The Algerine Jews attribute their first arrival in Africa to a miracle, of which we find the following version in Count St Marie’s book. In the year 1390, Simon-ben-Sinia, chief rabbi of Seville, and sixty of his co-religionists were imprisoned, and condemned to die, the object being to get possession of their wealth. On the eve of the day fixed for their execution, Simon drew the image of a ship on his prison wall. The drawing was miraculously changed into a real vessel, on board of which the prisoners embarked for Algiers, where they were kindly received by the Marabout Sidi Ben Yusef. This tradition is still an article of faith, even with the most enlightened of the Jews. In whatever manner they came, they have increased and multiplied, and now abound in all the towns of Algeria. Preserving the characteristics of their race, they differ little from their European brethren; or, if there be any difference, it is not much in their favour. Their moral condition is low; and although some honourable and honest men are found amongst them, the majority are of a very different stamp. They are charitable to their poor, and hospitable to their own people, and are generally well conducted; but their insatiable and inherent greed leads them into all sorts of disgraceful transactions. They have been immense gainers by the expulsion of the Deys, under whose rule they were subjected to much oppression and ill usage. “Their condition is now vastly ameliorated, and I have even heard complaints of their insolence; a very extraordinary charge against a race so tamed and broken in spirit. The French, I fear, can place but little reliance on their courage in occasions of danger.” The Jewish women, when young, are for the most part strikingly handsome; and the boys are models of beauty until the age of ten or eleven years, when their features grow coarse. Education is confined to the males.
The taming of savage animals is no uncommon amusement amongst the French in Algeria; and the most extraordinary and alarming pets are encountered not only in officers’ quarters but in ladies’ drawing-rooms. At Medeah, Captain Kennedy was introduced to a magnificent lion, the property of General Marey, Sultan by name, two years old, and of a most amiable and docile disposition. Sultan allowed himself to be examined and pulled about, and did not even exhibit anger, but some annoyance when an aide-de-camp puffed a cigar in his nostrils—a pleasantry which we are disposed to consider fool-hardy. The only thing that excited his ire was a Scotch plaid worn by Captain Kennedy. It was supposed that the hanging ends reminded him of an Arab bournous, to which he had shown great aversion, having probably been ill-treated in his infancy by the Arabs who caught him. Notwithstanding his good temper, the general intended to get rid of him, fearing that in the long run instinct might prove stronger than education. Besides the lion, General Marey had an unhappy-looking eagle, and a pair of beautiful gazelles. Count St Marie abounds in anecdotes of ferocious beasts in a state of civilisation. One of the first acquaintances he made in Algiers was a tame hyena, of most unamiable aspect, but who lived in touching amity with a little dog, and did the civil for lumps of sugar. At Bona, the count went to call upon some ladies, and, on opening the door, beheld a brace of lions walking about the room. He shut himself out with great precipitation, but was presently reassured by the fair proprietresses of these singular favourites. When he ventured into the saloon, and sat down, the lion laid his head upon his knee, and the lioness jumped on the divan beside her mistress. These brutes were seven years old. Lions are not very common in Algeria. Now and then they approach the douars, greatly to the alarm of the Arabs, who hasten to inform the French authorities, and a battue takes place. Accidents generally happen at these lion-hunts: Count St Marie affirms that there are always three or four lives lost, to say nothing of wounds and other serious injuries. Whilst passing the night in an Arab encampment at the entrance of the Bibans or Iron Gates—the scene of much hard fighting, and of a gallant exploit of the late Duke of Orleans—the count was roused, he informs us, in the dead of the night, “by a noise which appeared to me like a distant peal of thunder, repeated and prolonged by the mountain echoes. Gradually the noise became louder. The animals sprang from their resting-places, and the men, armed with muskets, rushed out of the tents. The oxen, grouped themselves together, and turned their horns to the enemy; the dogs were afraid even to bark. Presently the roaring became less frequent and more distant; and we found that we had been saved from the unwelcome visit of a lion, by the light of the burning brushwood on the neighbouring hills.” The boar and the jackal are more common and less dangerous objects of chase than the lion. Some of the rich colonists and many of the officers are ardent sportsmen. Two of the former have regular packs of hounds and studs of horses. Hares, rabbits, and red partridges are very common.
The horse has greatly degenerated in Algeria, owing chiefly to the neglect of the Arabs, who consider the choice of the dam to be alone important, and pay no attention to the qualities of the sire. The French government has recently established stables near Bona, with a view to the improvement of the breed; the stud is to consist of stallions only. There are to be similar establishments in the other two provinces. So great is the demand for the better class of horses, that the Arabs obtain very high prices for their stallions, which they willingly sell, but they will not part with the mares. Every year, therefore, it becomes more difficult to propagate a good breed. Officers have now been sent to Tunis to make purchases, at a limit of eighty ponds sterling for each horse. This price, Captain Kennedy says, ought to buy the best horses in the country. Although less numerous than formerly, splendid specimens of the Barbary Arab are still to be met with in Algeria. Captain Kennedy describes, in glowing terms, a magnificent charger belonging to General Marey, purchased by that officer at a high price, and after a long negotiation, from a wealthy chief in the south-west. M. St Marie says, that he knew a Morocco horse to perform fifty leagues in eleven hours, without turning a hair or showing a trace of the spur. Assuming him to speak of the common three-mile league, or even of the old French posting league, which was something less, this statement appears incredible. Thirteen miles and a half an hour! Dick Turpin himself, upon his fabulous mare, would have recoiled before such a pace sustained for such a time. The rate of marching of the Arabs, however, from Captain Kennedy’s evidence, is very rapid. The infantry do their fifteen or twenty leagues in the twenty-four hours—the cavalry from thirty to forty-five—the meharies (so say the Arabs) from fifty to eighty. This is when the tribes are on the war-path, making razzias upon each other’s flocks and camps, when it may be supposed that they put on a little extra steam. The mehary is an inferior race of camel, with a small hump, and possessed of considerable strength and spirit, carrying a couple of men. It keeps up for the whole day at about the same speed as the ordinary trot of a horse. Its diet is herbs and date kernels. The horses of the Sahara thrive best upon dates and milk; few of them get barley; and they are sometimes reduced, when no other food is obtainable, to eat cooked meat.
Amongst the most determined enemies of the French in Africa, are to be enumerated the Kabyles, tribes dwelling in the ranges of the Lesser Atlas, from Tunis to Morocco. Of different race from the Arabs, they are believed to be the aboriginal inhabitants of Northern Africa. Secure in their wild valleys, they have ever preserved their independence. Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Arabs, all failed to subdue them; and, although some of the tribes, whose territory is the least inaccessible, are now partially under the rule of the French, the maritime range, from the east of the Metidjah to Philippeville, remains unconquered. Their numbers are inconsiderable, roughly estimated at eighty thousand. This would give a fighting population of at most from sixteen to twenty thousand men; but that small force has been found efficient to preserve from foreign domination the almost impregnable fastnesses in which they dwell. Although the tribes wage frequent war amongst themselves, a common enemy unites them all. The attachment of the Kabyles to their country and tribe is remarkable. Like the Swiss, or the Spanish Galicians, they are accustomed to wander forth when young, and seek their fortune in other lands. Kabyle servants and labourers are found in all the towns and villages of Northern Africa. But if they learn that their tribe is threatened or at war, they abandon their situations, however advantageous, and hasten home, and to arms. They are very brave, but barbarously cruel, giving no quarter, and torturing their prisoners before cutting off their heads.
Their weapons are guns six or seven feet long, pistols, and yataghans, chiefly of their own manufacture, and the materials for which are found in their mountains, where they work mines of copper, lead, and iron. In their rude way, and considering the badness of their tools, they are tolerably ingenious. Amongst other things, they make counterfeit five-franc pieces, sufficiently well executed to take in the less knowing amongst the Arabs. Their industry is great, and, besides the valleys, they cultivate the steep mountain sides, forming terraces by means of walls, such as are seen in the vineyards on the Rhine and in Switzerland. Possessing few horses, they usually fight on foot; and in the plain, their untutored courage is unable to withstand the discipline of the French troops. Their charges are furious but disorderly; and when beaten back, they disperse to rally again at a distance. In the mountains, where the advantages of military organization have less weight, they are sturdy and dangerous foes, fighting on the guerilla plan, disputing each inch of ground, and disappearing from before their enemy only to fall with redoubled fierceness upon his flank or rear. No foreigners can penetrate into their country, and even Arabs run great risk amongst them. Not long ago, Captain Kennedy informs us, a party of Arab traders, suspected by the Kabyles of being in the French interest, were murdered to a man. Most of them understand and speak the Arabic, but they have also a language of their own, called the Shilla or Sherwia, whose derivation it has hitherto been impossible to discover. They profess Islamism, but mix up with it many superstitions of their ancestors, and ascribe certain virtues to the symbol of the cross, which they use as a talisman and tattoo upon their persons. “It would seem from this,” observes Captain Kennedy, “that at least the outward forms of the early Christians had at one period penetrated into the heart of their mountains.” That, however, like all that relates to the early history of the Kabyles, is enveloped in doubt and obscurity.
A barbarous practice, prevalent in Algeria before the French invasion, is still, Count St Marie tells us, adhered to by the Kabyles. The amputation of a limb, instead of being surgically performed, is effected by blow of a yataghan. The stump is then dipped into melted pitch, to stop the bleeding. The barber is the usual operator. Until the French came, regular physicians and surgeons were unknown in Algeria.
Besides the Zouaves already referred to, the French have raised various other corps expressly for African service. Conspicuous amongst these are two regiments of light cavalry, composed of picked men, and known as the “Chasseurs d’Afrique.” They are mounted on Arab horses; and in order to obtain a sufficient supply, each tribe has to furnish a horse as part of its yearly tribute. The arms of the Chasseurs are carbine, sabre, and pistols; their equipment is light; their uniform plain, and well suited to the nature of the service. Wherever engaged, they have greatly distinguished themselves, and are proportionably esteemed in the army of Africa. The reputation of the Spahis stands less high. These consist of four regiments of native cavalry, under the command of the Arab general Yussuf, whose history, as related by M. St Marie, is replete with romantic incident. It has been said that he is a native of the island of Elba, and was captured, when yet a child, by a Tunisian corsair. Sold to the Bey, he was placed as a slave in the seraglio, and there remained until an intrigue with his master’s daughter compelled him to seek safety on board a French brig, then about to join the fleet destined to attack Algiers. He made the first campaign as interpreter to the general-in-chief. His talents and heroic courage rapidly advanced him, and when the first regiment of Spahis was raised, he was appointed its colonel. Previously to that, he had rendered great services to the French, especially at Bona, when that town was attacked by Ben Aïssa. Landing from a brig of war with Captain d’Armandy and thirty sailors, he threw himself into the citadel, then garrisoned by the Turkish troops of Ibrahim, the former Bey of Constantina, who professed to hold the town for the French government, but had left his post. The Turks rose against their new leaders, and would have murdered them, but for the energy of Yussuf, who killed two ringleaders with his own hand, and then, heading the astounded mutineers, led them against the besiegers, who were totally defeated. The exterior of this dashing chief is exceedingly elegant and prepossessing. When at Paris he was called “le beau Yussuf,” and caused quite a furore, especially among the fair sex. His portrait may still be seen in the various print-shops, side by side with Lamoricière, Bugeaud, and the other “great guns” of the “Armée d’Afrique.”
The first Foreign Legion employed by the French in Africa was transferred to Spain in 1835, and there used up, almost to a man. Another has since been raised, composed of men of all countries—Poles, Belgians, Germans of every denomination, a few Spanish Carlists, and even two or three Englishmen; the legion, like most corps of the same kind, is remarkable for the reckless valour and bad moral character of its members. The Polish battalion is the best and most distinguished. The others are not to be trusted; and only a very severe system of punishments preserves something like discipline in their ranks, where adventurers, deserters, and escaped criminals are the staple commodity. Bad as they are, they are eclipsed by the condemned regiments, known by the slang name of “Les Zephyrs” These are punished men, considered ineligible to serve again in their former regiments, and who are put together on the principle of there being no danger of contagion where all are infected. A taught hand is kept over them; they are insubordinate in quarters, but dare-devils in the field. It will easily be imagined that the duties assigned to these convict battalions are neither the most agreeable nor the least perilous. At present, however, a detachment is employed on no unpleasant service, the care of a experimental military farm, near the camp of El Arrouch, in the district of Constantina. Here they cultivate a considerable tract of land, both farm and garden, breed cattle, and supply the colonists with seeds, fruit-trees, and so forth. Workshops are attached to the farm, for the manufacture of agricultural implements. The men who work as artisans receive three-pence, and the field labourers three halfpence, in addition to their daily pay. “Since the commencement of the experiment,” says Captain Kennedy, “the offences that have been committed bear but a small proportion to those that formerly occurred during a similar period in garrison.” In these days of reform in our military system, might not some hints be taken from such innovations as these? If employment is found to diminish crime amongst a troop of convicts, it might surely be expected to do as much in regiments to which no stigma is attached, and the vices of those members are often solely to be attributed to idleness and its concomitant temptations.
Of few men so largely talked of, and so justly celebrated, is so little positively known as of Abd-el-Kader. The contradictory accounts obtained from the tribes, the narratives of prisoners, who, from their very condition, were precluded from gathering other than partial and uncertain information, compose all the materials hitherto afforded for the history of this remarkable chieftain. Even his age is a matter of doubt, and has been variously stated, although it appears probable that he is now about forty years old. Seeing the great difficulty of obtaining authentic information, Captain Kennedy has abstained from nore than a brief reference to the Emir. At the period of his visit, Abd-el-Kader was not in the field, and his whereabout was very vaguely known—the French believing him to be “somewhere on the frontiers of Morocco.” In the absence, therefore, of trustworthy data, and of opportunities of personal observation, the captain says little on the subject. His reserve is unimitated by M. St Marie, who not only gives a detailed account of the Arab sultan, but prefixes to his book a portrait of that personage, with whom he claims to have had an interview. As regards the portrait, it may be as much like Abd-el-Kader as any other of the half-dozen we have met with, no two of which bore any similitude to each other. The account of the interview is rather marvellous. During his stay in the city of Algiers, M. St Marie went to breakfast with a young Belgian acquaintance, and found an Arab seated in his friend’s room, smoking a pipe. Refreshments were offered to the stranger, and, whilst he discussed them, the count had an opportunity of studying his countenance. He was struck with the dignity of his manner and deportment, and with his air of intellectual superiority, and was given to understand that he was sheik of a tribe friendly to the French. Breakfast over, the Arab departed. Two days afterwards, M. St Marie met his Belgian entertainer. “You were very fortunate the other day,” said the latter; “the Arab whom you saw, when breakfasting with me, was no other than the Emir himself.” And he proceeded to relate how Abd-el-Kader had entered the city with a party of peasants, carrying some chickens, which he sold in the marketplace, to prevent suspicion of his real character. He pledged his word to the truth of this statement, of whose accuracy the count appears satisfied. His readers will possibly be more incredulous. As a traveller’s story, the “yarn” may pass muster, and is, perhaps, not much out of place in the book where it is found. With it we conclude our notice of the rival “Algerias.” Those who desire further details of Bedouin douars and French encampments, of camels and Kabyles, razzias and the like, may seek and find them in the chronicle of the English captain, and the varied, but less authentic pages of the foreign count.