Sea Baths in the bay of Sidi Yahia (p. [264]).
One Day (when time is limited). In the morning, visit to Cape Carbon (p. [264]); in the afternoon, walk round the town and the bay of Sidi Yahia. Photographing and sketching in or around Bougie are prohibited.
The quiet seaport-town of Bougie (pop. 11,000, of whom 6000 are Mohammedans and 600 Jews), defended by several forts, rises in terraces on the W. shore of the bay of that name, at the S. base of the steep Jebel Gouraya (p. [265]). The Anse de Bougie or d’Abd el-Kader, a small bay between two headlands, the Kasba Hill to the W. and the Bridja Hill to the E., forms the harbour. The so-called Darsenâa (see p. [90]), the ancient Roman and Moorish harbour adjoining the plain to the W. of the Kasba Hill, and near the industrial suburb close to the station, is now choked with the deposits of the Oued Sahel (p. [251]). The upper part of the Kasba Hill to the N., above the new French quarters, is the Ville Indigène or Kabylian quarter (Pl. A, B, 1, 2), whose red-tiled stone huts resemble those of the villages of Great Kabylia (p. [252]). A second native quarter, the Faubourg des Cinq-Fontaines (Pl. B, C, 1), lies in the upper part of the valley, between the two hills.
The environs of Bougie, owing to the copious winter rainfall (p. [170]), are remarkable for their luxuriant vegetation and their splendid timber. The town is most beautiful in spring, when the gardens don their freshest verdure and the terraces and slopes are gorgeously carpeted with bougainvilleas. In winter the blue bay contrasts most picturesquely with the snow-clad mountains of Little Kabylia (p. [266]).
Under the Carthaginians Bougie, like Igilgili (Djidjelli), was probably one of the chief seaports on this part of the coast, but its Punic name is unknown. In the Roman period, under the name of Saldae, it was the principal town on the bay. Its present name (Ital. and Span. Bugia) is derived from the Berber tribe of the Bejaïa or Bujaïa, who settled in the vicinity in the 10th century. The town attained its brief prime in the middle ages, and was one of the most flourishing of the minor Moorish principalities when under the sway of the Hammadites (1090–1152), fugitives from Kalàa des Beni-Hammad (p. [270]). The Pisans, the Genoese, and the Venetians had their factories here. Wax being the chief export, the French still call their wax-candles bougies (originally, in Ital., candele di Bugia). From the 15th cent. down to the French occupation, save during the Spanish period (1510–55), when it afforded an asylum to Emp. Charles V. on his retreat from Algeria (1541; comp. p. [221]), it was a notorious haunt of the barbaresque pirates. The recent improvement of the harbour is expected to revive the ancient prosperity of the place.
The finest mediæval building in the town is the dilapidated Porte Sarrasine (Pl. C, 2; Arabic Bâb el-Bahar, sea-gate), probably a relic of the town-walls erected by the governor En-Nasr, in 1067, extending along the top of the two headlands, up to the Plateau des Ruines (p. [265]).
Since the 16th cent. the bay has been commanded by the Kasba (Pl. B, 3), a fortification of the Spanish period, and the ruinous (originally Turkish?) Fort Abd el-Kader (Pl. D, 2, 3) on the rocky summit of the Bridja Hill. Both are now barracks (no adm.).
The Harbour, exposed to the infrequent N. and N.E. winds only, one of the ‘least bad’ in Algeria, and now 65 acres in area, was improved in 1905–9 by the extension of the Jetée Abd el-Kader (Pl. D, 3; a fine point of view), by the formation of a quay at the Pointe de la Kasba, and by the construction of the Jetée du Large, an outer breakwater, 525 yds. long.
The town is entered from the harbour either by the Boul. des Cinq-Fontaines (Pl. C, 2, 1) or by the Rue de la Marine (Pl. C, 2) and Rue Duvivier, all ascending to the Rue Trézel. From the railway-station we ascend to the Place de l’Arsenal by the Rampe of that name (Pl. A, B, 2).