CHAPTER XIV.
TCLEMCEN.—THE GRANADA OF THE WEST.—ARAB POETS.—CHILDREN.—THE MOKBARA.—MANSOURA.—PHILO-ARABES.—TEMPTATIONS TO TCLEMCEN.
T Tclemcen, we found ourselves in a second and hardly less beautiful Granada—a Granada moreover peopled with those who had made it what it was, a Granada not wholly dead, but teeming with happy, picturesque Eastern life. The climate is delicious, and the whole atmosphere of the place so gracious and sweet to live in, that one is never ready to come away. We made up our minds to stay a week or ten days in this Capua of Capuas, whose climate, scenery, and every element around us, gave wings to the hours. We never knew how the time went; we only know that, like Faust, we said to the hour, “Stay, for thou art fair,” and that it escaped us like a vision. For those who wish to know what Tclemcen, the “Queen of Marreb” (in Morocco), really is, and was, I refer them to the beautiful and careful papers of M. Brosselard in the Revue Africaine. If I were to say half what I want to say about Tclemcen, this little book would swell into a big one; I will, therefore, do my utmost not to be enthusiastic, since enthusiasm leads me into the rash use of so many words.
The Arabs, who are enthusiastic about great things and small, have described Tclemcen in language as brilliant as a bed of tulips. Listen, for instance, to Abd-el-Kader, who made Tclemcen his capital after the treaty of Tafna in 1837: “At sight of me,” says the great poet, “Tclemcen gave me her hand to kiss; I love her as the child loves the bosom of his mother. I raised the veil which covered her face, and my heart palpitated with joy; her cheeks glowed like flames. Tclemcen has had many masters, but she has showed indifference to all, turning from them with drooping eyelids; only upon me has she smiled, rendering me the happiest sultan in the world; she said to me, ‘Give me a kiss, my beloved; shut my lips with thy lips, for I am thine.’”
Another Arab writer thus describes Tclemcen: “Tclemcen is a city enjoying a pleasant climate, running waters, and a fertile soil. Built on the side of a mountain, it reminds one of a fair young bride reposing in beauty on her nuptial couch. The bright foliage which overshadows the white roofs is like a green coronal circling her majestic brow. The surrounding heights and the plain stretching below the town are made verdant by running streams. Tclemcen is a city that fascinates the mind and seduces the heart.” Thus wrote in the 15th century Ibn Khaldoun, the Arab Prescott, whose work no one has completed; and though the sun of Tclemcen has set, it is so beautiful as to fascinate the mind and seduce the heart still.
It was under the bright, brief dynasty of the Abd-el-Ouadites that Tclemcen was virtually the Queen of Morocco. Possessed of a large, enlightened, and wealthy population, of commercial enterprise, of a well-disciplined army, a brilliant court, munificent and cultivated rulers, Tclemcen was one of the best governed and most polished capitals in the world, as her monuments bear witness.
If you go farther back into history, you find Tclemcen was christened “Pomaria” by the Romans, on account of its orchards and fruit-gardens, but the Tclemcen of to-day is far more interesting. It is indeed the Moorish Athens. The modern city lies at the foot of green hills, its minarets standing out against the sky, its terraced houses surrounded by belts of lustrous foliage, whilst beyond stretches a plain as grandly covered with ruins as the seven hills of Toledo; only unlike the hills of Toledo, green, and sunny, and gay.
The life of the streets is intoxicating to an artist. At every corner you see children playing, as brightly dressed as little Prince Bedreddin when he went with his slave to buy tarts; the boys wearing blue and crimson vests, embroidered with yellow braid, scarlet Fez caps, and spotlessly white trousers; the girls, such dainty, dark-eyed darlings! in soft white dresses and haïks, their waists bound with broad silk scarfs of many colours, and flowers stuck coquettishly behind their little ears. Never were such children as those of Tclemcen, so pretty, so frolicsome, so utterly kittenish and captivating. You could not help stopping to play with them; one would like to adopt half-a-dozen of them as nephews and nieces. The Negro and Jewish children are also very pretty here. The Jewesses brighten the streets as much as the children. They are handsomer here than in Algiers, and wear outside their brocades and silks haïks of soft, bright crimson cloth, which envelope them from head to foot. The Arab type is handsomer too; I should say much purer. There was a boy of fifteen at the hotel whose face I shall never forget. It was the face one should copy for a Christ in the Temple; perfectly oval, the features refined and pensive; the eyes soft, dark, and full of expression; the mouth sweet and serious. This boy acted as our guide, and as soon as we had arranged our sketch-books and shawls, would lose himself in a reverie. His face then was perfect.