The view from this elevation is superb,—north, south, east and west, there is a wondrous landscape, but northward especially; where far above the purple hills, higher than all but a few snowy peaks, there stretches a horizontal line of blue, that seems almost in the clouds. Nothing gives us such a sense of height and distance, as these accidental peeps of the Mediterranean, and nothing could contrast more effectively than the snowy peaks in sunlight, against the blue sea.
[Original]
All this we are able to study, in perfect security and with very little interruption; sketching first one mountain side clothed with a mass of verdure; another, rocky, barren, and wild; one day an olive-grove, another a deserted Kabyle village, and so on, with an infinite variety which would only be wearisome in detail.
And we obtain what is so valuable to an artist, and what is supposed to be so rare in Africa—variety of atmospheric effect. It is generally admitted (and we should be unwilling to contest the point), that English landscape is unrivalled in this respect, and that it is only form and colour, that we may study with advantage in tropical climates; but directly we ascend the mountains, we lose that still, serene atmosphere that has been called the 'monotony of blue.'
We read often of African sun, but very seldom of African clouds and wind. To-day we are surrounded by clouds below us, which come and gather round the mountain-peaks and remain until evening. Sometimes just before sunset, the curtain will be lifted for a moment, and the hill sides will be in a blaze of gold—again the clouds come round, and do not disperse till nightfall; and when the mountains are once more revealed, the moon is up, and they are of a silver hue—the sky immediately above, remaining quite unclouded. The air is soft on these half-clouded days, in spite of our height above the sea; and the showers that fall at intervals, turn the soil in the valleys into a hotbed for forcing hothouse plants, as we should call them in England.
The weather was nearly always fine, and we generally found a little military tent (lent to us by one of the Staff) sufficient protection and shelter, even on this exposed situation.
But we must not forget the winds that lived in the valleys, and came up to where our tents were pitched—sometimes one at a time, sometimes three or four together. Of all things that impressed us, during our stay upon the Kabyle hills, the beauty of the clouds, the purple tints upon the mountains, and the wind, will be remembered best. It is a common phrase, to 'scatter to the four winds;' but here the four winds came and met near our little camp, and sometimes made terrible havoc with our belongings. They came suddenly one day, and took up a tent, and flung it at a man and killed him; another time they came sighing gently, as if a light breeze were all we need prepare for, and in five minutes we found ourselves in the thick of a fight for our possessions, if not for our lives. And with the wind there came sometimes such sheets of rain, that turned the paths into watercourses, and carried shrubs and trees down into the valley; all this happening whilst the sea was calm in the distance, and the sun was shining fiercely on the plains. These were rough days, to be expected in late autumn and early spring, but not to be missed for a little personal discomfort, for Algeria has not been seen without a mountain storm.
Before leaving Kabylia, we will take one or two leaves from our note-book; just to picture to the reader (who may be more interested in what is going on at the camp, than in the various phases of the landscape) the rather incongruous elements of which our little society is made up.