About Algeria: Algiers, Tlemçen, Constantine, Biskra, Timgad

by Charles Thomas-Stanford

ALGIERS: MARBLE DOORWAY, RUE BRUCE

The Mohammedan townsfolk, chiefly engaged in commercial pursuits, are called Moors, a name which has no connection with Morocco. Chiefly Arab or Berber in ultimate descent, there is among them much admixture of Turkish and European blood. Their somewhat effeminate appearance exhibits the influence of generations of town life. They affect brightly coloured clothing, embroidered waistcoats and voluminous trousers fastened at the ankle. They deal largely in embroidery, perfumes, and fancy articles, and may commonly be seen lolling in their little shops in attitudes of exaggerated indolence and unconcern. The Moorish women, like those of the Arabs, are veiled; a white linen handkerchief is tied closely across the nose, leaving the eyes visible, and perhaps somewhat heightening their effect. A white shawl, called a haik, is thrown over the head and extends to the knees or lower; the legs are encased in very voluminous trousers tied at the ankles, and setting in a way which gives them the appearance of being stuffed full. Altogether a very ungainly costume. But even so they are less wanting in dignity than the middle-class European women decked in a travesty of a mode which is itself absurd. The veiling of all Mohammedan women for the last twelve hundred years is due to the jealousy of the prophet of his young and beautiful wife Ayesha.

Since the decree of 1870, which constituted them French citizens, the Jews have gradually ceased to wear a distinctive dress, and have become, as far as outward semblance goes, merged in the European population; but their physiognomy bewrayeth them. It is, however, as far at least as the men are concerned, of a less marked type than that of the German and Russian Jews, with whom we are more familiar; and, possibly from some admixture of Arab and Spanish blood, has an air suggestive of better breeding. The Jews have existed in Algeria from early times; according to tradition since the fall of Jerusalem. It is certain that the first Arab invaders found many Jewish colonies which had made numerous proselytes among the indigenous population. But the modern Algerian Jews are probably derived in the main from the Jews who were expelled from Italy in 1342, and from the emigrants from Spain in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These Spanish Jews, better instructed and more cultivated than their African brethren, have exercised a dominating influence, exhibited to-day in their names, their customs and their language. The Jew of the South is scarcely to be distinguished from the nomads among whom he lives.

The Jew will go to any country, and live under any government; and he can make a living anywhere, except, it is said, in Aberdeen. He has been trained for countless generations to endure the restraint of princes and the buffets of outrageous fortune; but probably at no time and in no place has he had to put up with such treatment as was commonly meted out to him by the Deys of Algiers. Habitually subject to every kind of indignity, he was liable on the smallest provocation to be put to torture and to death. If he raised a hand to the striker the hand was lopped off. “But,” said one of them to an English traveller, “look what a lot of money we make.”

Profits may no longer be what they were, but the ancient race has ceased to quail before the oppressor. It is indeed not slow to exhibit the contempt which it was long forced to conceal. A little Jew entered a railway carriage in which every seat was taken but one, and over that sprawled a big Arab, who showed no intention of making room. The Jew pushed him aside with scant ceremony, whereupon the Arab turned and said, “Est-ce que vous desirez me manger?” “Vous manger? Moi?” replied the other; “je suis juif.” The refined insult of this reference to Jewish rules of diet was doubtless lost on the barbarian, but it is a happy illustration of the passing of the old order.

In Algeria the Jews number about 70,000, or in the proportion of one to six of the European population. Since their admission to French citizenship they appear to have performed the civil and military duties attaching to it in the most exemplary manner. This has not prevented the rise of a very strong anti-Semitic feeling among the European immigrants. It is based partly on the objection to the Jews which is felt in other countries, on the fact that they toil not, neither do they spin, but that by commercial arts they grow rich where others fail, and are able to make more money in five days than “Christians” can in six. This is appreciated, it may be, with especial force in a new colony, to which adventurous spirits resort in hope of fortune, only to find that every avenue is already closed to all but Jewish enterprise. Partly this animosity is due to local causes, to the solidarity with which they have used their electoral privileges, with a view, it is said, to support their own interests, rather than for public objects. It will be recalled that in 1898, at the instigation of the notorious Max Régis, a mob composed of the turbulent elements always present in Mediterranean towns attacked and pillaged the shops and warehouses of Jewish traders in Algiers. This tribulation, however serious in itself, must have seemed comparatively slight to a race which remembered the rule of the Deys. And the crisis past things have settled down again. An agitation for the abrogation of the rights of citizenship granted in 1870 still exists, but it is unable to produce serious grounds in support of such an extreme step. To an observer it would appear that the commercial and financial enterprise of the Jews must be of immense advantage. Algiers itself is booming. Mr. Lloyd George’s mouth would water at the rise in the value of suburban land from a few pence per metre ten years ago to more than as many francs to-day; and building is progressing in all directions. The command of capital which the Jews with their international connections possess is almost certainly an important factor in this prosperity. And the decline of credit in England, the fear of spoliation by predatory politicians, from which its capitalist classes, rightly or not, are suffering, may be having unsuspected results in assisting the development of other countries.

Another race of traders will attract the attention of the observant stranger. Of heavy build, flat-faced, broad-nosed, and thick-lipped, the Mozabites have nothing in common with the physical qualities of the Arab. They represent a section of the original Berber inhabitants; although, it may be from the different conditions under which they have lived for many centuries, their appearance bears no great resemblance to that of their Khabyle connections. They inhabit a far country, the district of El-Mzab, in the most arid part of the Sahara. By persevering toil they have turned this inhospitable region into a garden; have dug wells and created a complicated system of irrigation. They are no less active as traders than as agriculturists. They have established markets in their own oasis, and frequent others throughout the Sahara. A considerable portion of the tribe has long lived in Algiers, being encouraged by the Deys. They have almost a monopoly of certain of the more humble trades; they are especially butchers and greengrocers.

The Biskris, a very low-class Berber tribe from the neighbourhood of Biskra, are the water-carriers and scavengers of the city. They form picturesque groups around the fountains in the Arab quarter. Their dark complexions suggest a considerable admixture of negro blood. The true negroes are also numerous, and with their alert and smiling faces offer an agreeable contrast to the sombre impassiveness of the Arab. As elsewhere, they do much of the hard work of the country, as masons and workers on the roads and railways. Negresses are employed as servants, and especially as masseuses in the Moorish baths.

Such, mingled with Frenchmen, Italians, Spaniards, Maltese, and a sprinkling of almost every European race, are the numerous types of diverse humanity which the streets of Algiers everywhere present. In so rich a scene the artist will find fruitful sources of inspiration, both of form and colour; the ethnologist will have scope for studying the features and carriage of different races, and for tracing the effects of their not infrequent intermixture; to the politician it will all give furiously to think. During the last century or two a large portion of the Mohammedan world has fallen under Western dominion. France, like England, has acted on the Roman principle, parcere subjectis et debellare superbos, but neither has succeeded in infusing the conquered races with the ambition of citizenship, as Rome did. Their attitude at best seems to be one of sullen acquiescence in the inevitable, at worst that of a hunted beast who waits his opportunity to spring. And the most incurious tourist will not escape a certain wonder at the strange and varied inhabitants of a city so near his home that he may read his Monday’s “Times” on Wednesday afternoon.