Chapter XVII

RAIN.—AN ENGLISH LADY’S OPINION ON THE ARABS.—WILD BIRDS.—THE EARTHQUAKE.

ND the blessed rain came. We had heard it pattering and plashing between our dreams, and, when we came out into the open air, it was moist and sweet and cool. For the first time throughout our entire journey we were unable to procure the coupé to ourselves, for the assizes were to commence at Mostaganem, and, what with witnesses, lawyers, plaintiffs and defendants, the diligence was more than crowded.

We could not see our companion, but, from the large share of the coupé that he monopolized, we thought he must be a very stout person indeed; alas, how we had hoped and prayed that he might prove thin! But there was no help for it, and, by the time we began to be cramped in every limb, came the blessed, beautifying daylight and the ever-shifting African landscape, that made us forget everything else.

We forgave our fellow-traveller his burliness after a while, for he proved so full of information and pleasant. He was a barrister, and told us of all the most important cases coming off at Mostaganem, and a fearful list it was. By far the greater number of prisoners were Arabs charged with assassinations. We told this gentleman of what we had heard at Tclemcen.

“In one place,” we said, “the Arabs are represented as harmless, improvable, mild: in another as the incarnation of villany. What are we to believe?”

“Well,” he said, “the fact is this, the Arabs are pauvres diables, and they are poorer now than they were before we came—that is to say, the Bedouin, the shepherd and the cultivator of a little land is poorer—and the consequence is, they are led from theft to murder. When we stop to change horses every one will alight to take coffee, and you will see a couple of priests, one looking as if he had just come out of a war-hospital. He was attacked near Tclemcen one evening, robbed, and left on the road for dead. That is one of the worst cases we have, though there are others of a piece with it. The priests ride on the box with the coachman, and in the rotunda are some Arabs who are going to witness on the side of the accused, one of them you must look at, too; he is dressed like a prince and has the face of le diable. He is the son of a Bach-Agha.”

By-and-by, we came to a little roadside caravansary, and every one got out, the handsome, nonchalant Arabs and their “murdered man,” among the rest. The poor curé looked very ill still, and had a gentlemanly, but shabby, appearance. The Bach-Agha’s son was dressed in purple and fine raiment, and looked a king—till you saw his face closely—when he looked a very Mephistopheles. It was an indescribably cruel, clever, sensual face,—a face from which you turned with repugnance.

After passing through some very lovely tamarisk-groves, amid which wound a broad, bright river, a branch of the Chelif, we entered upon the vast monotonous plain of the Habra. These African plains are only varied here and there by shifting bands of road-makers, military posts, and by little French colonies or Arab douars; and when you commence your journey, you feel as if it would never end. You cross horizon after horizon. You see a white speck in the distance and say, “That must be our halting-place;” but, when you arrive, it is a military post and nothing more—the dogs rush out barking and yelling, French Zouaves, who stand basking in the sun, come up to ask for newspapers and letters; and the Spahis look at us whilst they smoke their paper cigarettes, and show their white teeth as they say “Bon jour.” Then, after getting a glass of water or wine, the diligence moves slowly off, and we leave behind the glistening white post, the red-cloaked, brown-skinned Spahis, and the pack of dogs.

How hot it is! When we alight and walk a little way, ankle-deep in alpha grass and wild thyme, the leaves seem warm and dry as if the soil below were burning away with volcanic fire. We shall be sunburnt to the complexion of Moors before our journey is done, we say, and when inside the diligence, and pin up shawls and cloaks to keep out the wind that is as warm now as it was cold when we started. The plains have each a climate of their own, and travellers should always plan their journeys—as we did—to avoid crossing them at early morning or at night, when a terrible miasma arises from the soil and is never harmless, often as dangerous as poison.

Mostaganem is a lively little place, and on account of the assizes was full of strangers. Greatly to our amusement we encountered our stout compagnon du voyage on the evening of our arrival, as shrunk from his natural size as a rabbit after skinning. What strange metamorphose had changed him in so short a space from the size of a Falstaff to a lean and hungry-looking Cassius? It was very perplexing, but on a sudden it flashed on us like a revelation, that as all his luggage had consisted of a hat-box, and as he had doffed a thick grey travelling dress and donned a suit of shining black cloth, he must have carried his wardrobe on his back. It was very simple.

At Mostaganem I made the acquaintance of a countrywoman, the wife of a French gentleman holding a responsible official post there. Every one in Oran is sure to be an official if he is not in the army; and it is curious to see how the difference of calling modifies the political and social opinions. I never talked with a French officer who was not entirely opposed to the assimilation of races and incredulous of Arab civilization, nor with an official who was not equally enthusiastic about both. A prêfet, a sous-prêfet, a maire, or any other of the dozen gentlemen who administer justice and keep order in these French-African towns, is pretty sure to speak hopefully and humanely of the Arabs: a colonel or a commandant uses much the same tone about them as our officers up-country do regarding the Sepoys and Seedy-boys.

My countrywoman spoke of the Arabs with great sympathy.

“My heart bleeds for the poor people,” she said: “think of what they have suffered during the past year! They had planted their little bits of cornfields, and the corn was shooting up in abundance, when the locusts came in billions and trillions, and corn, potatoes, rye, everything was destroyed. They starve, or else they steal and fill our prisons and reformatories. People say, let them starve or work, but you cannot change the habits of a people in a day.

“Most of these poor things under trial now are Bedouins, as ignorant as savages from Timbuctoo. My husband told me yesterday of a poor little boy condemned to five years’ imprisonment for having stolen a turkey! Do you suppose, Madame, that that boy will come out of his prison a better French subject than he went in? I have lived for years among the Arabs—in Constantine, in Algeria, in Oran—I have studied Arabic on purpose to hold intercourse with them and to be able to sympathize with and understand my husband’s calling, and I have come to this conclusion—Madame, it is only by assimilation that the Arab is to be improved. There was a great outcry among the colonists after the Emperor had visited Africa in 1865, because he was said to show partiality to the Arab; but, good heavens, what a different position does the honest colon hold to the richest indigène? The colon is a Frenchman, and therefore a noble being; the indigène is an Arab, and what isn’t good enough for an Arab? For my part, I think the Emperor was wise in taking that tone. I think the colonists have much to suffer, but the Arabs incontestably more, and if the Emperor did not take their part, who would?”

We rested two nights at Mostaganem, and the blessed rain kept falling all the time, though no sooner were we on our way again, than the sun came out and all was bright and warm.

Our next halting place was Relizane. We reached Relizane in six hours’ easy travelling through a monotonous country, part wild, part cultivated, with flocks of cranes feeding on the pastures, vultures and eagles flying overhead, coveys of partridges whirring from the brushwood, and hares scuttling across the road as we passed along. Whenever we passed an Arab village, a crowd of half, or wholly naked children ran down and followed us, calling out for coppers. They would run incredible distances thus, and when a coin was thrown out, there would be a diving of little black polls in the grass, a momentary scramble, then all was ready to start afresh. Those who are fortunate enough to get the money, put it in their mouths—having no clothes they could clearly have no pockets—and, if not as comfortable, it was certainly a safe and convenient mode of carrying their spoils.

My journey properly ends at Relizane, since this is the last halting-place in Oran, the last Spanish province of Algeria. But we set foot on Algerian soil just as the first shock of earthquake had spread a panic throughout the length and breadth of the country, and I will give a page or two to that most terrible time.

Never shall I forgot our journey from Relizane to Algiers. We were happily under no apprehension about those dear to us at Algiers, as we had received telegrams from them assuring us of their safety, but every one we met had some fearful story to tell of the loss of life and property in the villages of the Metidja. We knew these villages well, having spent many days there not twelve months back; and our hearts failed us at the thought of what we were now to see in place of the peace and plenty we had seen then.

The first town within the devastated circle, Milianah, stood intact, though the prevailing panic was something indescribable. All the women were looking white and wan, some had lost friends and relatives in the Metidja, others had taken to their beds from sheer fright, a few awaited a final shock which was to be the ‘crack of doom.’ Wherever we went we heard descriptions of the terrible event, all more or less exaggerated. According to one, the Zakkar, a mountain as high as Snowdon rising to the north of Milianah, had rocked to and fro, emitting flames of fire; according to another, many houses had been split and shaken by the shock.

If the former account were true, we found the mouth of the Zakkar shut close enough, and its sides had grown marvellously green again since the catastrophe, though happening only a few days back. We walked round and round the town and saw no houses that had taken any harm. The shock was, nevertheless, awful, as we gathered from the plain, unvarnished account given us by the prefêt. He had expected at the time nothing more nor less than the entire destruction of Milianah.

The shock had been severely felt at Algiers and Blidah, but it was a little cluster of villages in the Metidja, by name, Bou-kika, Mouzaiaville, El-Affrom, and La Chiffa, that had suffered most. Our way lay straight through that village; and so recent was the calamity, and so inaccurate the accounts of it, that we set off to Algiers without in the least knowing where we could break the journey. Some people said, “Bou-kika is unharmed; you will find every accommodation at Bou-kika;” others said, “You will have to go right to Blidah, and break your journey there. Blidah is recovering itself, and you will find the hotels much the same as if nothing had happened.” A third said, “Blidah is as empty as a plundered place. There isn’t a crust of bread to be had there.”

In this uncertainty we set off. It was a superb moonlight night, and as we passed along, we saw woeful things.

We had talked of sleeping at Bou-kika, but Bou-kika was as dead and silent as if death were in every dwelling. Every one, in fact, was encamped outside the village, and a knot of soldiers, gathered round a watch-fire, guarded the deserted houses. Here the ruin had been partial; but soon we came to great, ghastly spectres of what, a week ago, had been thriving little towns—each with its church, its hotel, its shops and cafés. Here and there, above great heaps of brick and mortar, stood out a chimney, a wall, or a doorway, or, indeed, a whole house, split like a pomegranate; but the place had collapsed like a child’s cardhouse. One must tread upon the heels of an earthquake to understand what it is—the suddenness of it—the despair of it—the desolation of it.[14]

More than a hundred souls had been buried alive here; and what testifies to the paralysing nature of the shock is the great proportion of young children. Mothers were so horrified that they rushed out of doors, leaving their sleeping babies behind!

We reached Blidah early in the morning, and found the town as deserted as if stricken by a plague. The large, prosperous hotel where we had often stayed before, was shut up. The streets were silent, the shops were all closed; thankful enough were we to get a little coffee and a morsel of bread at a little cabaret before taking the early train to Algiers. All Blidah was encamped outside the town, and the long lines of tents, and the unwonted aspect of hundreds of wealthy families turned out of house and home, and shifting for themselves in the best way they could, was sad and strange. It was breakfast-time. Coffee was boiling on every little camp-fire, children were running about borrowing a neighbour’s cup or pitcher; ladies were making their toilettes as best they could; men were wandering hither and thither, smoking away their disturbed thoughts.

The Arabs alone looked unmoved. “It is the will of God,” they say when any evil happens, and they resign themselves to it, outwardly calm as statues.

In about an hour and a half we reached Algiers. The weather was glorious; and as we drove up to the well-known villa on the green height of Mustapha Supérieure, and looked down upon the bright, blue sea, and the glistening shore, and the white Moorish city crowning the sunny Sahel, we said that Spain had showed us no fairer prospect.

And yet we were sorry—who would not be?—that our journey had come to an end. May all those who follow in our track find the same bright skies and pleasant faces, and bring home from Spain and Oran as many happy memories as we did.

LONDON: Printed by Strangeways and Walden, 28 Castle St. Leicester Sq.

FOOTNOTES: