Several Moors from Mascara arrived on the same day as ourselves, with fifty asses carrying baskets, pickaxes, shovels, and all kinds of implements for building, and as soon as the Sultan returned to the camp, he dispatched all the muleteers and some of his negroes to clear the ground on which the ancient Casabah of Tekedemta had stood. On the following day he sent a number of soldiers to go on with the clearing and to build a redoubt.
All these workmen were unpaid, and ill-will and discontent soon appeared among them, they went grumbling to their work, and the Sultan was forced to superintend them in person, or nothing was done.
On the 26th an Arab courier brought Abd-el-Kader a letter from the prisoners who had been taken at Trara-Sickak by General Bugeaud and conveyed to France. The contents of the letter produced a great sensation, and joy was painted on every face. The Sultan sent for me, and said, “I have received a letter from my Arabs at Marseilles; the Christians treat them kindly.”
“How then,” said I, “can a Sultan so great and holy as thou suffer us to be treated so ill? The nights are cold among these mountains, and whilst thy Arabs at Marseilles sleep on good mattresses, wrapped in warm blankets, we have not even a rug to lie upon at night.”
Abd-el-Kader smiled graciously, and sent for Ben Faka, whom he commanded to give us whatever we asked for, and first of all a rug to sleep on at night.
CHAPTER VII.
Ruins of Tekedemta—Abd-el-Kader’s schemes—Attempt to convert me—More tribute—Terms of exchange—Tumblers and Singers—Restoration of Tekedemta.
On the morning of the 29th I begged the Sultan to allow Meurice and myself to go and see the ruins of Tekedemta, and the works carried on there by his troops. He told us to go without fear, and ordered one of his negroes to accompany us. We accordingly started, and after walking for half an hour we reached the ruins of Tekedemta. The ground on which the city stood is very broken and without a trace of vegetation; part of the wall of a fort was still standing, it was about ten feet thick at the base, and a few feet from the ground it fell back to the thickness of about seven feet. The wall was defended by nine towers, the foundations of which were still to be seen: they were without the line of the wall, but joined to it. The whole enclosure is one thousand eight hundred feet long, by one thousand one hundred and fifty feet broad. The remains within the fort prove that it was filled with streets, shops, and houses. On a hill a few hundred yards from the citadel, may be traced the foundation of the ancient Casabah or Bey’s palace, surrounded by fortifications: on these foundations Abd-el-Kader is going to build a new one. At the foot of the hill, about ten minutes’ walk from these ruins, flows the Ouet Mina. The site of the town is commanded by lofty mountains on every side, except towards the west, where a gentle ascent leads up to it. A road runs from hence to Mascara.
After examining the ruins, we went towards a redoubt which Abd-el-Kader was constructing at a distance of two hundred yards to the eastward of the Casabah, and there we found the Sultan with his Chief Secretary, Ben Abu, and Milud-Ben-Arrach, reclining on the earth, which had been thrown up in digging a ditch. There was nothing in his costume to distinguish him from the common labourers: he wore a huge hat plaited of the leaves of the dwarf palm tree, with brims full three feet in circumference fastened with a worsted cord and tassels to the crown, which was at least a foot and a half high and pointed at the top.