Biskra of the tourists, urbs circumcurrentium, is in a fair way to rechristen itself Hichenstown. The novelist and his not very edifying story pervade the place; they are thrust at you everywhere with damnable iteration. And the worst of it is that however mawkish the book it has undeniable power, and if you are unfortunate enough to have read it you will be unable to avoid recognizing at every turn the scenes in which the much-longing-to-be-loved heroine and her uncouth lover played their parts. You will probably not have been in the town many hours, perhaps not many minutes, before a guide will accost you and produce with much dignity a visiting-card of Mr. Hichens, on which something is written. If you express neither interest nor emotion he will regard you with a mixture of incredulity and pity. What are you here for but to worship at the shrine of the marabout Hichens? Hichens has made—or marred—Biskra, and Biskra is not unmindful. There is little or nothing to guide you to in Biskra, wherefore is it full of guides. They are an ever-present nuisance. The easier course is to engage one, he will at least keep off the others; if you have more grit you may set out to prove yourself unguidable; every guide’s hand will be against you at first, but you will reap your reward. You will have no difficulty in hiring a guide when you really want one, and he will respect you the more. The Arab is no mean judge in such matters. The authorities have endeavoured to mitigate the nuisance by licensing certain men to act as guides; but they have not altogether suppressed the unauthorized, and the licensed merely give themselves additional airs. Silly sentimental visitors have aggravated matters, and have, moreover, turned many of the boys and girls into impudent beggars. Books have actually been written embodying the views on life and religion of these petted striplings; their remarkable inaccuracies in serious matters suggest that the youth of Biskra is not averse from “pulling the legs” of its amiable patrons. It is all rather sad. But the debasing effect of the inconsiderate tourist is not peculiar to Biskra.
The garden of Count Landon is botanically interesting, and a delightful refuge from glare and dust and importunity. It is not in the ordinary sense a garden; it is rather a great plantation or shrubbery divided by winding paths. The excessive neatness of these paths, built of hard mud and carefully sanded, rather spoils the effect of the wilderness to an English eye. There is abundance of running water, and the palm, which likes to have “its toes in the water and its head in the sun,” flourishes exceedingly. With it are many bamboos, peppers, oranges, and various species of ficus,—the usual subtropical assemblage. I observe no tree-ferns; yet the conditions appear very suitable. It is one continuous jumble; there is no attempt at grouping, which would perhaps have produced a more noble and more natural effect. But as you come suddenly here or there to the verge of this thicket, you are startled and delighted by the contrast of mellow shade within, and the shimmering glare without;—a contrast quite after the manner of Biskra, which revels in the juxtaposition of the incongruous. Those who come to the desert in search of peace and quiet may find themselves in the plight of the guests of a Swiss innkeeper who advertised: “My hotel is recommended to those in search of solitude; thousands come here in search of solitude every summer.” But in the garden of M. Landon you may be at rest, and dream dreams and see visions, as I did. I had been reading certain modern French writers who are concerned to prove that the inhabitants of this country, the indigènes, are not Arab at all. They don’t deny the Arab conquest, but hold that the claim to have “come in with Okba” is as empty a boast as among us is the assertion, “We came over with the Conqueror.” They are arguing to a case. If the native is not of Semitic origin there is hope for him. He has been more or less Christian before, so he may be Christianized again, or anti-clerical radical socialized, or whatever is necessary to make him an up-to-date Frenchman. But with all their theorizing nothing is effected. The Arab,—or Berber,—goes on in his Arabian,—or Berberic,—way, unmoved by any attraction of French politics and irreligion. How is he to be broken in? A chance remark of an American fellow-traveller opened to me the great discovery. History supplies other instances of idle words changing its course. There is to-day a great civilizing influence at work on cosmopolitan lines such as the world has never seen before. It has already profoundly affected some of the greatest of human interests,—religion, commerce, and clothes. It will ultimately bring about the abolition of war, because no one will have time to fight. It is permeating the most unlikely quarters; if I mistake not my German neighbours this evening at dinner were continually alluding to it; and what Germany thinks to-day, Europe will think to-morrow. The Arab, or Berber, must be brought into the movement. He must play golf. My American friend informed me that golf has changed the habits of the American business man. It appears that since Columbus arrived this individual has never taken any exercise; he has sat in his office glued to his desk from dewy morn till long after sunset. All that is over, and in a moment. At 3 p.m. he now furtively affixes to his office door a notice, “Back in ten minutes,” and is off to the American Sandwich. Saturday is a whole, not a half, holiday; and Sunday has become a day of especial unrest. If in the twinkling of an eye such a slave of ingrained habits may find salvation, need we despair of the poor Arab, or worry ourselves about his pedigree? To all appearance he is usually short of a job; his posture of seemingly permanent repose is explained to me as one of waiting till his dates are ripe. Golf will alter his whole attitude of mind as of body. Local conditions are most favourable. The Sahara contains the finest sand-bunkers in the world. The creation of greens is merely a matter of sinking Artesian wells, a laudable process on which the French Government is already embarked, but with no full appreciation of its real significance. Temporary club-houses of galvanized iron would meet all requirements for the present. At once the Arab’s (I must continue to call him the Arab, in spite of my French authors) distinctive dress would go. No one who has not put it on can realize in what a cuirass, in what folds, he is involved. As he is he could never hope to drive a decent ball. Array him in a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers and putties (I observe that his French conquerors are greatly affecting putties) and his aloofness disappears. At a stroke he enters the world-movement; Colonel Bogey will oust the Lord Okba; and when Hadji ben Mohammed ben Yakoub comes over to represent the Biskra and North Sahara Golf Club at St. Andrews may I be there to see him win.
OLD BISKRA
A little way further south than the garden of Count Landon, on the Touggourt road lie the scattered native hamlets known to the French as La Vieille Biskra, the crumbling houses of a ragged population. Here is the very ne plus ultra of Arab untidiness. But the play of sunbeams through the palm trees’ grateful shade turns squalor into beauty. Arab villages are often half in ruins. Their irregular construction of blocks of dried mud gives them the aspect of the homes of animals rather than of men,—the creation perhaps of some gigantic ant. When it rains they not infrequently fall down. And the labour of rebuilding is not lightly undertaken.
Biskra is soon to lose its present distinction as the end of the railway line. The rails are being rapidly laid towards Touggourt, 212 kilometres to the south, a desert town where splendid gardens flourish beneath the shade of 200,000 palm trees. The irrepressible motor-car has already stirred its dust. The prudent Michelin guide describes the road thither as piste carrossable mais imprudente à suivre par mauvais temps. You are advised to take mats to lay down in the softer places for the car to run over. But what happens in the event of a serious breakdown is not explained. When the rail is finished the enterprising tourist may pass by Biskra as a mere wayside station and continue to the end. But he may be only going farther to fare worse. It does not appear that the distant towns of the Sahara present any special points of interest beyond their existence. Yet perhaps there are some to whom the desert calls as to others the veldt. But they will stick to their camels and their mules, and merely use the railway extension as a jumping-board for further explorations.
BISKRA: STATUE OF CARDINAL LAVIGERIE
To him who strives to peer beneath the obvious surface nothing in Biskra is more significant than the statue of Cardinal Lavigerie. It stands in the main street close to the luxurious Royal Hotel, hard by the quarter of the Arab cafés and the street of the Ouled-Naïl dancing-girls, a symbol of the eternal amidst the evanescent, a protest for God against the Devil and the world. And it looks south. Thousands of miles away, across the vast expanse of the continent, another statue looks north. Rhodes and Lavigerie, two types of our civilization, further apart in intention and in ideals of human conduct than are their statues, look forth over Africa from their separate standpoints, the Africa for which each spent his strength. Both worked to bring to the Dark Continent the accumulated wealth of light to which Europe is heir; they drew perhaps on different departments in the great storehouse; they directed the illumination to different points; but to evolve order from chaos, to substitute freedom for tyranny, to impose peace even, if need were, by the sword,—these were the objects which both pursued.
The neighbourhood of Biskra is rich in memories of Sidi Okba, the barber of the Prophet, and the first of the Arab conquerors. It was he who pushed westward from Kairouan through Barbary to the Atlantic, having defeated the Berbers under Koceïla and other chieftains. Arrived at the shore of the ocean he raised the standard of the Prophet crowned with the crescent, and indicating with it the course of the sun from its rising to its setting, dashed forward and breasted the waves with his horse, crying, “God of Mahomet, were I not stopped by the waves of this sea, I would go to the ends of the earth to carry the glory of thy name, to fight for thy religion and to destroy those who will not believe on thee!” On his return journey he was attacked by a force of Berbers under Koceïla near Biskra and killed with three hundred of his followers. He was buried in the oasis which bears his name, and his tomb is an object of pilgrimage and veneration.