the following year by the falconers, with their young, to be trained for the first time. A hawk is an expensive luxury, and costs four or five hundred francs to buy, while a falconer must be mounted, clothed, fed, and paid a salary. But it is a noble sport, and perhaps one of the most picturesque in the world.

A meeting-place is fixed, and the party rides out in twos and threes, or, in the case of the rich, send on their horses, and motor there in comfort. When every one is assembled a long line is made, converging at the two extremities so as almost to make three sides of a square; the falconers, with the birds, capped, perching on their turbans or shoulders, ride in the center. The horsemen slowly advance. Suddenly there is a shout—a hare has got up; the line steadies its pace, for it is against all rules in any way to hunt the hare until the falcon has got to work. This does not take long, however, for in a second a bird is uncapped and is soaring rapidly up into the air, a second bird has followed it, perhaps a third.

Up they go, flying swiftly above the hunted beast. Suddenly the first falcon swoops down toward the earth, then up again. He has missed, but before the hare has got over this first escape the second falcon comes down; if he misses, the third is there; and, with cries of delight, the Arabs ride up to see the prey held firmly in the falcon’s talons as he pecks savagely at the head.

All this may take five minutes or half an hour. If the hare gets a good start or if the falcon does not see it, at once there is gallop across country, driving the hare in as straight a line as possible by hemming him in on either flank. It is advised in this case not to try to guide the horse, but to let it pick its way among the tufts and holes in the mad pursuit across the rough ground. Many hawks are often loosed, and one may see eight in the air at the same time.

The prettiest sight, I think, is to see a hawk tackling a bustard. The bird gets up heavily, and at first flies low, apparently slowly, but not too slowly for the hawk, whose wings twinkle high up in the sky. After a minute or two the bustard decides to rise; in doing so it loses distance, and the hawk, at the critical moment, stoops and with a graceful upward movement seems just to skim over the large bird’s back, turning on itself again like an aeroplane looping. There is a little shower of gray feathers, the bustard seems to stagger, and then spins down to earth, while the falcon remains high above, marking the place where lies the body.

More often than not, the quarry gets away, and it is then a little difficult to gather in the hawks. The falconers, with loud cries, wave the carcass of a dead hare round their heads until the birds, one by one, return and are capped till the next hunt.

The shooting of bigger game is contrary to all British ideas of sport. The art of stalking is practically unknown.

The wild boar which infests the Atlas range, and especially the mountains of the coast, is driven through the thick undergrowth and killed with a shotgun at short range.

The gazelle of the Sahara is hunted in different ways. The most common method is on horseback. A party of five or six will ride out on to the plain where gazelles are known to be pasturing. As soon as the animals are sighted the horsemen approach cautiously, endeavoring to place themselves on the flank of the herd. The moment the hunters are seen, up go the heads of the gazelles, and in a second there is a wild stampede. At the same time the horses leap forward and the pursuit begins.

If the preliminary maneuvering has been well carried out the line of horsemen will be galloping one behind the other parallel to the gazelles, and little by little the distance separating the hunters from their quarry is lessened.

Suddenly as the leading horseman comes within range he drops the reins on his horse’s neck, raises his gun and fires. His companions follow suit and an intermittent broadside continues until the herd breaks up into terrified groups fleeing in all directions.

The party halts, retainers who have been following hurry up and cut the throats of the dead gazelles, as even in sport the laws of the Prophet must be observed.

It is an exhilarating sport but it needs a little practise to hit anything when both hunters and hunted are at full gallop. It is moreover recommended to use a high-backed Arab saddle and also to ride at the rear of the line, as excitement often makes the Arabs shoot carelessly.

There are others, merely hunting for food, who go out before dawn when the herds are all lying down, approach as near as possible, and then blaze away as soon as it is light enough to see. Some sportsmen hunt them with the native greyhound, but, as this entails much leisure with often no results, the sport is dying out. I have seen gazelles hunted from a motor-car. The vehicle goes bumping across the desert until a herd is seen, and approaches as near as possible. As soon as the animals get the wind they are off, and the car is off after them. As in the case of the hunting on horseback, the gazelles at first go much faster, but they are soon overtaken and the car rushes along beside them while the occupants discharge their guns into the terrified herd. It is a massacre, but the shooting is not so easy as it sounds and the driver of the car must have courage and judgment. Sometimes it is impossible to get level with the gazelles. In these cases the object may be achieved by the mere tooting of the horn! Nine times out of ten this will cause the gazelles to stop, the car then stops too, and the tooting continues at intervals until—marvelous to relate— the animals begin approaching to see what the noise is. At this moment the heathen kills just as many head as he wants.

There are few dishes more delicate than a roast haunch of gazelle, and the cutlets melt in one’s mouth.

The moufflon—which is not really a moufflon at all, but a sort of goat resembling very closely the animal which is known as the sharpu in Kashmir—is very little hunted. In the first place, he lives in very inaccessible mountains, chiefly in the Aures above Biskra and in the Djebel Amour near Laghouat; secondly, he is getting scarce, and thirdly, his meat not being very tender, is not sought after. If the Arabs see one they shoot it with a shotgun regardless of sex or age; and the European who wants to stalk must understand the game thoroughly himself, be a good mountaineer, and merely employ natives to guide him to the likely spots. It is one of the most astonishing things to see how completely ignorant the Arabs are of all questions of wind or light; their only idea seems to be to rush up to the beasts as quickly as possible and kill in quantity.

But, if the sportsman will take trouble and get into touch with some of the rare Arabs who enjoy this kind of shooting, he will have some excellent sport and get quite good heads.

Panthers are very rare nowadays, and keep away in the highest peaks where there are forests or thick undergrowth. Only when it is very cold do they come down to lower levels and kill a few sheep. The moment their presence is known all the neighboring villages are up in arms, and the wretched beasts have not many days to live.

Jackals and foxes are also shot, as they do a great deal of damage to flocks, and their skins are tanned and sold. Hyenas frequent the plains of the Northern Sahara.

On the whole, however, the Arab who is at heart a good sportsman considers that any form of hunting not connected with a horse is more a means to obtain food than anything else. There are, of course, the great chiefs who will organize regular shoots for their friends as is done in Europe, but it is not very general.

Horse-racing is encouraged, and, though it is carried out in rather a wild method, with little attention to handicapping, it is very highly thought of. Every Arab knows how to ride, be he a soldier, a merchant, or a cook, and the smallest boy will mount his steed without fear or hesitation at the first opportunity.

What strikes one, however, is the little care the average man takes of his horse. He very rarely grooms him, he feeds him on any sort of fodder available, and when in camp he hobbles him in a way which is almost cruel. He uses a heavy saddle based on a wooden framework, and the bit, though light, is often rusty. It is nothing for a nomad to do thirty miles a day on an animal which has never smelled a handful of oats in its life. In spite of this, however, the horses seem to thrive, and those who are properly cared for answer to the treatment in an incredibly short space of time.

All along the coast, sea-fishing abounds, but it differs in no way from the same sort of fishing all over the world. The river-fishing inland is not worth speaking about, but it exists, and the rather bony fish which is caught often makes a pleasant contrast to the eternal meals of mutton and game.

This, roughly speaking, is the sport of Algeria. There are, of course, private individuals—European farmers—who do a certain amount of preserving, but they are in the minority, and rarely ask others than their neighbors to share in their shoots.

Game exists everywhere, and, if the sportsman will take trouble, he can have as good fun with gun and rifle as in any country, but he must do it all himself.

CHAPTER XX
THE NOMADS

The nomads are the descendants of the original Arabs who invaded North Africa in the seventh and twelfth centuries. Here and there they have been slightly Berberized, but generally speaking they are quite a separate type from the inhabitants of the rest of Algeria. Tall, and tanned by the sun, they look fearlessly before them as they move with that easy gait of men born and bred in the open plain. Their feet and hands are shapely, and though not actually good-looking they have very fine faces, with an expression of great calm.

Their clothes are much scantier than those of their brethren of the towns. Usually there is just a gandourah tied about the waist with a leather girdle, bare legs, the feet encased in untanned leather boots, a very rough turban on the head, and a threadbare burnous. Over the shoulder is slung an antique muzzle-loading gun, while in their hands is always a long staff.

Their womenfolk go about unveiled and have little pretention to beauty, which is probably due to the hard life which they lead. They wear simple frocks, sandals and a kind of turbaned head-dress made of many scarfs wound one above the other. Their hair is thick and plaited round the head, leaving two coils to hang out on either side.

The accent of a nomad is quite different from that of the other Arabs; it is deep and guttural, much softer than the tongues of the mountains and of the north.

The hardest thing to realize when one meets these people is the fact that none of them ever possessed a permanent home or actually resided in a house. They were born under the tent, they were brought up there, married there, and they will die and be buried under a little heap of stones. Their whole outlook on life has been the open plain, the sky, the storm, the rain, the fierce sun of the Sahara; even the visits to the market towns have been fleeting. The family, which means everything, has been centered round the group of tents.

These tents are not, as might be supposed, gorgeously decked residences or even the tents we associate with shooting expeditions in India. They consist of a kind of very large blanket made of coarse camel’s and goat’s hair. This blanket is placed on posts and pegged down on three sides leaving the fourth open. On the floor are placed rugs and carpets, and in the case of a rich nomad one may sometimes see colored hangings on the walls, but this is rare, as simplicity is preferred.

When the man is married the tent is divided into two by another blanket and the man lives on one side and his wife and children on the other. When the camp is struck the posts are removed, the blanket is rolled up with the carpets and the whole is placed on the back of a camel or donkey.

On some of the camels one may occasionally see what are known as bassours. They are a kind of palanquin consisting of a framework of wicker hoops covered over with drapery, and inside which travel the women and children. The men either walk or ride horses or donkeys.

In the old days, before motor-cars had come into being, the caravan of some southern chief moving to his summer quarters in the north was a very noble sight. It consisted of some hundred camels bearing all his family and his household goods. The bassour of the important ladies was draped about with the brilliant trappings of his tribe and was surmounted by a banner above which shone a brass crescent. All the men rode beautiful horses richly saddled, and the flocks spread themselves about the caravan as far as the eye could reach.

Occasionally one sees this sight nowadays, but very rarely, and only in the far south where roads have not penetrated. To-day the Arab chief sends his family by rail or by car, and it is left to the shepherds to travel in their old-fashioned and picturesque style.

There are, however, real nomads of great wealth who own hundreds of flocks and whose caravans are necessarily very large, but they do not go in for any kind of pomp. It is a most astonishing thing to meet one of the old heads of families, dressed so simply that he might be a humble workman, and realize that he is the owner of thousands of sheep which represent a fortune not to be sneered at in Europe. Here he lives, however, all his life on the desert with his fifty tents or so, his family and retainers growing up about him, but without the least desire to better himself or live in a house.

Most of the caïds of the south live this way, and those who inhabit the towns are exceptions, and are merely there for business reasons or because contact with Europe has made them soft.

The camp of my shepherds, which consists of eight tents, comprising some fifty persons, is a very typical example of the average group of nomads. It moves according to the pastures; that is to say, it remains in a place as long as there is enough grazing in that area and then it moves on to the next feeding ground. The camp forms the center or headquarters, and in it dwell all the women and children. At dawn the shepherds get up, count the sheep and disperse into the Sahara, where they remain with the flocks until the evening, when they return to the camp. The sheep are again counted, and the evening meal is taken in each separate home.

Photographs by Mr. Julian Sampson

A Water Carrier in Laghouat

Algerian Cavalryman

Photographs by Mr. Julian Sampson

Head Shepherd, the Author, the Kaïd Madam and the Calipha

Caravan Moving North

When I am there the head shepherd, and perhaps the head man of some neighboring camp, dine with me, and then all the other shepherds come and sit round my fire to smoke or tell stories till bed-time. The women, though unveiled, rarely appear and they are so silent that one hardly realizes they are there, but they prepare a very excellent meal and with apparently no materials weave all the tents and clothes for their menfolk.

In the winter we move only a few miles at a time, from pasture to pasture, but when it begins to get hot and the grazing scarce the whole camp is packed up and we set out for a long journey to the mountains in the north. It takes a fortnight or so to cover the two or three hundred miles to our summer quarters. Here the area is much more restricted, and the camp remains much longer in the same place until the time to move south comes round again in the autumn.

Market-day in the villages of the Tell during the summer months is a most interesting sight. All the tribes are there—Larbas, Chambas, Ouled Naïls—outnumbering the regular inhabitants, and one hears the deep voices of these people from the Sahara, and in the evening the southern pipe is played in all the cafés.

The rich chiefs who live in the oases usually have their country homes in the mountains, and those who have not are usually related to the local magnates and spend the summer with them.

There are, of course, a great many nomads who never leave the south at all, but wander about all the year in the Sahara. The pasture is very scarce, but there is just enough for the sheep and they get all the benefit of the first autumn rains. Nomads have prejudices about moving out of their own areas and prefer to remain in a country they know.

It is unfortunately difficult to get to know these people well. They are timid of strangers, and as they can not speak one word of French the visitor must have a very fluent knowledge of Arabic to make himself understood. They are suspicious of being exploited, very quick of temper, and where honor is concerned do not hesitate to use the knife or the gun. They are very childish in their jokes, and if they see that one means no ill they soon become attracted and friendly. Their women are, generally speaking, chaste, and though there are intrigues, which usually end in some one getting murdered, they are the exception.

A little story of an incident which occurred in a neighboring camp to mine will perhaps illustrate the mentality of these people.

A rich nomad possessed a good-looking wife who was much admired by a sheik who, owing to business reasons, lived in an oasis. The sheik owned flocks himself, and he often had to pass the night near the camp where dwelt the object of his affections. He courted her on the sly, and though the lady regularly rebuffed him he was in no way deterred. One night it so happened that he had to sleep in the camp of the rich nomad, and he lost not a moment to press the lady to grant him his requests. At first she refused, but after a while she seemed to relent, and told him to wait till she made a signal and then to creep under the blanket which divided the men’s section from the woman’s, and come to her. The young man was in his seventh heaven, and when all was quiet he was duly called, and crept toward his lady-love. When he was quite close she whispered to him to take off all his clothes. He complied with alacrity, and when he was in nature’s garments the woman turned to him and said:

“So this is how thou repayest the nomad’s hospitality!”

The young man gazed at her speechless.

“I am now going to wake up my husband,” she continued, turning to where the old man slept.

In a moment the young sheik was on his knees imploring mercy, begging forgiveness, swearing fidelity, trembling at the thought of the fate which would surely await him if the threat were carried out. The woman watched him disdainfully for a moment.

“Coward!” she said at last. “Had I seen that thou wast prepared to meet thy fate like a man I should have respected thee and perhaps accorded thee a favor; as it is thou art not even worthy of the knife of my man; thou canst go!”

The lover made as if to take his clothes.

“Nay, nay,” she said, smiling, as she laid her hand on the bundle, “a craven needs no garments. Go; quick, quick, or I shall rouse the whole camp!”

The youth looked at her, and seeing the look of determination, slunk out on to the plain, found his horse, and was obliged to ride naked to the oasis; and there is no humiliation greater for an Arab than to be seen without any clothes on.

CHAPTER XXI
SHEEP-BREEDING

Having talked about the nomads we must now cast a glance at their occupation. Of all the many industries in Algeria, sheep-breeding is the oldest, as perhaps it is in all countries where pastures are unlimited and where lack of communication makes it difficult to set up big commercial towns. Moreover, the Arab is essentially a shepherd by instinct, and living a wandering life with no fixed abode but his camel’s hair tent, it is immaterial to him where his sheep pasture, and it is amazing to note the vast tracts of country crossed by a flock during the course of the year.

Messieurs Bernard and Redon say in the Histoire, Colonisation, Géographie et Administration de l’Algérie:

“The Moghreb (original name of Algeria before the Phœnician settlements) is especially suited for the cultivation of cereals, vines and olive-trees, and for sheep-breeding. . . . the Numidians were excellent horsemen who lived by pillage and by the produce of their great flocks.”

Further, speaking of the invasion of the Hillals in the twelfth century, they say:

“The newcomers were fierce nomads who did not invade as did the first Arabs, in small groups, but in hordes, millions of men followed by equally vast flocks.”

The greatest sheep-breeding centers are in the southern part of the department of Algiers, some two hundred miles from Algiers, and right away to the south as far as Ghardaïa.

There is also a certain amount of breeding in the southern tracts of Oranie and in Constantine, but the inhabitants of these areas are more interested in cereals, and the Arabs of Biskra are specialists in dates.

The district known as the Sersou, on the high level above the Sahara, must not be forgotten as one of the finest pasture-lands of Algeria, but the majority of the flocks there have come up from Laghouat and Ghardaïa to escape the intense heat of the summer.

Many people who have only visited the country in a superficial or tourist manner, are filled with incredulous surprise when they are told of sheep-farming in the Sahara.

“But what do the sheep eat and drink?” they exclaim.

It is difficult to explain this to those not versed in the constitution of a sheep, but when one realizes that in winter a sheep can go for three months without drinking, and finds nourishment and water in the rough scrub which grows all over the Sahara, it is not surprising that these great flocks thrive and that the sheep grow as fat as their cousins in Europe.

Presumably if an animal is brought up to live on scrub and do without green grass it has no taste for other nourishment, and there is little doubt that if a camel was let loose on the Scottish moors it would be unable to assimilate the rich food owing to the formation of its digestive organs.

However, whatever the best diet for a sheep may be, the result is enormous flocks all along the northern belt of the Sahara, which are a source of great revenue to the Arabs. Few Europeans have ventured into this business, in the first place, because the Frenchman has not that adventurous spirit which characterizes the British colonist, and in the second because unless one knows the country and its people well it is difficult to enter on a venture of this kind alone. But those who have had the courage to start are delighted and amazed at the results.

First of all the original capital required is comparatively small, three hundred to five hundred pounds being sufficient to buy the first flock; and second, the return is large and very rapid. Given an average year, the investor can count on a regular annual thirty to sixty per cent. net for himself on his money after paying all expenses, including the remuneration of his Arab partner.

The expenses are negligible; they need hardly be taken into consideration. They consist of market fees (only at the big markets where there are tens of thousands of sheep for sale), shearing fees, and a small pasturage tax when the flocks are in the north. The shepherd of each flock is paid in kind. That is to say, he is given an old burnous (Arab cloak), a few measures of barley and twelve to fourteen lambs each year. No further expenditure is required, and though losses occur occasionally from drought, there is never a hundred per cent. mortality.

Since 1900 there have been only two of what are known as famine years. During those two years sheep died at a rate of from fifty to sixty per cent., but this is a very exceptional occurrence. Curiously enough years like this which are disasters to some are windfalls to others. The people who suffer are those who have not sufficient reserve funds to be able to hold out during the bad period and who are obliged to sell out. Those, therefore, who are not entirely dependent on the sale of their sheep to live, buy up from the poorer breeders at negligible cost. When there is a mortality of thirty per cent. it is considered very bad, but this happens perhaps once in seven years, and even then one has the remaining seventy per cent. from which to continue breeding. The average mortality does not exceed ten per cent. and it has been known as low as three.

The system of working the flock is for the European capitalist to enter into an agreement with an Arab: a chief of some tribe or some native of good reputation owning flocks of his own. Through him all the purchases are made at the various markets, or direct from the nomad tribes as they pass through the district. He is responsible for all dealings with the Arabs for the pastures, for the selection of shepherds, in fact for all the technical work to do with the natives, which no European could possibly cope with.

At the end of each year the profits are estimated and after sharing expenses, half goes to the Arab partner. This may sound excessive, but when one considers that he is responsible for the whole of the breeding, and that without him it would be impossible to do the business without being robbed of eighty per cent. of the profits, it is not too much. Moreover, in the unlikely case of dead loss the Arab partner bears half. There have been one or two rare examples where Frenchmen who know the country well, and who can speak the language, have launched forth on their own; they have found that after a year’s work the flock has been mysteriously stolen by some migrating tribe and that it can not be found. What redress has the Frenchman? He can have the shepherd imprisoned if he can find him, but this won’t return him his sheep or his money. On the other hand, when an Arab loses a few sheep he has every redress possible from his colleagues and friends, the chiefs of the district, who will set all the tribes in such a hum that it is not worth while for the robbers to conceal the spoil long.

The way these nomads track a lost flock across hundreds of miles of stony areas baffles all comprehension. I have seen a man track thirty-five strayed sheep from Chellala to Ghardaïa, over two hundred miles of the most desolate country, and never make a mistake until he reached the sheep. During the tracking he crossed the spoor of some thousand other flocks, but he hardly hesitated in his relentless march, whereas I could not see as much as a mark on the stony ground. I remember at one moment I expressed my amazement at this apparent witchcraft. The Arab chief, my partner, laughed.

“Look,” said he, “what do you see on the ground?”

I peered down and, after a long scrutiny, I said doubtfully. “It is something like the print of a man’s foot, but I am not sure.”

The Arab smiled.

“It is the print of an unmarried girl of the tribe of the Chambas,” he replied without hesitation.

In amazement I looked at him.

“But how?” I asked.

“I can not describe to you the difference between the print of an unmarried girl and a woman without having the two prints before me,” he replied, “but I know.”

“But the tribe?” I exclaimed incredulously.

“There is a date-stone beside the foot-mark,” continued the Arab, “which only comes from the palms which grow in the land of the Chambas.”

I said no more. That night we came to a group of nomad tents.

“Ask them who they are,” said the chief, smiling.

I hailed them and a voice from the dark said, “Chambas!”

No, I do not think that half the profit is too large a remuneration for the Arab partner. . . .

At the end of each working year, that is October till September, the final settlement of accounts takes place. If so wished the entire flock can then be sold. Moreover, this can be done at any moment, and it is a point to be noted that the money invested is never immobilized, as there is always a market for sheep, and like other commodities the price follows the rate of the dominating currency on the money-market. If the wisest course is followed, merely selling the produce (lambs, wool and butter), leaving the original flock intact, it will be found that in a good year the capital will be reimbursed at the end of the first season, while the flock remains as profit to go on breeding from. If from this moment one contents oneself with the sale of butter and wool only, which bring in ten per cent., and one keeps the lambs, one will see the original flock multiply itself into many flocks in an incredibly short space of time.

The Arabs among themselves never keep any regular accounts, but gage their fortunes by flocks and keep as little ready money as possible. When they want to buy a horse or a motor-car or a wife, they send so many flocks or portions of flocks to the nearest market and pay their bill with the proceeds. If some of them ever realized their livestock, they would find themselves on a footing with some of the big fortunes of Europe with every luxury at their disposal. But they prefer to remain living quietly in their Arab centers, content with the mercies of Allah, opposed to all thoughts of the future, for after all, Allah is almighty, Allah will provide, and if he does not, mektoub!

CHAPTER XXII
OTHER PRODUCTS

Apart from the breeding of sheep on the Hauts Plateaux and in the Sahara, we also find cattle-raising in the Tell and in the coast hills of the department of Oran, while horse-breeding is carried on all along the southern slopes of the Atlas. The cattle are not very big, and would compare sadly with any European breed, but they bring in a comfortable little revenue to the breeder and suffice for the needs of the country.

Horses are more in the hands of the Europeans, who have created some quite good centers for improving the strain, but generally speaking, the fiery steed associated with pictures of Arab life is conspicuous by its absence, and, though one can get an average mount for the asking, a really fine horse is hard to buy.

The breeding of camels, mules and donkeys is entirely in the hands of the Arabs and is of little interest financially.

Algeria is, however, essentially an agricultural country and has been so ever since the days of the Romans. Unfortunately the richness of its soil and the abundance of sunshine is handicapped by the lack of regular rain, and the farmers live always in fear of drought.

Dams have been made across some of the big river-beds which are full of water in winter, but they are not so complete as in the days of the Romans. Two thousand years ago Algeria was the granary of a great empire; now in good years it exports a vast proportion of its cereals, but in a bad year it has to import. Wheat, barley, oats are grown all over the department of Oran, and in the center and the south of Constantine. There is also some grain in the department of Algiers, and little by little the sowing is extending. This is due a great deal to the energy of the manager of an American firm, the International Harvester Company, which has proved to the Algerian farmer the amount that can be done to improve production by using modern methods and perfected machinery.

The vine, though it does not cover nearly so large an area as the cereals, is considered as of almost greater importance.

It is some fifty years since the first Frenchman came to Algeria in search of soil not infested by phylloxera and attempted planting vineyards. The results were so amazing that more and more people hurried over the Mediterranean, and in twenty years the land was producing ten times the amount of wine as at the start. This, however, nearly led to disaster, as there was suddenly a glut of wine on the market and the prices dropped to nothing. However, the system was soon reorganized, and Algiers now exports a seventh of its production to the mother country. This wine, being stronger in alcohol and in color than French wine, is used for blending purposes. Many of the Burgundies and Bordeaux which do not come from some specific vineyard are half Algerian, and practically three parts of the vins ordinaires served in French cafés come from over the Mediterranean.

In Algiers itself there are certain well-known crus, such as La Trappe de Staoueli, a plain wine, Medea, and Miliana from the hills.

In Oranie, too, there are one or two small wine-producing districts, such as Mascara; but practically all the vineyards are in the department of Algiers, and center round the plain of the Mitidja and the adjacent hills. All modern improvements for pressing and fermenting have been brought in, for as the picking takes place in the heat of summer, the fermenting is a very delicate operation.

Phylloxera has been practically stamped out and though drought is feared, it has not the same disastrous effects as on the cereals, owing to a certain amount of irrigation.

The great danger is a sirocco just before the vendange. It seems unbelievable, but I have seen entire vineyards withered up in six hours under the blast of this terrible hot wind from the south. One can actually see the leaves turning brown and the bunches of grapes shriveling, just as if a fire had been lighted beneath the vines. Luckily this only happens once in a while, and the average years are good.

The wine is strong and rather heady, coarse in comparison to the French wines, but very well suited to the rather special food of the country.

In the same district as the vine we find the mandarin, orange, and lemon plantations. Protected by cypress-trees, the golden fruit is grown in large quantities, and exported daily during the winter months.

A curious herb known as geranium is also grown on this fertile plain. It is made into perfume, and supplies the base for cheap scent. A great deal of it goes to England, and, curiously enough, the only other country where it is cultivated in quantity is Mauritius.

All along the coast east and west of Algiers we find the market-gardens for early vegetables. The expert labor is chiefly supplied by Majorcans and Sicilians, and during a good year it is a most profitable occupation, as the markets of Paris and other big centers are supplied from these tiny seacoast gardens.

Next in importance comes the tobacco industry. The best plantations are along the coast east of Algiers, in the lower levels of the Kabyle country, and, again, in that wonderfully fertile plain of the Mitidja. Provided one can obtain the suitable soil, it is one of the most profitable products to exploit—little cost, and none of the worry or expense incurred by the Regie, as in France. Moreover, it is quite a high-class tobacco, and some of the cigars are really quite good smoking, while the pipe tobacco and the cigarettes can be offered to the most difficile. It is much healthier smoking as there are no foreign matters or mixtures, but just the pure leaf, which differs according to district.

Figs are grown in great quantity in the Kabyle Mountains, and are exported. In the prolongation of the same mountains and all along the coast to Tunisia the cork forests abound. This industry is much developed, and English and American firms vie with the Algerians to obtain concessions and export the cork to their own countries.

The olive-tree is indigenous to Algeria, and grows wild on all the mountains. In certain centers the trees are grafted, and the olives are plucked and oil extracted from them.

Apart from the fruit-bearing trees, however, the forests of Algeria are few and far between. Here and there one comes upon magnificent cedars and pines, but it is not a wooded country, and a great deal of the timber is imported.

There are people who maintain that Algeria was once covered with forests, and that the same state of things could be reproduced. I am not of this opinion; in the first place, because of the absence of practically any coal, and second, by the fact that the country is, and always has been, essentially agricultural.

There are minerals of many kinds in Algeria, but never in great quantity. Iron, zinc, lead and copper have been found, but they are not worked, merely taken out of the ground and sent to Europe.

A little oil has been tapped in Oranie, but up to the present not in sufficient quantity to make its development interesting from a commercial point of view. The same can be said of the small coal-field discovered near Colomb Bechar, in the south of the same department.

The most interesting product of the soil is phosphates, which are found in great quantity in the department of Constantine, whence they are exported daily from the ports of Bougie and Bône.

Hot springs abound in Algeria, and, with the exception of Hammam Rhira and Hammam Meskoutine, are not developed. It is a pity, as they have excellent healing qualities, and those people with rheumatism who have frequented the baths at Hammam Rhira are delighted with the results.

Before leaving this subject we must once more turn our eyes to the Southern Territories, in order not to forget two of the most important industries of the country: the date-palms and the alfa grass.

Unexpectedly the date worthy of exportation thrives only in certain restricted areas where the temperature and rainfall are exactly suited. However, when this occurs the owner of a palmery can count on a very substantial income.

The alfa grass, which grows wild all over the Sersou and Hauts Plateaux, is divided up into concessions, owned chiefly by British firms, and it is exported to be made into paper.

This is already a very dull chapter, and I will not weary the reader with any further dissertation on commerce, but I hope that, after reading this résumé of the products of Algeria, he will realize what a rich country it is, and what a future of prosperity lies before it. The Phœnicians guessed its value; the Romans realized it; the Arabs forgot it all; and the French are beginning to complete what the Romans began. Well may they prosper!

CHAPTER XXIII
ALGIERS

Now that we have before us an outline of the history, geography, administration and customs of the country under examination, it seems opportune to say a few words about Algeria from the point of view of the tourist.

The traveler visiting this country will either journey direct by sea to Algiers or else will take the overland route via Paris and Marseilles, which is the more rapid. In either case he will arrive by sea.

His first impressions of Algiers, rising out of the Mediterranean like a white bubble in a sea of sapphire, will be the best he will have of this once Turkish city, now a vast commercial town and only a little less noisy than Marseilles. The sight of the Arab quarter, piling itself up in a pyramid of white and blue roofs above the European houses, with the fresh gardens of Mustapha away to the left and the Turkish forts in the foreground, is a vision of delight. And though, once landed, the smell of Oriental people and the red-fezzed porters may rouse for a moment a sense of the East, this atmosphere will not last long.

Algiers of to-day is essentially a big commercial town of over two hundred thousand inhabitants. Owing to the configuration of the ground it has spread east and west, giving it a sea-front of some ten miles. Inland the houses have crept up the hills as far as possible, but in many places it is too steep to attempt building, and one- or two-storied villas are the general rule. Most of these villas are lamentable modern constructions, but there are a few which date from the old Arab days, and in which there are a multitude of lovely marbles and tiles of the period. These villas were occupied after the French conquest by followers of the victorious army, and later, when Algiers was discovered as a winter resort, they passed into the hands of English hibernators.

In those days the life on the Mustapha Hill was brilliant and amusing. The English colony was composed of well-to-do people who spent half the year in these Arab villas, while those who had not permanent residences settled in the few local hotels. An English club flourished, and a real society existed. But all this is gone. The facilities of transit, the mechanical age in which we live, and newly acquired wealth have dispelled all this pleasant life.

The English hibernators who inhabited the picturesque villas have in many cases been supplanted by foreigners, and those who remain are not much given to entertaining, so that it is rare for the outsider to get more than a glimpse of the multi-colored tiles. Great hotels have sprung up, rivaling one another in a second-rate atmosphere of the Riviera; Swiss waiters do their utmost to keep up the illusion, but the lack of elegance handicaps them.

If, therefore, the visitor is not seeking gossip and bridge in overheated drawing-rooms, or the company of summer boarders from Bexhill and the relics of our great Indian Empire, he will do well to stay just long enough in Algiers to collect his breath, and then penetrate into the interior and see the real life of the country. If, however, he is not of an active nature, he can find excursions round about Algiers, but it will be at the cost of submitting to the gala nights of the Mustapha hotels, of the unsyncopated music of lamentable orchestras, while the middle-aged ladies of fashion sit round criticizing the few youthful or well-dressed creatures who have strayed by accident into this mediocre society.

Algiers is not Algeria, and its people are wisely called “Algerois,” as against “Algeriens.”

The commercial city about the port is interesting from the point of view of any one desirous of examining the development of a growing city. Eight great banks do a brisk business, which alone speaks for the trade passing through Algiers. The harbor, which is now being more than doubled in size, will, when completed, rival the largest ports of the Mediterranean. The biggest battleships and liners of the world can berth comfortably in its shelter, and there is rarely an hour in the day when merchantmen are not approaching or leaving its quays. Everywhere there is an atmosphere of booming trade, and it is undoubtedly a fact that, if Algiers had an independent government with an independent exchequer, the franc would be a good deal nearer par with the pound sterling than it is at present.

The visitor has, however, probably not come to this sunny country to go into statistics and business opportunities, and it will be sufficient, therefore, if he drives through the town with the knowledge that he is in the midst of a trading-center which in a few years will stand on a level with Lyons and Bordeaux.

The “sights” of Algiers can be done easily in one day, as they are all concentrated about the Kasba (literally fort, but here the name given to the Arab city). The most interesting building to see is the Governor’s winter palace, formerly the residence of the dey, and until a few years ago occupied by the Governor-General. It is now used for official receptions, as government offices, and for exhibitions. A great deal of the original building has been spoiled by the improvement put in by the military engineers, but there remain some lovely tiles and woodwork which, apart from their many historical associations, make the visit worth while.

A Street in the Kasbah, Algiers

Mosque of Sidi Abd-er-Rahmane

Café Outside Grande Mosque, Algiers

The Archbishop’s palace opposite is a typical Arab house with some fine tiles, while the Public Library, once the house of Mustapha Pasha, is one of the finest examples of Moorish architecture and contains more beautiful tiles. While speaking of these tiles it would perhaps be well to say a few words about their origin. During the period of Turkish rule in Algeria, when the corsairs roamed the Mediterranean, it was the custom to bring the prisoners back to Algiers. Some of them were held for ransom, and the ransom imposed either took the form of money or of tiles from the countries whence came the prisoners. If among the prisoners who were captured there were found artisans who understood building or the creation of these tiles, they were employed in constructing and beautifying the houses of their captors. Hence in all these Arab villas one finds Florentine, Milanese, Dutch and Persian tiles. In one of the villas of Mustapha there is even a record of the capturing of an English sailor who was kept by the Turks for some years.

The Grande Mosquée, built in the tenth century A. D., differs little from other mosques. The Mosque of Sidi-Abd-er-Rahmane is worth a visit as the resting-place of the patron of Algiers.

The actual Kasba is a picturesque series of narrow streets climbing up the hill from the Winter Palace to the Fort l’Empereur: so-called because it was here that Charles Quint for a brief moment made his headquarters. It is very dirty and smelly.

If one can obtain access to a private house one will have an interesting peep at a simple interior contrasting vividly with the riches of the palaces, and from the roof one will obtain a marvelous view of the Arab city. A visit at night is also recommended, when the dirt will be invisible and the flickering lights in the dark streets and the Moorish cafés, with their musicians, carry one away from the modernisms of the great commercial town which throbs so close. In both visits it is recommended to start from the top and walk down toward the sea.

The Admiralty or headquarters of the French Navy in Algeria lies to the north of the harbor. It used to be the headquarters of the pirate chiefs, and it was in its lofty chambers that the raids and expeditions were planned, while below, in the shelter of the tall breakwaters, the fleet waited for its orders. There are some very fine tiles and rather massive architecture, also a series of powder magazines, dungeons, and a remarkable torture-chamber, outside which is an inscription telling it is the site where Christian hostages were blown to pieces at the mouth of the cannon.

In one of the cells Cervantes was imprisoned. The visit to the Admiralty is, however, impossible unless one knows a naval officer on duty in Algiers or has a pass from one of the government officials.

The Jardin d’Essai, a little to the east of the main city, is interesting if one has not seen Kew, and the Arab cemetery above the Kasba discloses a pretty view of the hills behind Algiers; but, generally speaking, Arab Algeria will not be found in Algiers. And, though some of the buildings are very lovely, they are all relics of the barbarous rule of the Turkish conqueror, and they do not represent anything appertaining to the country.

With the inrush of commerce Algiers has lost its charm, and there are no other compensations. Even the climate is disappointing. The winter is wet, and, though there are glorious days of sunshine, the atmosphere is relaxing. December is a good month, as are also March, April, and May; the others are either too wet or too hot.

Let the tourist, therefore, make up his mind to spend his holiday traveling, or even in repose in one of the Sahara oases, and he will return to his home with an impression of light and freshness and with a sensation that he has thrown off all the cares of the modern world. If he will take the humble advice of one who knows the country, he will follow in the tracks of the journey described in the next chapters, and, if color and contrasts appeal to him, he will probably return in the succeeding year to these entrancing scenes which never weary the eye.

CHAPTER XXIV
TWO EXCURSIONS

Before setting out on the long journey through Algeria, two short excursions from Algiers seem worthy of mention. The first is an afternoon drive to the easterly point of the bay of Algiers. The distance is barely twenty miles, and though there is nothing in particular to see there, the drive along the coast from Maison Carrée is delightful, and the view from Cape Matifou of Algiers, shimmering white in the distance, is enchanting. Practically no tourists ever go there, and though in the summer the little fishing-village of Laperouse is inhabited by Algerian families who can not holiday in France, in the winter it is deserted.

It is recommended to drive out via Maison Carrée, Fort de l’Eau (the Algerian ape of Deauville in the summer) and the village of Cape Matifou. A mile farther on a sharp turn is taken to the left, and in a few minutes one reaches Laperouse. Passing through the village a rough road leads one to the point on which stands the lazaret used for the quarantine confinement of pilgrims returning from Mecca.

If there is a storm in the Mediterranean, the sea dashing itself against the cliffs is a magnificent sight, and the view of the spray bursting over the rocks to the east makes one realize how restless is this inland sea. From the cape one should return to Laperouse, take a look at the little fishing-port, very quiet during the winter months, and then, asking the way to the ruins, picnic in the old Roman bath which overlooks the miniature bay, so blue and calm even when the breakers are roaring against the point.

The ruins are those of Rusgunium, originally a Phœnician center, and later converted by the Romans into a summer watering-place. Unfortunately, with the exception of the baths, practically all vestige of the houses has disappeared; this is not modern neglect, as the stones and mosaics were taken by the Turks to build Algiers of that day.

If the weather is fine it is strongly recommended that one stay until the sunset, as the spectacle of the sun disappearing behind the hills of Algiers, making of it a great brazier of flame, compensates one for the drive back in the dusk. But really to appreciate Laperouse it must be visited on a summer day. The heavy atmosphere of Algiers is left behind, and one finds oneself in a sea of light and freshness. The water lazily laps the cliffs and ripples up on the golden sand. It is never too hot, as the breeze comes from over the sea and, bathing on the hottest day, one can not stay in the water for more than half an hour. The nights are cool, and the twinkling lights of Algiers across the bay, while the summer moon flashes in the tranquil sea, equal a vision from the Arabian Nights.

The second excursion is to the west of Algiers to Tipaza and, if time permits, as far as Cherchell. It is advised to do it in two days, as there is much to be seen and little time to appreciate all in a short winter’s day. If, however, time is pressing, Cherchell can be omitted and Tipaza alone visited.

The actual distance is some fifty miles, and the road runs delightfully along the coast all the time. The way is bordered by endless vegetable gardens, for it is along this part of the coast that all the primeurs are grown for the Paris markets.

Castiglione is a pretty little village on the sea coast, as is also Berard, but as in the case of Laperouse they must be imagined in the summer full of holiday-making Algerians. A little beyond Berard can be seen a strange-looking object on the top of the hill, resembling a very large beehive. It is in reality a mausoleum known as the Tombeau de la Chrétienne. To visit this it will be necessary to leave the car and climb up a steep path some six hundred feet above the sea. On reaching the pyramid one is struck with a certain similarity with its cousins in Egypt and, in fact, there is reason in this resemblance. One hundred and twenty feet high, with a diameter of one hundred and eighty feet, it is composed of great blocks of stone rising in tiers, and is said to have been built by Juba II. Juba II, it will be remembered, was the son of Juba I, defeated by Cæsar at Thapsus in 46 B. C. The boy was taken to Rome and brought up most carefully by Octavia, Cæsar’s sister, and was ultimately married to Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra. In 43 B. C., when the Roman Empire was finally established and the second triumvirate had divided the territory among its members, Octavius restored the old kingdom of Numidia, and in 30 B. C. appointed Juba II as its king.

Cæsarea, now Cherchell, became his capital, and for fifty years was the most magnificent city of North Africa. The Tombeau de la Chrétienne was constructed as the mausoleum for his wife.

There is no real evidence for this story, and many will say that the tomb is much before the time of the Romans. However, the fact remains that this edifice is quite close to the capital of Juba’s kingdom, and that there is another monument practically identical in construction near Batna, in the department of Constantine, which is known as the tomb of Syphax, another Numidian king, and that they both have a certain resemblance to the Pyramid of Cheops.

The road continues along the seacoast, delighting the eye by the contrast of the sapphire blue of the Mediterranean lapping the deep red rocks fringed with brilliant green scrub. Eucalyptus woods are passed until the road runs down to the little fishing-village of Tipaza. The Hotel du Rivage is an excellent inn nestling against the red cliffs, while the garden runs down to the miniature port, little changed since the days of the Phœnician traders.

If time is not of importance, a few days spent here in peace and quiet will not be regretted. Originally a Phœnician settlement, Tipaza became in the first century of our era a Roman summer resort for the rich settlers in Cæsarea (Cherchell). All that could be done to make it a center of luxury and pleasure was carried out with infinite care. The temples, the forum, the villas were designed to harmonize with the beauties of nature.

Thanks to private enterprise much of the ruins has been unearthed and one is able to reconstruct this town as it was. Sarcophagi of great beauty have been found, and mosaics in a very good state of preservation have been placed in a small museum by the hotel.

The joy of the place is not so much the actual finds, but being able to realize again the pleasant atmosphere which must have reigned among the wealthy Romans as they walked up and down the forum, which dominates the bay, or dined merrily in the villas looking down on the rippling sea.

Later, when Christianity appeared, there must have been a very fine church to the west of the original town, whence one gets a delightful view of the sandy shore which runs along toward the towering heights of the Chenoua Mountains. Here, too, the heat-oppressed Algerians come in summer to escape from the damp atmosphere of the white city, and the bathing is wonderful.

Cherchell is some twenty miles farther along the coast. The drive itself is not very interesting, and the town, after Tipaza, is disappointing. There is, however, a very excellent museum, and to those interested in the statues of Rome of that period the visit is worth while. Otherwise the return journey from Tipaza can either be made by the same way in the golden glory of the African sunset, or else inland through the vine-clad hills via Marengo and Kolea.

These are the two excursions, but this chapter can not be closed without reference to the Trappist monastery at Staoueli. This is only twenty minutes in a car from Algiers and is worthy of a visit. The Trappist monks have been expelled, but their monastery, with the great vats in which they made the still famous wine, remains. The monastery is in the hands of Monsieur Lucien Borgeaud, a gentleman of Swiss origin who has continued pressing the grapes as did his holy predecessors, only on a much larger scale.

A visit is welcomed, and in addition to seeing the old building founded by the Trappists at the time of the French conquest, it will be interesting to see how wine is made and the modern improvements put in by this enterprising Algerian.

There are, of course, many pretty drives involving part of the day, such as the Gorges of Palestro and the entrance to the Kabyle country, the Ruisseau des Singes, beyond Blida, Dellys, and the Phœnician city of Tigzirt, on the coast, but as they form part of the greater journey to be dealt with in the next chapters their description is purposely omitted. Suffice it to say that all the neighborhood of Algiers is enchanting, and that life in Algiers itself, lived in one of its old Moorish villas surrounded by a lovely garden, would be as delightful if it were not for the relaxing climate.

But if we are to appreciate the real charm of the country do not let us tarry too long near the white city.

CHAPTER XXV
A VOYAGE

Though perhaps the journey described in these pages is longer than many tourists would wish to undertake, it is rather set out with the idea of giving a notion of the amount that can be seen in a comparatively short space of time and under the easiest conditions.

The trip can, moreover, be divided into separate excursions as indicated in the table of distances at the end of the chapter. It is better to do this journey in a private motor-car, which enables one to rest at will, eat by the roadside, and take photographs. But if the traveler has not the means to progress in this luxury he will find public conveyances at moderate prices on practically every route mentioned. Sometimes it will be the train, sometimes the motor-bus, and though in some cases he will be obliged to travel by rather a roundabout way or occasionally wait a few days for the bus, his journey will always be assured in comfort.

Generally speaking, there is a daily or even bi-daily motor service on all the main roads of North Africa; and it is only in the far south that the bus does not have a regular time-table. Otherwise the times of departure and arrival are as fixed as for a train. The motor-busses are covered and very comfortable, and to the individual who is entertained by strange faces and gay chatter about all that is going on in the country through which he is traveling, the motor diligence is a delightful entertainment. In fact, if the traveler is bent on studying the country and its people, he will do so much more advantageously in the public conveyance than in the isolation of the private car. However, if he is only on holiday or a pleasure trip the motor is recommended, and it is with the idea of traveling thus that this imaginary journey will be taken.

It is presumed that the period chosen for the tour will be between December and April—January, February or March—and let it be borne well in mind that North Africa in winter, even on the edge of the Sahara, is not a warm country. The thermometer does not actually drop very low, but the biting air of the mountains and the sharp dry winds of the rolling plain or the Hauts Plateaux and the Sahara make heavy coats and rugs essential.

Once south of Laghouat and at Touggourt the temperature is definitely warmer than in the north, but hot days can not be depended on before this latitude is reached. It is true that on the edge of the Sahara the sun heat in the middle of the day makes it impossible to go out bareheaded, but the nights are very sharp. Once into the Sahara the nights are also cold, but in the day it is pleasantly warm, and the overcoats and rugs can be put away; but the return journey across the Kabyle Mountains may be done in a snowstorm. The great thing to remember about Algeria is that it is a country of extremes. The morning may dawn in a downpour of rain and at noon one may lunch in the garden dressed in white. Crossing the mountains during the winter one is practically certain to find rain, but once on the Sersou it is almost always fine.

The Hauts Plateaux are bitterly cold, but as soon as one has come down on to the Sahara the temperature is very pleasant, and it rarely rains; when it does, it pours for a few hours and then clears up.

Therefore, the warmest wraps for the journey in the north, English summer clothes (not Indian or tropical) for the south. All evening dresses, etc., can be left in Algiers, as there is never any occasion to dress up, even when invited by an Arab chief. It is advised to travel light, and linen can usually be washed by the Transatlantic hotels in forty-eight hours. The question of hotels brings me to another point.

The hotels of Algeria can be divided into two categories—those which belong to the Transatlantic Company and those which do not. The Compagnie Générale Transatlantique has opened up the whole of North Africa by their circular and inclusive tours which run into the wildest parts of the Sahara. In order to accommodate their customers they have built hotels in all these remote spots, and these are certainly very well organized. In all the more frequented places there are other hotels for the accommodation of commercial travelers and Arabs, and though they are usually quite clean and the food eatable, that is about all that can be said for them. There are usually no bathrooms and there is nowhere to sit except in the public café. Here again let it be said that for the traveler in search of copy the hotel with its Arabs and people of the country is a source of perpetual entertainment, but with few exceptions it is rough—very rough, and sometimes dirty.

The prices, of course, correspond to what one gets, but to the holiday-maker the Transatlantic hotels can not be too highly recommended. Good food, clean beds, running water, hot baths, perfect service, reliable information on all that can be done and not done, seem to warrant the fairly high charge, and yet not high when one realizes the difficulties which confront the hotel manager in getting all this modern comfort in the wildest districts.

It is, however, recommended that one see the Transatlantic Company in Algiers to make certain that there will be accommodation as, if they are booked up with heavy tours, their own travelers will naturally have preference over independent tourists.

The cost of the trip, quite roughly, will work out as follows:

1. For the private car owner staying at the Transatlantic hotels, one hundred to one hundred and fifty francs per person per day. Petrol, etc., in addition. If a car is hired it works out at about two to three francs a kilometer plus the board and lodging of the driver, which is about thirty-five francs a day.

2. For the traveler by public conveyance staying at the local hotel fifty francs a day will amply cover his living and expenses.

Train fares are not dear, and the bus fares, though they vary, do not exceed ten centimes a kilometer.

Equipped now with knowledge for the journey, it only remains to trace the itinerary, which will be quite easy to follow on the accompanying map. This information can be supplemented by the guide-book, and in referring to the guide-book I always speak of the Guide Bleu which, with the exception of a few slips, is really very reliable.

Itinerary of Proposed Journey

1. By private car
			Kilometers
1st day		Algiers/Bou Saada	250
2nd day		Stay Bou Saada	—
3rd day		Bou Saada/Laghouat	222
4th day		Stay Laghouat	—
5th day		Laghouat/Ghardaïa	200
6th day		Stay Ghardaïa	—
7th day		Ghardaïa/Touggourt[1]	200
8th day		Stay Touggourt	—
9th day		Touggourt/Biskra	216
10th day		Stay Biskra	—
11th day		Biskra/Timgad	190
(It is advisable to sleep atBatna.[2])
12th day		Timgad/Constantine	190
(If Djemila, described in ChapterXXXIV, is to be visited it can be done from Timgad via Sétif orfrom Constantine.)
13th day		Constantine/Bougie	259
14th day		Bougie to Algiers by 4 alternative routes:
	a.	Bougie to Michelet	147
	and thence to Algiers via Tizi Ouzou		154
	b.	Bougie direct to Algiers via.
		Bouira and Palestro	300
	c.	Bougie direct to Algiers via.
		Azazga and Tizi Ouzou	300
	d.	Bougie/Tigzirt	250
	and thence to Algiers via Dellys		155
2. By public conveyance
Algiers/Bou Saada			250
(Motor-bus takes some 10hours.)[3]
Stay BouSaada			—
Bou Saada/Djelfa (bus)			112
(Stay the night at Djelfa, leave atsix o’clock next morning in bus.)
Reach Laghouat at nine-thirty a. m.			110
Stay Laghouat			—
Laghouat/Ghardaïa (bus)			200
Stay Ghardaïa			—
Ghardaïa/Touggourt			200
(The bus runs once a week [Nov.1926]. Verify this.)
Stay Touggourt			—
Touggourt/Biskra (train)			216
Stay Biskra			—
Biskra/Batna (train)			120
(If Timgad is to be visited a carmust be hired at Batna for the 70 kilometers run to the ruins andback. One can sleep at Timgad or at Batna.)
Timgad/Constantine (car and train)			190
Constantine/Bougie (bus service not regular)			259
Bougie/Michelet
(No bus service direct. If Micheletis to be visited the train must be taken to El Kseur and thence toTizi-Ouzou by bus; from Tizi-Ouzou bus to Michelet and fromMichelet bus to Tizi-Ouzou and train to Algiers. If Michelet is tobe omitted there is the train direct from Bougie to Algiers.)[4]

Various alternative trips will be set out in the succeeding chapters where they seem opportune. The distances have been marked in kilometers as the guide-books and maps are all scaled in this way. For the information of those who are interested in miles, however, one hundred kilometers equals sixty-two miles.

For all details regarding routes and motors the traveler is recommended to apply to Captain de Malglaive, at the Anglo-American Automobile Company at Mustapha Supérieur, who is always informed as to the state of the roads, accommodation, etc.