The situation of Tipasa belies the opinion that the ancients had no eye for natural scenery. It stood on a fair promontory sheltering from the east a little cove which is protected from the west by the great mountain mass of Djebel-Chénoua, which lies between Tipasa and Cherchel. The country around is singularly picturesque, and the tout ensemble very beautiful, even for this beautiful coast.
Thence we start for a run of fifty or sixty miles by the seaside road to Algiers, a road which has been splendidly engineered, and is kept for the most part in a condition beyond praise. In front of us stretches the coast-line past the Bay of Algiers to Cap Matifou; on our right are the wooded hills of the Sahel. Here and there the land between the road and the sea is laid out in gardens formed in small rectangular plots divided by hedges of a tall reed to break the force of the wind. Even so the Dutch nurserymen erect screens to protect their tulips on the wind-swept lowlands of Holland. In these enclosures we particularly note frequent plantations of the tall “silver” banana. And so in due time we reach Algiers, conscious of a well-spent day.
Travel gives the death-blow to many illusions. If there is one tenet to which British self-complacency has clung with more desperate energy than another, it is that our people are the only successful colonists. We are ready to admit that the German has hardly had a fair chance. He is relegated for the present to desert tropical lands which failed in the past to tempt even Portugal. That France owns colonies of a different class we have been dimly aware, but the oracles of the club and of the Press have consistently pictured to us the French colonist as a miserable being who passes his time sipping absinthe in a café, and longing for his return to la belle France. Possibly in the purlieus of Algiers such a being might be discovered; at any rate, he is certainly not more in evidence than the “remittance men” and bar-loafers are in our own colonies. And a motor drive for twenty or thirty miles through the rich plain which encircles Algiers will send our long-cherished belief a-packing to the limbo of dead British prejudices. We have recently discovered that the home-staying French, at any rate, know something about practical gardening, and the raising of vegetable crops for market; that their scientific methods and untiring energy combine to get more out of the ground than we do; and we have even been led to pocket our pride and to import certain practical French gardeners, at a fancy wage, to show us how the thing is done. In this we are only following the example of our ancestors, who acquired most of their arts and crafts from French and Flemish refugees. Yet it was quite a shock when one of these new-comers, looking round him at the fair fields of the home farm on a great estate in a southern county, ingenuously remarked, “But why is not this country cultivated?”
Of this great plain between the sea and the mountains no such question could be asked. Some corn is raised, and some vegetables, such as artichokes, but most of it is devoted to the culture of the vine. It is all in the highest state of cultivation, and not an inch is wasted. The vines are planted in open fields, with the precision of the hops of Kent. Now is the time of pruning, and they are all being cut back to within a foot or so of the ground. To an eye accustomed to the hill-side and rocky vineyards of the Rhine, of Italy, or of Madeira, to the vines which in Southern Europe throw themselves in reckless abandon over trellises and wayside trees, these flat fields, which suggest turnips or beet, have a very unromantic appearance. But it is easy to see that the cultivation is conducted on the most scientific and business-like lines.
It was our privilege to be invited to visit a French gentleman and his family at their residence about twenty miles from Algiers. Our host has purchased a large tract of land, the whole of which he has turned into a great vineyard. He has built a pleasant country house, and filled it with treasures of Arab art, and the trophies of travel in other lands. He has planted a garden of palms and sub-tropical shrubs—a garden not kept up to the standard of English trimness, but rich in shade, and pleasantly suggestive of a jungle. Not only are his vines planted and pruned with mathematical precision, but all his machinery for the extraction and treatment of the grape juice is of the latest and most practical character. A long building lined with huge vats gives an idea of the greatness of his undertaking, and is designed to enable him to hold the produce of two vintages in the event of a bad market:—a very important advantage to a producer. There is nothing of the model, or pleasure, farm about the place; it is all intensely practical. “It is an industry,” said our host; and indeed it is; a fine example of industrial intelligence applied to agriculture. The presence on the farm of two motor-cars and an aeroplane is evidence that he is otherwise abreast of the movement.
It may be that our host is exceptionally gifted, both in enterprise and resources, but at any rate his example must be of great value. And the vistas all around of similar properties with pleasant houses bowered in trees and gardens suggest that it is followed. It is agreeable to learn that this industry meets its due reward. In 1910 it has been exceptionally profitable. The chief buyers of Algerian wines are the wine-shippers of Bordeaux and Macon, from whose cellars they emerge as claret and Burgundy. The complete failure of the vintage in Europe has caused a rise of fully fifty per cent in the price of the produce of Algeria. In this happy climate, sure of its winter rain and its summer sun, a failure of the vintage is unknown and almost inconceivable. Viticulture has become the most important of the industries in which Europeans in Algeria are engaged, and its prosperity is of great importance to the Colony. Before the French conquest, the use of wine being forbidden by the Koran, the vine was only grown to a small extent for its fruit; the raisin sucré of Khabylia was especially esteemed as a sweetmeat for dessert. The first colonists made experiments in the production of wine, but with insufficient knowledge and inadequate equipment. Wine-makers are an aristocracy among agriculturists; a high intelligence and inherited traditions count for much. The ravages of the phylloxera in France created the opportunity of Algeria. The wine-growers of the South thrown out of work were ready to emigrate, and the deficit in the mother country’s production offered a great market for the Colony. Since that time the industry has made steady progression. In 1850 2000 acres were under cultivation as vineyards; in 1905 about 450,000 acres. The production of wine, which amounted to 370,000 gallons in 1878, is now over 150,000,000 gallons. The price obtained for wine exported is subject to very wide fluctuations. In 1903 the 100,000,000 gallons exported realized £4,000,000. In 1906 110,000,000 gallons realized only £1,600,000.
Algeria has managed to keep comparatively free from the phylloxera; the provinces of Oran and Constantine, west and east, have suffered somewhat, but the central province, Algiers, has so far escaped. Energetic measures are taken to guard against the extension of the plague, and owners of vines which it is found necessary to destroy are compensated by the State. The policy of the Government is now not to encourage the extension of the vineyards, but to improve the quality of their produce. An effort should be made to find other outlets than the French market, and thus counteract the wide fluctuations in value which arise from its varying demands. Some attempt has already been made to produce rich dessert wines similar to those of Portugal and Madeira, of which there is a considerable consumption in France, and it would appear that there is no obstacle to its success. A delicious Muscat is already made, which might conceivably obtain a great vogue.
IV—A GARDEN AND SOME BUILDINGS
Jardin d’Essai—A lost opportunity—Some suggestions—The villas of Mustapha—A model museum—Arab art—Its origins—Its limitations—Its significance.