The Arab boys are clever and quick, and soon pick up enough to take them far afield. In the summer, as they proudly tell you, it is “too hot” for them in the desert, and they love to migrate to the coast and work in the harbours at Bône or Bougie, and sometimes even cross to France and manage to make a living at Marseilles. Our boy at El Kantara, Mabrouk by name, had done more. He was the one person in the whole place who could speak English—not much, indeed, but just enough to translate for those tourists who were in the unhappy position of knowing no French. He had been taken to England by an Englishman, in charge of some Arab horses, and had spent a whole summer there, working in his master’s house and running errands for what he was pleased to call a “factor boot,” which by his subsequent explanations we discovered to mean a button factory. He was amusingly conceited over his doings and acquirements, showing his photograph taken with “me chum,” a telegraph boy, the trim uniform and the flowing burnous looking thoroughly out of place side by side, in a way that the two grinning faces did not. His ideas on England and its glories were at any rate original, for he was not struck by either wet or cold; he was evidently made much of, and thought our food a thing to talk a great deal about. Some of his statements, such as, that in England every one has breakfast at 6 o’clock and eats a sort of pudding with sugar, are rather on a par with those of a Belgian who once told us that English ladies always breakfasted in bed, though certainly Mabrouk’s theory promises better for an active nation. El Kantara has been a favourite haunt of French artists for the last few years, and many pictures painted here have gained success in the Salon, so, naturally, Mabrouk looked upon himself as a judge of art, and was prepared to show all the best points of view.
THE RED VILLAGE, EL KANTARA
The first impression on walking through the gorge is one of barren desolation and absolute dryness. Except at noon, when the sun beats down into the ravine, there are strong, cool shadows contrasting with the blaze of light. The gorge itself is narrow, so that there is barely room for the road above and the river beneath. It seems a mere rift in the massive ridge, the perpendicular walls of red rock are cut into fantastic shapes, pinnacles and pillars growing more picturesque in form as the further end is reached. All ideas of desolation are instantly banished by the splendour of the sight that meets the eye, as the sea of sand washes up as it were to another sea of waving green. A long turn of the road leads round to a bridge below, but Mabrouk scrambles down a steep stony path, and with a warning “Mind your headache,” disappears into a steep tunnel, built to drain the road, but evidently looked upon by the Arabs as a short cut made for their convenience, as it saves half a mile or so of dusty highway.
From the bridge, a modern one, the scene is imposing, looking back into the shadows of the gorge where the river leaps foaming over huge rocks, and where groups of cleanly Arabs are busy washing their white garments in its waters.
But if to look back is fine, to look forward is to have the magic charm of an oasis revealed to you. The blue river winds amongst the palms,—thousands upon thousands of palms, which bend, sway, and toss their feathery heads as the breeze passes over them. They look green and soft against the wide sweep of sand and stones, the red and yellow rocks of the huge range behind that stretches east and west, and the other mountain range that bounds the horizon with its purples and blues. Such is the first sight of the desert as it appears to the traveller coming through that majestic gate. But if the gate is looked upon as the entrance to the fertile lands of the plain, then the most beautiful point is just below, amongst the stones and boulders of the river-bed, where the craggy peaks look their best, set in a frame of living green.
Across the bridge the road leads upward over the barren plateau towards the “red” village, the river screened from sight by the palms, and also by an intervening hill, on which stands conspicuously the tomb-mosque of a saint. The red village takes its name from the colour of the soil used in its building, which instead of being of the usual grey dusty hue is bright, almost orange in tint, becoming really red at sunset.
ON THE EDGE OF THE DESERT
In certain lights, the village suggests the ruins of some old castle stretching out upon the waste on the one side, and on the other descending, half-hidden amongst the palms, to the edge of the cliff which overhangs the river, the minaret of the mosque being only just visible above the trees. Mud walls mark out small unfruitful-looking fields, in which little grows except masses of prickly pear, forming thick hedges in every direction. As the men were hard at work, digging and watering, it was evident that much was expected in the future, and these were probably new stretches of land in process of being reclaimed from the desert.