A public decapitation strikes terror into the hearts of the Arab populace. The guillotine at Algiers is erected on a large open space in front of the Arab quarter, and the ceremony is made as imposing as possible, pour encourager les autres. Achmet told me that once when a friend of his had been guillotined, the relatives had gone to the Governor and begged the body and head back again. As a great favour they had been given up to them on condition that they said nothing about it to the other Arabs. When these people got the two pieces of their departed friend home, they sewed his head on again with a thick string, and then they practised holding him up by the hair to see if the stitches would stand when Mahomet came to lift him into Paradise.
The Arabs are none too well treated by their master. They have had to suffer for France’s colonial policy. I don’t fancy that France makes Algeria pay. It is a trinket on her watch-chain, and not the watch at the end of it. Algeria is in debt. She costs France far more to keep than she gives in return. The expenses of military occupation of the Government are great, and the produce is small. The Arabs complain bitterly of the excessive taxation; but they have suffered even more at the hands of the Jews than of the French.
Nearly all the Arab farmers and landed proprietors are in debt to the Jews. Their crops are mortgaged before they are gathered. One after the other their houses and lands have fallen into the hands of the Israelites. Money is dear. The legal rate of interest is from twelve to thirteen per cent., but the Arab pays forty, and sometimes more. I have been on some magnificent properties which only a few years ago belonged to Arab Caïds and Sheiks; to-day the gaudy villa of the Jewish owner has replaced the Arab house. They have passed from race to race at about one-third of their value. The extortionate interest has accumulated, and the property has gone to pay it.
Between the French Government and the Jew money-lender, the Arab proprietors of land in Algeria have come to the ground, or, to speak more correctly, have gone from it. How deeply the Arabs of Algeria feel their position was expressed in 1871. Gambetta appointed Crémieux, a Jew, Governor-General of Algeria. The great Arab chiefs flung down their French decorations, resigned their official positions, and called on their kinsmen to throw off the yoke of France. The rebellion was crushed, the Arabs were slaughtered and fined and impoverished, and to-day they sit and brood in a state of sullen resignation. The French have good reason for keeping a strong military force in Algeria.
But I am wandering into a political discussion. Good gracious me! and all my own personal adventures are going to the wall. I have spent so many nights in the Arab cafés with Achmet, and heard so much of these things from the natives, that they have saturated my mind. I hasten to unsaturate it. Bother the Arabs and their grievances! let us go and see the sights.
I told you I was just off to kill a lion. You will gather from the fact that these lines appear in print that the lion did not kill me. We found him, after a long search, in a lonely part of the Atlas Mountains. I never shot anything in my life, so when Albert Edward handed me his rifle I said, ‘No. Perhaps the poor beast is the father of a family who are entirely dependent on him for support.’ ‘Oh, nonsense!’ was the reply; ‘pray don’t let any idea of that sort interfere with legitimate sport. Besides, fancy the triumph of bringing home a lion that you have shot yourself. If you don’t shoot him I will.’ He levelled the gun. The lion saw it. A piteous look came into the animal’s face. He gave one roar of terror, turned round, and bolted off with his tail between his legs. But he was not quick enough. Bang went the rifle, and the lion rolled over on his side a corpse!
Then I felt that I ought to share in the honours of the day. I assisted to pick the poor beast up, and we made a litter, and put him on it, and carried him in triumph to the next village. We expected a grand reception. To our intense surprise, when the inhabitants beheld the dead lion, they burst out into savage cries, and shook their fists at us, and cursed us in Arabic. We were arrested and dragged before the Caïd, and then we learnt for the first time what our offence was.
We had killed the ‘show’ lion of the district—a lion that had been imported at vast expense from the Zoological Gardens, London, and tamed and taught to run about the mountains for the amusement of tourists. The Caïd fined us £50 for destroying the property of the inhabitants, and discharged us with a caution. We asked for the skin, and were refused. That skin is to be stuffed and put up on the mountains in a natural position. African travellers who visit this district can shoot the first lion they meet now in perfect safety. They will injure nothing but the stuffing.
One cherished illusion I shall, alas! leave behind me in the Sahara. You know those beautiful lines the Arab addressed to his steed in the poetry-book of our youth—
‘My beautiful, my beautiful, that stands so meekly by,
With thy proudly arched and glossy neck, thy dark and fiery eye;
Fret not to roam the desert now, with all thy wingèd speed,
I may not mount on thee again—thou’rt sold, my Arab steed.’