Atlas, whose head with piny forests crowned,
Is beaten by the wind, with foggy vapours bound,
Snows hide his shoulders; from beneath his chin
The founts of rolling streams their run begin![84]
The highest point of the small range, which goes by the name of Djebel Chellia, is 7,611 feet above the sea—only twenty-three feet higher than Djebel Mahmel, and sixty-nine more than the highest peak of Djurdjura. On the summit is a rude hut and stone enclosure, the marabout of Sidi Mohammed Kultoom, who used to make this his residence whenever it was possible to remain there; the Chawia still make pilgrimages to it and offer sacrifices of sheep at the shrine of the holy man. We left a record of our visit in a bottle on the summit, carefully secured to a stone; but I fear it stands a great risk of being removed, not for the value of the autograph, but rather for that of the precious vessel in which it was enclosed. Empty bottles are not so common in the Aures as they are elsewhere. An addition to our party was waiting for us at the top; this was the limit of Bou Dhiaf’s command, and he had here to hand us over to Si Mustafa, the Kaid of Bou Hammama, who with his Khalifa both in their official scarlet bernouses, had come to welcome us and conduct us to where we were to spend the night.
The view from the summit is most extensive. In the foreground is the massif of the Aures itself, containing numerous ranges, generally richly wooded, some scarped and precipitous, others striated like agate by the upheaval of the oolitic strata of which they are composed, while on one or two the tops have been worn away between the strata, leaving the latter like huge lines of defence guarding the summits. Beyond this from north to east the hills between Constantine and Ain Beida bound the horizon, and the Sebkhas or salt lakes are distinctly seen in the middle distance. Behind the hills to the south, glimpses are obtained of the Sahara, while the north-west is bounded by the mountains behind Batna.
The slopes of the mountain exposed to the north and west, the prevailing direction whence come the wind, rain and snow of winter, are richly clothed with forest almost to their base. The southern slopes, exposed to the hot wind of the desert, are much more arid.
We descended the opposite side of the mountain through the valley of Tizou-ghaghin, in which a stream rises near the top and encircles the western slope, till it is met by the Oued el-Khezoum, descending from another portion of the summit. It would be difficult to find a more charming ride, at first through a forest of cedar with here and there an old gnarled yew, but both these trees are slowly disappearing. The highest parts of the range are perfectly bare, though an occasional whitened stump shows that even they were once wooded; lower down dead trees are still erect, and the ground is covered with others that have fallen, or have been torn up by the roots. These become more and more mixed with living trees as the traveller descends, till the dense forests on the lower slope are reached.
But even here destruction is doing its work, principally owing to numerous communities of hairy processional caterpillars, which spin a web-like nest on the higher branches destroying all vegetable life as their ravages descend.
After leaving the region of cedars the lower parts of the mountain present new features of grandeur and interest. Ilex, pistachia and juniper begin to appear, and soon the road passes through a dense forest of Aleppo pines, which for picturesque beauty can hardly be surpassed in any part of the country. Eventually we entered the well-watered plain of Melagou, and turning eastward found ourselves at the small village of Bou Hammama.