Algeria and Tunis

by Frances E. Nesbitt

GORGE OF THE ROUMEL, CONSTANTINE

Of a fine aqueduct, built in the reign of Justinian, only five arches remain, prettily situated among the trees by the river. As for the ruins of the old bridge, dating from the time of Constantine the Great, it would probably be hard to say how much was truly Roman, so often has it been restored. This bridge was double, and built on the foundation of a natural arch; the upper part, formed of huge blocks, carried the road, the lower was purely ornamental. Shaw says it was indeed a masterpiece of its kind, which makes its end the sadder. A pier of the upper story gave way in 1857, and as restoration was supposed to be impossible, heavy artillery was used to batter it down. Now the chasm is spanned by a useful but ugly iron erection, built exactly above the ruins, and forming a pitiful contrast between the old style and the new.

Few cities in the world have suffered so many changes, for notwithstanding its apparently impregnable position, Constantine has been besieged and taken no less than eighty times—that is, if tradition can be trusted. It escaped destruction under the Vandals because the bishop in those days was a Donatist. The victorious Belisarius found that no harm had been done, and even the Arabs spared the ancient monuments, so that the strain of these many sieges seems to have worked less havoc than the fighting which took place during the French conquest, when both besiegers and besieged showed the greatest heroism. The old bridge was the scene of the first fierce assault, when the French were driven back in 1836. The successful attack in the following year was made on the side of the isthmus, or neck of land, which connects the rock with the mainland, but even so the French lost heavily, General Damremont and General Perrégaux being killed in the breach, and officer after officer falling as he took command.

For many years afterwards the military government took no interest in preserving antiquities, and so they were broken up, cut through and destroyed, to make way for new buildings, for roads, and for the railway. The greatest loss, perhaps, was the splendid triumphal arch, which was still perfect in 1734; but temples, arcades, vaults, porticoes and baths were all swept away by the Genie militaire in its thirst for improvement. The cisterns alone remain. They have been restored, and still serve to hold the water-supply.

The new roads are worthy of the Genie, but the new buildings are mostly blots on a beautiful landscape. From almost every point hideous, bare-looking barracks and many-storied modern houses crown the rock, and stand on the very edge of the precipice, whilst the new suburbs, springing up on the heights of Mansoura and on the side of Koudiat-Aty are scarcely more attractive.

And yet, taking all these drawbacks into consideration, the view from the bridge of El Kantara is astonishing. The grandeur of the gorge dwarfs all man’s works into insignificance, and the rocks tower with such majesty over the river which they hide at their feet that the houses above them pass almost unnoticed.

The ravine is narrow, not more than two hundred feet across, though the summit of the crags is quite a thousand feet above the river. The river Roumel comes from the sunny country-side, from the woods and fields, the poplars and the hedges, and plunges suddenly into the shadow of the huge vertical cliffs, twisting and winding in the dark depths on its way round the city, losing itself at times in gloomy caverns and under natural arches, to emerge joyously beneath the grim Sidi Rached, then to fling itself thundering over the falls, out of the shadows at last, and into the lovely valley once more.

From the town it is difficult to peer into the depths, but on the other side a road follows the course of the ravine for its whole length. The most picturesque point is just opposite the tanneries, a delightful jumble of old Moorish houses, with white or pale-blue walls, and brown-tiled roofs built to withstand the snow and torrential rains, and very like the roofs of Constantinople in form and colour. The tanneries are perched on the walls of rock so close to the edge of the precipice that the Arabs when at work often fall over into the abyss, though it is said that the devotees of hachish will descend the same precipices, at the risk of breaking their necks many times ere they reach the bottom, just to meet together and smoke. It is giddy work to stand on these heights and look down over the first green slopes where hungry cows and goats find some foothold in their search for food, in places on the verge of the cliff where there is nothing but their own agility to prevent their falling straight into the gulf below. The boys on guard keep more wisely to the little footpath, and shout their commands to the straying herds.

The Cornice road runs from the bridge down towards the valley and the sea, and that is grand with Nature’s dignity alone. As a mountain road it is fine also, after the Swiss fashion, built round and tunnelled through the rocks of Mansoura, following their curves, half-built out on supports, half-blasted out of the living rock.

Opposite the tanneries the road runs on the top of the cliffs, and the city stands on the same level on the other side of the chasm; but here the road, though it is still a considerable height above the river, is itself shut in by walls of rock, so grim and forbidding that if tales of dreadful deeds did not already abound, legends must have been invented in their stead; for there is something about the precipices of Sidi Rached which suggest and invite horrors. So perhaps it is no wonder that the Moors in barbarous times thought it a suitable place for getting rid of criminals, or of the wives of whom they were weary. It is, however, hard to believe that men were ever cruel enough, not only to fling a beautiful woman over a cliff by the Bey’s orders, but also, when she had been saved as by a miracle by her clothes catching midway on the rocks, to rescue her and then kill her deliberately by some other form of torture.