Even some of the schools are in fine old houses. The embroidery school was the prettiest, and was a charming sight with the court full of tiny children sitting on the matting and bending over their low embroidery frames—beautiful embroideries hanging over the balcony; and if one chose to climb up to the roof, a fine view of old Algiers, its roofs and terraces. Now the school has moved to larger quarters—another old house, pretty also, but not so interesting. The carpet school is most picturesque: there is a big doorway and the usual dark passage, then the door opens into the court, which is quite a small one with very strong light and shade. Between the pillars all round stand the big looms, and on low benches in front sit the little girls at work. The floor of the court is marble, the pillars are very curiously cut in varying designs, and are all coloured a rich yellowish orange. The balcony of the upper story has some good carved work, but very little of it is visible owing to the carpets of every tone and tint which hang over it. There are carpets on the floor, carpets in rolls, carpets and children everywhere; for upstairs also are more looms, and everywhere little workers, mostly girls, with here and there a very small boy—odd little things, with their long full Turkish trousers, white or in bright colours, their loose jackets, also mostly white, and their little heads veiled in white or else bound round with the gayest of handkerchiefs. The effect is often spoilt by common European blouses and quite hideous check shawls. Carpet-making looks easy enough, and the children seem to enjoy threading the bright wool through the web and tying the knots; for a little while that is, then like a little flight of butterflies they all come in a whirl to see what the stranger is doing in the dark inner room. This was alarming at first, as many are the stories of sketches destroyed and artists tormented by the irate victims of their brushes, and these innocent-looking little people, with their sweet smiles and pretty ways, were said to be most troublesome. But either they did not understand or they liked to be painted, for the smiles never died away till the mistress ordered them back to work, though for a few minutes one little maid propped up her pattern so as to hide her face. However, she soon forgot and things went on as before.
THE CARPET SCHOOL, ALGIERS
This was not always the case, for in the garden of one of the mosques the small boys climbed a tree and threw stones at the drawings, because, as they excitedly explained, “The Mosque belongs to us, and no stranger has any business even to look at it.” This is rather a hard saying, as the tomb-mosque in question—that of the Saint called Sidi Mohammed Abder Rahman-el-Telebi—is decidedly attractive to the poor despised foreigner. To reach it there is a good climb up many steps through the old town to a bare and dusty spot on one of the new roads—a most unpromising road to look at if it were not for a glimpse of blue over the roofs below. Until last year there was only a plain white wall and then a gateway, and outside the gateway, squatting in the dust, a sad company all sick or infirm, and all beggars striving and struggling for compassion and un petit sou. Now the gateway is dwarfed and hidden by the domes of the new schools of the mosque, white with an absolutely blinding whiteness, making the importunity of the beggars seem less annoying than this aggressive newness. From the gateway a narrow staircase descends towards the sea, and at the first white domed tomb there is a turn, a door is pushed open, and a strange little burying-place is seen, with many sacred tombs, the most important of which is decorated with tiles and a projecting roof. Many of the smaller tombs are covered completely with tiles, mostly green and blue. There are also bands of old faience round the minaret, which is a very graceful one, having three tiers of slender colonnades running round it. A little grass, a few trees, a great cypress, a budding fig-tree, and the Arab women moving softly, for this is one of their favourite places of prayer, complete the picture. The mosque itself is small, the tomb seen dimly in the darkness, which gives a mystery and charm to the abundance of queer things hanging as votive offerings, and to the rich colours of the tiles and the carpets. It is not an important mosque, but it is a place full of character and attraction, partly from its situation and partly from the irregularity and strangeness of the buildings. The other mosques have none of this undefined charm, being simply large, bare, whitewashed buildings, with, in the case of the great mosque, some fine old columns and a very pretty fountain in the court with a tree shadowing it, and bright tiles as decoration. There is also a tiny mosque in the old town, which is always full of women praying for babies. It is the tomb of another saint, and so small that the best way to see it is to stoop and look in through a window and watch the women, who are not so absorbed in prayer as to prevent their smiling and returning the gaze with interest.
MOSQUE OF SIDI ABDER RAHMAN, ALGIERS
For the rest, there is a sad feeling that most of the Oriental life is dying slowly out, that the quaintness is disappearing, and that the tendency is greater here than elsewhere to cover over and hide the old life and manners with a sort of cloak of modern civilisation. It is even said that all the better-class Arabs have already emigrated to Tunis, Egypt, or Constantinople. The walls have gone, the gates also. Nothing now is left but the great fortress itself upon the highest point of the city, now used for barracks, a few fragments of the walls, and most beautiful of all, the old harbour. It is almost impossible to believe that such a small harbour ever sheltered so strong a pirate fleet that it could ravage the coasts of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, the ports of Italy and Spain, and even penetrate as far as England. Although Mr. Eaton, an American Consul who was sent with arrears of tribute (four vessels) due from the United States in 1798, did say, “Can any man believe that this elevated brute has seven kings of Europe, two Republics, and a Continent tributary to him, when his whole naval force is not equal to two line of battleships?” Yet these Barbary pirates literally spread terror around from their earliest beginnings in 1390 down to the time when Lord Exmouth brought the Dey to reason by bombarding Algiers in 1816 and freeing the slaves. But that was only a temporary improvement, and the bad state of affairs only came to an end with the French occupation in 1830. The whole history of the Barbary State is very sad and humiliating reading, with its accounts of the bargaining of the various Powers for the release of the Christian slaves, of whom there were often as many as twenty thousand to thirty thousand in Algiers itself. Now the harbour is full of innocent-looking coasting craft with lateen sails, many pleasure-boats and yachts, and a few torpedo boats. The serious business of shipping goes on in the outer harbour, which is full of steamers and merchantmen, whose dark hulls and smoking funnels form another striking but not attractive contrast.
THE LEOPARD DOOR, ALGIERS
The beautiful Moorish tower called the Penon, and now used as a lighthouse, was built in 1544 on the site of the old Spanish fort, and rises from the midst of a group of old buildings, with here and there a fine bit of Moorish work amongst them, though, as they are used by the Admiralty, there is much that is modern and business-like as well. In the wall is a characteristic fountain; a flat surface decorated with inscriptions in Arabic and carvings in marble in very slight relief, with a simple spout for the water. Farther on, rather hidden up in a corner under an arch, is the famous Tiger or Leopard gateway—a very curious bit of work, the chief peculiarity of which is that these two odd heraldic animals guarding a shield are supposed to be of Arab workmanship. Now, as it is strictly forbidden by their religion to make images of living moving things, a legend has been invented to the effect that the decoration was done by a Persian slave, and that his masters found it so surpassingly beautiful that they had not the heart to destroy it. However, it really looks much more like Spanish work done during their occupation of the place, and though quaint, decorative, and rather unusual, is not really beautiful at all. These and many more are the old-world nooks and corners in the city which the modern builder has not yet overthrown, and where it is quite easy for a few moments to dream oneself back into the old life, though the dreams generally end in a sudden shock—the noise of an electric tram, the hooting of a motor, a cyclist’s bell, or the appearance of some thoroughly Western figure who could never have had any sympathy with the Arabian Nights.