We marched towards Blidah across the plain at the foot of the Sahel mountains. This ridge of the chain is low at this point; it is highest near Algiers. It contains most beautiful and fruitful vales, in which are forsaken gardens and villas which once belonged to the Moors. The heights are covered with dwarf oaks and other shrubs which shelter numbers of wild boars, smaller and less fierce than those of Europe: the soldiers often kill them with their bayonets. The natives assert that the Spaniards brought these unclean animals into the country out of spite. As swine are an abomination to the Mahomedan, and may not be eaten, the breed increases rapidly. The strongest expression of contempt that an Arab can use to an European is “Haluf,” (swine).
At about three leagues from Coleah, on some high table land in the Sahel mountains, stands a gigantic African monument, which both the Arab and the French call the Queen’s Tomb. It is in the form of a marabout, built of rough stone, and has every appearance of great antiquity. The natives attach the following legend to it. Once upon a time a Spanish Queen landed on this coast with an army of fifty thousand men, in order to conquer the country; but even at her landing an evil omen foretold her failure: as she left her vessel the crown fell from her head into the sea, and could never be found again. A great battle was fought on the very spot where the marabout now stands, the Queen was beaten and destroyed with her whole army, and the tomb was raised by the Arabs as a memorial of their victory. The Arabs still seek the lost crown on this coast, and it is said that from time to time pearls of prodigious size and beauty are found upon the beach. Some of the better informed among the Arabs have told me that the monument contains graves of the Numidian Kings, which seems rather more probable: at any rate it is of high antiquity. Nor do I remember to have read of any Spanish or other Queen who ever invaded this country.
Not very far from Blidah, we came upon several French regiments of the line bivouacking on the plain, and at work upon a ditch and breastwork which the Governor had commanded to be thrown up the whole way from the sea to Blidah,—a distance of ten leagues,—in order to protect the Metidja from the attacks of the Bedouins. The ditch is about ten feet deep by twenty wide, with a breastwork in proportion, strengthened with palisades; small blockhouses are built at intervals of a thousand paces to command the ditch.
This work will very much impede, if it does not totally prevent, the nocturnal forays of the Bedouins; it will, at any rate, put a stop to their coming on horseback, and in great troops. If a few should even steal in on foot between the blockhouses, they would not be able to drive away their prey, such as cattle, &c., which is their chief object. The completion of this eighth wonder of the world is much to be desired, for the protection of the lives and properties of the unfortunate colonists in the plain, and as an inducement to others to settle there, for colonisation has made very little progress hitherto. Buffarik, a small village chiefly inhabited by Germans, is the only colony in the plain.
Coleah, Duera, and Delhi Ibrahim are the only colonies of any importance in the Sahel, and even there the whole colonisation consists of cafés, canteens, and a few kitchen gardens.
At Coleah they have begun to form a colony of old worn out soldiers, but I have great doubts of its success. These veterans, it is true, have the double advantage of being tolerably well used to the climate and of knowing how to conduct themselves with prudence and coolness when attacked by the enemy; on the other hand, an old soldier generally makes a very bad peasant, and is ten times more patient of the dangers and hardships of war than of daily work with spade and plough. He usually takes unto himself some profligate woman not at all likely to attach him to his home, and then of course, neglects his farm, and soon dissipates the small sum allowed him by the Government, and the end of it all is, that he sells his oxen and his plough, turns off his female companion and enlists for a few years more. And now the old fellow who used to curse the service heartily, finds it quite a decent and comfortable way of life, and it is amusing to hear with what indignation he speaks of the life of a colonist.
The only means of establishing a permanent colony in Africa would be for the French Government to send over, at some expense it is true, a number of real agricultural families from the north of France, or, better still, from Germany. The southern Frenchmen are totally unfit for colonists. The only kind of agriculture which they would be able to pursue with any profit is the cultivation of the grape, and this is strictly prohibited, for fear of injuring the mother country. Hitherto the Government never seems to have been really in earnest about the colonisation of Africa.
The column returned to Algiers through Blidah, Buffarik, and Duera. From Algiers we are to be distributed into summer quarters: winter quarters do not exist here. One battalion is to be sent, for the present, to Mustapha Superieur, the depôt of the Foreign Legion; and we shall soon go to Coleah, a town in the Sahel mountains, in a most healthy situation, to recruit after our fatigues and losses.
[2] The Duke of Aumale has since made his entry into Paris at the head of this regiment. ’Tis a pity that it was not then in the same plight to which it was reduced by this expedition, that the Parisians might have formed some idea of what the war in Africa really is.