We remained at Batna till the 27th April, and were most hospitably entertained by the General. He sent letters of recommendation in advance to all the chiefs of the Aures, caused good mules to be brought in for ourselves, and supplied us with tents and mules from the train for our baggage. No one could have taken more pains to ensure the success of our journey, and it was with the deepest regret that we heard shortly after our return to Algiers, that his health had broken down, and that he had returned to France with but little hope of being able to resume active service in Africa. Before, however, commencing a narrative of our journey, the reader will be glad to know something of this country, which, as far as I am aware, has never been explored by an English traveller, and is comparatively little known even to the French. Bruce never actually penetrated into these mountains: he merely skirted their northern slopes.
English tourists, who flock every season to Biskra, cannot fail to see and to admire their distant outline; everyone goes to Lambessa; a few may visit Timegad and Tebessa, all on Bruce’s route; but with these exceptions the country is as little known as it was a century ago.
The geographical term Aures comprises at the present day that mass of mountains stretching between the route from Batna to Biskra on the west and the Oued el-Arab on the east. It does not extend further north than Batna, or so far south as Biskra. The greatest length from east to west is 75 miles, and from north to south 44; Ptolemy places here his Audon; Procopius and other geographers speak of it as Aurasion, or Mons Aurasius, but it does not appear that they included under these names the entire range, but rather isolated peaks, like the Djebel Aures, which actually exists as a single peak near Khenchla. To the south of Audon Ptolemy traces a long chain of mountains, which he calls Thambes, and which, with Mampsurus (the modern Dj. Mahmel), would about include the district known as the Aures Mountains at the present day.
Procopius describes it in the following terms: ‘This mountain, the greatest that we know, is situated at thirteen days’ journey from Carthage. Its circuit is three long days’ journey. One can only ascend by steep paths and wild solitudes, but on the summit is an immense plain, watered by springs, giving rise to rivers, and covered with a prodigious quantity of orchards; the grain and fruit are double the size of those in other parts of Africa.’
The general configuration of the Aures is a series of mountain ranges, running with more or less continuity from N.E. to S.W. They are roughly parallel to each other, and in the valleys between them flow considerable rivers.
On the north side, they have only moderate slopes, which convey its waters into the Chotts of the neighbouring plateau. These streams are few in number and of no great volume; the great body of the drainage is from the southern side, where the rivers, after a long and fertilising course, pour their waters into the great marshy basin of Melghigh. The most important of these watercourses are the Oued el-Kantara just outside the range, and the Oueds Abdi and el-Abiad, which flow through it. To the east of these, the rivers assume a more directly southern course.
The inhabitants of this country are called Chawi (plural, Chawia), from the Semitic root cha, a sheep. They are emphatically shepherds, as well as agriculturists, having few or no cattle, but immense flocks of sheep and goats.
They form a branch of the great Berber nation, which has occupied the north of Africa, from Egypt to the Atlantic, since pre-historic times. The Kabyles form another branch. Both speak slightly different dialects of the same language, but the former, shut up in their mountain fastnesses, hardly yet known to the world beyond and rarely leaving their native country, have remained less mixed with foreign elements, at least since the period of the Arab conquest.
These remarks apply particularly to the Chawia of the Aures: the race itself has a much wider geographical distribution, and in the same manner that there are tribes of Kabyles out of Kabylia, so there are tribes of Chawia in the plains and high plateaux all round the Aures, which, from contact with the nomad Arabs settled in their vicinity, have lost much of their distinctive character.
Comparatively little is known of the history of the Berbers before the Roman occupation of North Africa, which followed the long and bloody wars in the second century before Christ. For some time after that, the government of the country still remained in the hands of the native races, and it was not till A.D. 40 that Numidia became finally reduced to the condition of a Roman province.