Chapter XXXVIII A Few Sketches of Arab Life
1. Summer in the Sahara
Having now endeavored to give the reader a general idea of Algeria from all points of view, I propose to close this book with a few sketches of my life among the Arabs.
There is nothing particularly striking about these experiences, but I feel they will lift a further veil on the inner life of these people whose privacy it is so difficult to penetrate. Only years of contact have opened the innermost doors of their homes, only the word of some intimate friend telling of the fellowship between the lone Englishman and the people of Algeria has removed all suspicious constraint, only the reputation of simplicity and the instinct of caste has brought them to me with all their ideas laid bare.
However, before describing these scenes I would like the reader to catch a glimpse of the country in a clothing different from that thrown on the screen by the Circuits Transatlantiques. The average traveler will have fled the shores of North Africa before the first months of summer, when the big hotels in Algiers have closed their shutters and the syncopated saxophonists have packed up their greasy dinner-jackets and crossed to cooler climes. The hot weather in Algiers itself is singularly unpleasant, not so much from the point of view of temperature, which never rises very high, but because of the damp. It is like living in a steam bath all day, and correspondingly tiring.
Once in the plains of the Mitidja, however, or up in the hills, the heat is greater but the air is dry, and provided one keeps quiet in the middle of the day one can quite well bear the summer months. The temperature of the Sahara is high, but the heat, being very dry, is not too unpleasant, and though it is not recommended to pass July and August in an oasis it is no real hardship for the young and healthy once in a while.
In the first place houses are built to protect one from the sun; very thick mud walls plastered over, which do not attract the heat, outside verandahs or inner courts open to the sky, and heavy shutters, make it possible to keep the house comparatively cool during the middle hours of the day. Life too is organized to meet the requirements of the weather. All business is contracted between six and ten. At eleven everything closes, including the post-office, and remains shut until three. During these hours lunch is eaten, followed by the siesta, and it is not until four that those who are not forced to, appear. By five the main street presents an animated aspect of Arabs strolling up and down in their white robes, while the cafés begin to fill up. Those who have gardens in the oasis repair to them and work until friends arrive to pay calls and discuss the produce of the rich soil over cups of mint tea, while in a secluded corner the women squat with the children and gossip in whispers.
Sometimes an Arab of importance will give a dinner in his garden. A carpet is spread out on the ground, a brass tray is placed in the middle, while near-by the sheep is being roasted whole on a brushwood fire. A flutist or a guitarist will play under the orange-trees by the light of the summer moon. The diners will often remain on the carpet the whole night and return direct to their business in the morning.
These gardens are worthy of note. They are not usually anywhere near the residence of the owner, who lives in the town; they vary in size from three acres to half an acre, and are planted with fruit-trees and vegetables, which grow in astonishing abundance. In fact, with the exception of the dates, the oranges and the apricots, all the fruit can not be disposed of. It is a wonderful sight to see gardens full of pears and apricots and figs and strawberries and pomegranates, while vines heavy with grapes climb up the walls and the tall date-palms nod in the warm breeze, protecting the garden from the fiercest rays of the midday sun.
In the terrible months of July and August one wonders why the leaves of the trees do not shrivel up under the fiery rays of the summer sun. But on the other hand it must be remembered that all is a matter of contrast and that during the midwinter months, when the temperature is that of April in England, it is cold for the Sahara vegetation, and trees are as leafless as those at home in the same period. In fact, vegetation on the Riviera in winter is infinitely more abundant than on the edge of the Sahara at the same season.
The desert too, like the gardens of the oasis, presents a totally different aspect in summer from that which might be supposed. Whereas this heat transferred to England would burn up every blade of grass, here it brings to the surface all kinds of scrub vegetation, and standing on an eminence looking over the northern tracts of the Sahara, the view presents a greener impression than to the tourist in winter. The nights too are comparatively cool, and a blanket is sometimes required after midnight when the stony land has cooled and when the house is storing up all the fresh air before the hermetic closing of all windows at sunrise.
If, therefore, those who stay all the summer will mind the precepts of all hot countries, a reverential respect for the sun, a light diet and abstinence from alcohol, they will not suffer too much, provided the experience is not repeated too often.
The flies are tiresome, but there is little disease, and except during famine years the typhus does not appear. The sun is a marvelous disinfectant, and the mortality in these southern cities is very low.
But when the sirocco starts blowing it is a very different story. It always comes in series of three, six, nine days, and it usually rises at dawn. There is no mistaking it. Peacefully asleep, one suddenly awakes to the rattle of shutters and a sensation that one’s hair is being scorched on one’s head. Every one is up immediately, closing every window to keep in a little freshness. The day is terrible; standing in front of a furnace in a glass factory is the only comparison possible, intensified by great clouds of whirling sand which come sweeping across the desert and which drive on for miles, shrouding the sun in a kind of yellow cloak and creeping even into one’s innermost chamber as one tries in vain to keep out of the heat.
But apart from the ordeal of sirocco days a man sensibly dressed and living a reasonable life in an oasis of the Sahara, with an average shade temperature of one hundred degrees is better off than the tall-hatted Londoner devouring his copious British lunch and not resting in the middle of the day, and the tourist who will venture south in June will return home with a marvelous impression of real summer.
2. Staying in a Country House in the Tell
Staying in an Arab country house is as different from staying in a country house in Europe as it is possible to imagine. (I am speaking, of course, from the point of view of intimate friends who are treated as the Arabs.)
In the first place there is no specific invitation; one is asked to come and stay, say in the summer, and when one feels inclined, one arrives. If one is polite one wires beforehand, but it is not expected. Secondly, one goes always with some specific object—to shoot, to visit flocks, to contract some business in the neighborhood, but rarely just to stay.
When one arrives the host may or may not be there; if he is not he will have delegated some near relation to do the honors in his place, and he may appear during the course of the visit. In the same way he may suddenly go away when one has only been there a few days, but it does not in the least suggest a hint for the guest to leave; a deputy host will take his place and things will go on in exactly the same way.
Another thing in an Arab home, which is quite peculiar to the country, is the fact that the guests not of the actual family neither eat nor sleep in the house in which the people live, that is to say that there is a kind of guest annex which is only opened on these occasions. This custom is chiefly due to the presence of the women, who might be difficult to conceal from strangers if they had access to the main building.
The particular country house I am going to describe belongs to a bash agha and is situated in the Tellian Atlas near to the village of Bourbaki. The country is mountainous and produces cereals.
I arrived two days late for my visit, but not at all through my fault, as I had arranged to go by train to Boghari, where my host would send me a car. I arrived at the specified time, but the conveyance did not come for forty-eight hours. I naturally expressed astonishment and some annoyance, but it seemed to surprise the driver, to whom a day or so before or after meant so little.
When I arrived, dinner awaited me, and I was pleased to see that I was being treated really as one of the family, and that there were no tables or chairs, no knives and forks. The party was assembled in a pillared courtyard open to the sky, with jasmine and rose bushes growing around. Two lemon-trees stood at either end, and above us a July moon shed a gentle radiance.
We sat down in three circles. In the first group was the bash agha, myself, my caïd partner of the sheep farm, an old schoolmaster and a very aged imam. In the second group were the bash agha’s sons, his nephews, and his chief clerk. In the third group were my head shepherd, the chauffeur, and the rest of the retainers.
The food was first of all placed in the center of our circle, and we all dipped into the common bowl: when we had had enough it was passed to the second circle, who did likewise, until it was finished by the third party. While the third group was eating we began our next course, and the servant was able to join the last group.
“Servant” is not exactly the right word, as “khedime,” which is literally translated by “servant,” is almost a term of insult. The people who wait and look after the house of an Arab chief are not considered in the same way as those who minister to us. In the first place they are not paid, but are merely clothed and lodged—they and their families, and when they get too old they are kept on and their sons take their places for the actual work.
When dinner was over and we had washed our faces and hands and tea and coffee had been brought, we stretched out our legs on the carpet. While we in our little circle began to smoke, the other groups broke up and moved silently out of the court, for in the presence of their elders they could not light a cigarette; in fact, during the whole of the meal they had conducted their conversation in respectful whispers.
For an hour or so we sat and conversed on all kinds of subjects, then one by one the Arabs dropped off into a doze, no constraint, no endeavoring to keep awake when sleep dominated. For a while they slumbered, then, coming to again, said good night and went off to the other part of the house to rest, while I settled myself in the vast guest-chamber in a large brass bed.
In the middle of the night there was an earthquake. It did not last very long, but for a moment the house shook violently. The household rose in commotion, and the bash agha came rushing into my room fully dressed, which proved to me again that these men sleep in their clothes. He looked at me in surprise.
“How is this,” he cried, “an earthquake and you remain in bed without moving?”
I laughed.
“It is I who should be surprised,” I replied, “for with your belief in the mektoub you shouldn’t worry about such trifles as earthquakes.”
His eyes twinkled in spite of his emotion.
“You are right,” he said, “what is written is written, and none but Allah can interfere. Good rest!”
He left me and I heard him outside admonishing the others for making such a noise.
The next day we motored up to see some of the bash agha’s cattle in the cedar forest near Teniet el Haad. This is one of the finest excursions in Algeria, but it is unfortunately off the tourist track, and practically no one goes there.
It is, however, quite a simple journey, and if the traveler wishes to see real forest he has but to motor from Algiers, either via Tipaza and Miliana, which is in itself a gorgeous drive, and continue to the south by Boghari, or else he can return to Algiers by Goghari and Medea. If he does not have a car he can take the train to Affreville, where an excellent motor-bus will land him at Teniet el Haad. Here there is quite a good hotel of the unluxurious type.
The cedar forest is in the mountains some fourteen kilometers along a quite passable mountain road. It winds steeply up through pine-trees, then little by little the cedars begin to appear standing erect, their long arms stretched out forming roofs of that delicate blue-green. As one progresses the cedar alone remains, increasing in size until one comes upon giant trees a hundred feet high and with a circumference of seven or eight yards. The view over the valleys below is superb.
We stopped at a clearing where the bash agha kept a small house, and we went in search of the cows. It took some time to find them, but during our walk we passed some really magnificent trees—giants, centuries old. On our return to the house I was surprised to find, instead of the cold chicken and beef associated with picnics in the mountains, a five-course hot lunch with the best wine of Algeria.
The bash agha explained that he always kept all material ready in his chalet, and that it only needed the bringing of the food to have it prepared. As a matter of fact I have always noticed with Arabs that in the question of meals there are no half-measures. One either spends the whole day out with nothing except perhaps a piece of bread, or else one sits down to a feast in the most out-of-the-way place.
The meal was excellent, too excellent, with the result that we all went to sleep after. When we woke up it was late afternoon and the sun was glinting through the blue branches of the cedars and lighting up the forest in a fairy fashion. One expected to see gnomes and elves appear from out of the vast trunks. We drove back in the sunset, the softest light imaginable, but quite unlike the golden radiance of the Sahara.
The following day was market-day at Burdeau, some thirty kilometers away, so that every one was astir at dawn, and before sunrise every male member of the household had piled into the cars and we were speeding across the cereal plain which overlooks the Sersou. All the aghas and caïds of the district as well as those from the south were there, and there was much kissing and shaking of hands.
I saw here another curious example of the respect of the younger generation for the older. I wanted my breakfast, so I went into a café with the caïd; my partner and I ordered our coffee. It was just being brought when up jumped the caïd and went off into the street. I followed anxiously, and to my surprise he went into the café opposite, where he ordered the same collation. This time it was actually brought and set on the table, when like a flash my companion was up again and outside before I could speak.
I caught him up and saw that he was making for the original café.
“Hi!” I cried, “what’s all this about? Is it a game? Why can’t we eat in peace? I’m hungry.”
“Didn’t you notice?” he asked calmly.
“Notice what?” I asked.
“My uncle, the bash agha of the Larbas.”
“No, I can’t say I did,” I replied, “but what of it?”
“He came into the first café when I was sitting there, and I couldn’t remain; and then just as I had settled in the next, he came in there too.”
“And I suppose we shall go on chasing round Burdeau till the old gentleman settles or until we die of hunger,” I laughed back. “No, mon vieux, I’m hungry, and I won’t starve for any one.”
So saying I took my coffee and roll and carried it across to the bash agha’s table, where I sat down and explained my action. He smiled, but I realized that he was smiling to please me, and that he saw nothing in the inconvenience caused to his nephew, who might wait all day for his coffee if necessary.
On the way back we called on various caïds and rich farmers, who gave us quantities of sweet mint tea. At one house the old bash agha, who had accompanied us, found an aged kadi who played chess, so he insisted on having a game while we all had to wait, regardless of the fact that it was getting near dinner-time.
How different from the customs of Europe, where age is, if anything, jeered at. Fancy giving a lift to some one’s grandfather after a day in the country and having to wait while he played a silly game with a local judge whom he met in some one else’s house!
And so the pleasant visit wore on. Each day we did something different, each day we had enormous meals until finally I was obliged to leave. Looking back on the visit the thing which strikes me the most is the complete lack of fuss during the whole of my stay. Everything was done quite haphazardly and yet without a hitch. I suppose it is the effect of centuries of such existence which remains as a background and which is carried on generation after generation. A few modern inventions have appeared which facilitate things a bit, but otherwise the same life is led with exactly the same ideas as it was twelve hundred years ago, and it seems difficult to see any radical change ever taking place. In this mode life runs smoothly for the Arabs; complications do not trouble them, so why change?
3. A Week-end With a Marabout
The Marabout of Kourdane asked me to spend a week-end with him to discuss the possibilities of organizing a moufflon shoot in the Djbel Amour. I was interested in the prospects of getting a moufflon, but still more interested to see Kourdane.
Situated in the Sahara some fifty kilometers from Laghouat, at the foot of the Djebel Amour Range, this country home of marabouts was created by a Frenchwoman known as Madame Aurélie, whose maiden name was Aurélie Picard, the daughter of a gendarme. She had met the Marabout of Aïn Mahdi at Bordeaux when he had been exiled during the insurrection of 1870. She married him in France, and when he was allowed to return to Algeria she came too, and became a great personage in the country. At his death she married his brother, and continued as lady of this desolate area, loved and respected by all. Finally the second husband died too, and she remained on alone for a while in the wonderful house she had built. She is still alive, but she rarely returns to the scenes of her greatness for two reasons; in the first place, the present marabouts are not quite the saints they should be, and secondly, they are all a little jealous of her reputation.
As I had never seen this desert castle I accepted with alacrity, and left with a friend one Saturday morning in a car. The road on leaving Laghouat is to the north, but soon it turns southwest across a desolate land of sand and rocks. I had decided to lunch with an old friend of mine, the Caïd of Tadgemout. I reached the ksar at noon: a sad, desolate little village partly in ruins, perched on the top of a rocky eminence overlooking a small oasis, very green in the midst of the desert. The road climbed up behind the rock and emerged before the caïd’s house, which dominates the oasis. The view from his terrace is one of the most impressive in these parts. In the immediate foreground, the oasis, then a silver thread of water running down the river-bed and away, away, the desert. But unlike most of the Saharan views the horizon is cut all of a sudden by a group of rugged hills standing up grim and bare. Again, looking to the northwest the scene is not at all expected, as one’s eyes rest on the great range of the Djebel Amour, deep blue against the brilliant sky.
Tadgemout is said to mean the “Crown of Death,” and was the capital of a desert queen whose every punishment even for the smallest crime was death. It is a place which grows upon one, and one is loath to leave its lonely site.
The caïd himself is a charming person, far superior to most of his kind, both in intelligence and manners. This is partly due to his own efforts and also to the fact that during the war he was made prisoner and, being eventually exchanged as an invalid, spent a long time in Switzerland, where he attended lectures at Geneva University and came in contact with all kinds of people. He received us before his door and led us into the guest-house where one of those interminable repasts was prepared. We discussed all manners of extraordinary subjects, or rather I was subjected to a series of endless questions, as the caïd is of an inquisitive turn of mind. One remark is worthy of note as showing the curious working of an Oriental brain.
He suddenly said:
“Why don’t Protestant clergymen wear vestments like the Catholics?”
I began with a dissertation on the Reformation, but he knew all about that.
After lunch he accompanied us on our journey. The road dipped down into a dried river-bed, where the car stuck; we all had to climb out and push; no comment was made, as this is one of the most usual occurrences when motoring across the Sahara. The road continued desolate as we drew near to the blue mountains.
Suddenly a great block of buildings stood out of the wasted land; a garden covering at least a square mile surrounded it, making a wonderful contrast of green.
“Kourdane,” replied my companion to my inquiry; “the house built by Madame Aurélie; the garden created by her with water from many wells; everything done on the most lavish scale and now hardly appreciated by her descendants.”
Indeed, as we approached the wide portal of the outer wall, I noticed that the building had not been whitewashed for years and that the plaster was peeling off. Fissures had appeared, and though the mass of the edifice struck one forcibly after the usual one-storied Arab houses, I realized that we were in a splendor of the past.
The marabout hurried out to greet us. Small of stature, with decidedly negro features, his general appearance on first contact was not impressive. And yet as one watched him one realized a kind of superiority engrained by many generations of domination. My caïd kissed his hand, the chauffeur kissed his hand and his head; the young man took it all as calmly as the hand-shake I gave him. He led us along the side of the house to the front and here, of a sudden, one was transported out of any sort of Arab setting. Instead of the usual small doorway leading to some dim ante-chamber or narrow staircase, we came upon a great flagged space interspersed with flower-beds and fountains and rivulets, while tall cypresses grew about, protecting the garden from the desert winds.
A broad staircase built of rosy stone led up to a terrace pillared and tiled in delicate shades, giving an impression of majesty, of far-away power, of magnificence. We mounted the stairway and were led into a dining-room quite simple in spite of its size, and then into a drawing-room. An array of superb Arab furniture filled the room, not the tawdry tables and chairs bought in Algiers, but the real work of the country: chests of drawers, cupboards, brackets inlaid with mother-of-pearl, priceless carpets on the floor, and lovely hangings over the doors; swords and daggers of all periods festooned the walls. We passed out of the drawing-room on to a gallery running all the length of the building, and on to which opened the guestrooms. As we entered the first, I was struck by the richness of the setting, by the real Arab bed hung about with brocaded curtains, then I realized that I was not in one room but in a series. I turned in surprise to the caïd. He smiled at my astonishment and explained that at Kourdane every guest had his private suite—bedroom, sitting-room, dining-room—and that in the old days of the Great Marabout meals were sent separately to each person who spent the night there. The importance of the repast varied according to the standing of the guest, but great or small, he was waited on in his own apartment. Afterward every one met in the drawing-room for coffee.
“Even now,” he added, “we shall dine in the dining-room without our host, who will be served apart.”
I could find nothing to say; the old baronial hall of the Middle Ages with the high table seemed eclipsed.
We returned to the garden and were led with reverence to the tomb of the marabout. It was built round an ancient tree under which he was wont to take his afternoon sleep. A light burned perpetually there.
We visited the domain, and the richness of the vast garden in the middle of the desolate land was almost as impressive as the pomp of the house.
At seven-thirty we dined, and as the caïd had predicted, our meal was partaken without the host. There was a sheep roasted whole, with one of the best Bordeaux wines I had tasted for a long time. Afterward the little marabout came in and took his coffee with us in the gorgeous drawing-room. We talked for a while about shooting and then, turning toward a battered piano, contrasting sadly with the rest of the furnishings, he asked if any one could play. My English companion was persuaded to approach the keyboard. The holy atmosphere inspired him to play Nazareth, but the sounds evoked from the yellow notes were so unexpected that he swiftly changed into a Waldteufel waltz, though it did not sound at all like the tune I knew. However, this did not in the least matter, and the Arabs sat spellbound as the unspeakable discords burst from the instrument which had not been tuned for fifty years.
Finally the party broke up and we retired to our respective apartments in an atmosphere of decadent grandeur. During the night I was awakened by the casements rattling, and though I tried to turn over and sleep again, I knew instinctively what it meant. As soon as I was called I walked out on to the terrace and at once realized that my intuition was right. A fierce wind was blowing up from the southeast and clouds of sand and dust were whirling across the desert. As the day increased the wind rose and the sand which had merely been coming in gusts became a cloud which swept across the land, enveloping all.
The sun tried to pierce the pall of dust, but little by little it was obliterated and the atmosphere became that of a sea mist mixed up with a London fog. Dust, sand, grit filtered its way in everywhere while the wind roared through the cypress trees and about the house. By lunch-time the sand-storm was at its height and the light of day was no brighter than at dusk. We had, however, promised to go over to Aïn Mahdi, a few miles farther on, and visit the head marabout. We rolled ourselves in burnouses, wrapped our heads in chechs, and started off in the car. The Djebel Amour was quite obscured, and the whirling sand stung our faces, while above, miles above it seemed, the great yellow cloud swept on.
Aïn Mahdi is a holy city, walled and fortified, which lies at the western end of the Djebel Amour. Built about the eleventh century it used to be a university town and a city of great learning, where some of the most valuable manuscripts were produced. During the middle of the last century the holy order of the Tidjanis was founded and took up its headquarters here. The Tidjanis have branches all over the Moslem world, which explains the riches of Kourdane, as well as the great fortune of the old gentleman we were going to see. All the members of these branches send their yearly offering to the seat of their order, and the annual revenue of the marabout’s family probably exceeds any income in the world.
We passed in through a square archway and stopped in front of two fine old doors standing at right angles to one another in the corner of a small square. The first was the mosque, the second the zaouia. Taking off our shoes we entered the mosque. Built on old foundations, the present structure is only some hundred years old, but it is exceedingly picturesque. A courtyard with tall trees growing in the middle first meets the eye; at the foot of the opposite wall is an old bronze cannon captured from Abd-el-Kader, who besieged the holy city in 1838.
Turning to the left, we entered the shrine, small and dim, but which nevertheless disclosed some lovely green tiles lining the walls. On the floor were beautiful carpets, while banners of the saints hung from the graceful arches. On the far side a dark mass, suggesting a catafalque, with glints of gold and silver and precious stones, draped about with costly stuffs, could be seen, and under it the tomb of the Great Marabout, founder of the order.
On leaving the mosque we went to the marabout’s house and were received by his son, a very strong negroid type, but always with that look of self-assurance, that almost regal presence. He could not have been more than twenty, but he held out his hand to be kissed as if he ruled the world.
His house was clean but modern, and after eating cakes and drinking sweet tea we took a walk through the town. Unlike most of the oasis villages it is built entirely of stone, and though the houses might be in a better state of repair, it gives a more solid impression than the usual mud streets. Another most striking thing is that the women not of maraboutic blood all go about unveiled, and the marriages are not arranged as in ordinary Mohammedan centers—by the parents— but the young men are allowed to court the ladies of their choice, who are at liberty to refuse their suitors. The female descendants of the marabouts are, on the contrary, veiled at the age of eight, and never unveil until they die.
My companion of Tadgemout took us to visit his uncle, the Caïd of Aïn Mahdi, who again plied us with tea; from there we progressed to the house of another marabout, and so on until we were so saturated in mint and tea and coffee that we could hardly walk, and we had practically no time to visit the looms where they weave the famous blue and red carpets of the Djebel Amour. However, the day was drawing on, and we had to think of returning to Kourdane, so, accompanied by a host of marabouts of all ages we reached our car, where the accolades and hugs rebegan. One felt as if one had stepped right back hundreds and hundreds of years into some scene of the past, and indeed it might have been so, for the life of these people has not changed in the least degree since the days of the foundation of the city, when King Harold sat on the throne of Britain and William the Conqueror cast longing glances across the channel.
Armor, trunk-hose, laces, curls, ruffles, knee-breeches, pantaloons, tall hats, have come into fashion and disappeared in England since those days, but to the children of Aïn Mahdi it has never occurred to dress otherwise than in a gandourah and burnous, and I don’t suppose that it ever will.
When we left the gates of the city the wind had dropped, but the sand still hung like a great pall over the land, just as when a dust is raised in a room it hangs in the air for some time before settling. Our visit was almost over, and next morning we took leave of our hospitable little host, and returned to Laghouat, realizing that we had had an experience which would last long in our minds.
4. A Day’s Fishing in Southern Algeria
Jelloul ben Lahkdar, bash agha of the Larba tribe about the oasis of Laghouat, is a man with the presence of an emperor, and when I meet him I feel that I ought to kneel down and kiss his hand.
I do not do this, however, partly because it would be misconstrued, and partly because the bash agha is a charming old gentleman with a sense of humor, and one whose soul is simplicity itself. He is rather a tyrant with the younger members of his family, and I know that they are very frightened of him, and that they are like young schoolboys when he is with them.
However, this does not prevent his being a very entertaining companion, and though he rarely maintains a lengthy conversation, what he says is wise and to the point. When I met him, therefore, in Chellala, a little market-town nestling among the hills some two hundred miles north of the Sahara, I was delighted.
“Why, what are you doing here, bash agha?” I exclaimed, after we had passed through the lengthy Arab greeting which is very poetical but rather tedious in the long run.
“I have taken up my summer quarters with the Caïd Ali, my cousin,” he replied. “And you, my friend?”
“Oh, I’ve just come up for the sheep-market.”
“You dine with us to-night,” he went on, “you will taste some fish.”
“Thank you,” I replied, “it will be a pleasure to dine at your hospitable table and a luxury to eat fish from the sea.”
“They do not come from the sea,” he replied. “They are fish from the river at Taguine, forty kilometers from here.”
“Freshwater fish,” I exclaimed. “I have lived in this country long, but I did not know such things existed in Algeria!”
He smiled.
“Come and see,” he went on, and, patting my arm, continued his stately promenade down the road.
I went and found a party of Arab chiefs I knew. More solemn greetings. At the beginning of the long meal the fish was served. There was no doubt about it, they were good-sized river-fish, a kind of carp or perch or gudgeon with little taste.
The bash agha smiled at my surprise.
“Would you care to fish them yourself?” he enquired.
“Most certainly,” I replied, “but I have no rod or line with me.”
“I am going to Taguine to-morrow,” he went on, “and if you come here at eight I will give you a lift, and you can lunch there with me. I’ll see that you are supplied with rods and lines.”
I thanked him warmly, wondering in myself what the fishing could be like.
The next morning a cavalier or Arab retainer came round and, entering my room, roused me from my slumbers by telling me that the bash agha awaited me.
I bounded from my bed and looked out of the window at the clock on the Administrateur’s office, but it said only seven. I pointed this out to the cavalier and explained that I had been warned for eight. He did not seem in the least impressed, and only repeated the information that the bash agha awaited me. I gathered that he expected me to run down in my pajamas. Arabs rarely undress, and wash only at the Turkish bath and at meals, and they can not understand that a European can’t walk straight out of his bed to his daily duties.
I failed to convey any of this to the cavalier, and he left me, repeating that the bash agha awaited me.
At seven-thirty the Caïd Madani came into my room and, after passing through the ritual of early morning salutations, informed me that the bash agha awaited me.
I said, “But he warned me for eight, and it is only seven-thirty.”
He said, “But the bash agha is ready.”
I said, “Well, he ought to have told me to come earlier.”
The caïd did not seem to understand my point of view, and only replied, “Well, perhaps you will hurry; I will wait down-stairs.”
I hurried, and eventually dashed out, followed by my companion, to where the car waited. The bash agha sat in a chair and smoked a meerschaum pipe. He was surrounded by a group of Arab chiefs.
“What respect,” I said to myself. “The old man goes out for the day and all the chiefs come to see him off.”
The bash agha saluted me and made no reference to the hour of our departure. I felt relieved.
His chauffeur got into the car, the old gentleman got in beside him. The Caïd Madani motioned me to get in behind, the Caïd Madani got in after me, the Caïd Aïssa got in after the Caïd Madani, the Sheik Marhoun got in after the Caïd Aïssa, the kadi got in after the Sheik Marhoun. The Caïd Ali said, “I don’t think I shall come, there isn’t much room left.”
All the others protested, so he got in too.
The Caïd Mohamed categorically refused to make a ninth.
The bash agha turned round and said, “Well, I think we are all here. Let us start.”
The car moved off. At the entrance of the town the Sheik Marhoun said, “Do you think that we’ve got enough petrol to get there and back?”
“Inch Allah,” replied the chauffeur.
The kadi, who is a practical man, and who likes his comforts, interposed, “I think you had better make certain.”
The chauffeur made certain and found there was enough to do about one mile down hill.
We therefore returned to the town to get some. No one seemed to mind, though; my seven Arabs made no comment and remained as placid as if the filling of the petrol tank was merely a childish whim of the kadi. I felt certain that they were saying to themselves, “If the car lacks fuel, Allah will surely provide.”
I said to the kadi, “Lucky you thought of asking.”
He smiled benignly. I love the kadi. He is a charming person. He is the Mohammedan Judge of Chellala, and he looks like an early Victorian Englishman: fair beard, very white skin, a slightly rubicund nose, clear blue eyes, and long white hands. If he wore a pair of nankeen pantaloons and a choker instead of a burnous and a turban, he would be the image of what Alfred de Musset must have been in his prime. The kadi has, moreover, a great sense of humor.
When we had filled up, we rolled off first of all through the mountains of Chellala and then on to the great open plains which run down to the Sahara, forming some of the finest pasture-land of Algeria.
My companions all chatted away to each other about their sheep-raising, their crops, their horses, their falcons, their shooting—all those things so dear to these country gentlemen.
Occasionally they poked fun at the kadi, who is not a warrior nor a sportsman, but he always had a sharp retort which sent them into helpless laughter.
Finally we arrived at Taguine and stopped for a moment at the monument which marks the place where the Duc d’Aumale’s flying column captured the whole of the Emir-el-Kader’s smala in 1843 and thus broke his long resistance.
This was an occasion to rain more jokes on the kadi’s head, as he is a direct descendant of the great emir, and it was the great-uncle of the Caïd Aïssa, the loyal General Yusuf, who was in command of the native cavalry on this occasion.
As soon as we alighted, the various chiefs had business to attend to, and I was despatched to fish. I was furnished with a long pole, on the end of which was a piece of thin rope to which was further riveted a hook. There was also a box of worms.
My guide was an ex-soldier dressed in a tattered burnous on which was proudly pinned the Croix de Guerre, and under which he wore a seedy frock coat with satin facings. He had no socks, but a pair of very battered slippers.
After trudging through the fields of standing barley for about half an hour we came to a kind of brown ditch with a rivulet one yard broad trickling sadly down the middle.
“Here is the river,” said the guide proudly.
I said nothing, but looked anxiously into the trickle, but all I could see were five or six tortoises paddling about. Eton days when I kept these beasts in a biscuit box in the wash-stand, hidden from the eagle eyes of m’tutor, returned to me, but I somehow did not connect them with rods and hooks.
My companion seemed to read my thoughts. “The fish are further on,” he said simply; “come!”
I followed him along the bank and eventually we came to a deep, muddy pool about twenty feet square. The Arab squatted down, knotted a cork into the middle of the rope, baited my hook and handed me the pole. I took it and felt inclined to laugh. It reminded me of that stupid Christmas game where one fishes for useless presents out of a tub. However, I lowered the worm into the opaque water and waited. Two minutes had hardly passed when down went the cork. Instinctively I struck. Memories of sudden thrills by tumbling streams, the hiss of a line running out, the bend of the rod, flashed before me. But they were only visions, for I had struck so violently, and the string or cable at the end of my pole was so strong, that I jerked the fish right out of the pool and on to the bank.
My fisherman instantly rescued it from the hook and I took it up to examine it. I expected to find the mud-fish which I had often come across in certain Indian rivers; but not at all. In shape it resembled a perch, but though the fins were red, there were none of the sharp points on the back, and the color was more that of a carp. Its weight was about two ounces.
I continued fishing. We visited some three or four pools, and in two hours I caught nearly one hundred of these fish. The majority were like the first, but there were a dozen or so of over a quarter of a pound, and two must have weighed a good twelve ounces.
Finally surfeited with this somewhat crane-like occupation, I trudged back.
Clouds were banking up over there toward the north, and the Arab watched them with interest.
“Two days, rain now, sidi,” he exclaimed, “will double our crops and afford pasturage for the flocks for the rest of the summer.”
I reached the house of the Caïd Aïssa to find my friends all sitting in a circle on a priceless Djebel Amour carpet, and looking hungrily out of the door where four Arabs turned a sheep spitted on a long pole before a brushwood fire. The sheep was becoming a glorious golden color as the chief turnspit poured fat on its roasting sides. After my long walk the smell of this cooking meat roused my appetite.
I slipped off my shoes and went and sat down on a cushion beside the bash agha. I told him all about my fishing exploits, but he didn’t seem to take the least interest in my tale. He merely turned to me and said: “These foolish young men have brought you out to lunch here and they have forgotten to bring knives or forks or plates, so you will have to eat like us.”
“Oh,” I replied, rather nervously, “I consider that eating with one’s hands is much more cleanly than using knives and forks which may not have been washed.”
The bash agha grunted and the others looked anxiously about. I realized that the old man was in one of his tyrannical moods.
At last one of the cooks came in and demanded if he should serve.
“Of course,” said the bash agha, “but where is the Caïd Madani?”
“He is saying his prayers,” ventured the Sheik Marhoun.
The bash agha said, “Alham dullah!” (“May Allah be praised”), but his eyes expressed, “Why the deuce must this idiot say his prayers at lunchtime?”
I was seized with an uncontrollable desire to laugh, so I went to the door and I saw, out on the plain, the tall figure of Madani, his burnous spread out before him, bowing and prostrating himself with that complete lack of self-consciousness so remarkable in all Mohammedan devotions.
However, he finished and, after remaining for a moment in meditation gazing out toward Mecca, he took up his burnous and returned to us.
A low table and tray were brought and placed before the bash agha. He motioned me to seat myself beside him, he called the kadi, and he called an aged agha who seemed to have suddenly grown out of the earth at the smell of food. The others went and squatted at a respectful distance from the old man and spoke in whispers.
A man passed round with a brass basin and jug and we all washed our hands in silence.
A large bowl of schorba, highly spiced soup, was placed on the table, some loaves of barley bread and some wooden spoons. We all dipped into the bowl and commenced the meal. When the bash agha had finished we all put down our spoons, which were carried away with the bowl and placed before the others.
The long Arab midday meal began: the bourak, or sausage roll; the mechoui, which we clawed at with our fingers; the leham lalou, stewed mutton with prunes; the kous-kous; and finally the honey cakes.
As we finished each dish the remains were taken to the others, who by this time had been joined by the bash agha’s chauffeur.
A large jug of skimmed milk was passed round and we all took a sip.
“Alham dullah,” said the bash agha.
“Alham dullah,” repeated the kadi with the aged agha and the young caïds.
The man passed round with the brass tray and jug and the water, and the bash agha went through a lengthy toilet which commenced with his beard and ended with his fingers.
Coffee appeared.
We all sighed contentedly, the tension of before lunch had disappeared. The bash agha lighted his pipe. I did the same, while the others looked at us with envy, as they themselves could not smoke in the old chief’s presence. Gradually they slipped toward the door to get at their cigarettes.
“I wish to play cards,” suddenly said the bash agha.
The caïds paused at the door.
“Go on, Madani,” said the Caïd Aïssa.
“No, no, it’s not my turn,” he replied.
“And it isn’t mine,” said Marhoun.
“The kadi must play,” said the Caïd Ali.
“Yes, send along the kadi,” they all said.
“But I am always made to do this,” protested the man of peace, “and I always lose.”
“It’s about all you’re fit for,” laughed Marhoun.
This was considered a great joke, and they hustled him back into the presence of the bash agha, smiling at his woebegone expression.
He squatted down opposite the old gentleman, the chauffeur brought in some stones and placed them between the two players for counters. That mysterious Hispano-Mauresque game began, a game which came from the Peninsula when the Christian kings retook the Alhambra and drove out the Arabs. The kadi looked more and more like an early Victorian dandy than ever.
I sat and watched while the others poked fun at the victim, discreetly, from the corner of the room.
But this time luck seemed to favor the judge and he began to win; the bash agha got cross again; then he got sleepy; his head began to nod, and finally he dropped off. The kadi turned to me and winked knowingly while he gathered up his winnings.
I dozed off too. Arab lunches are conducive to slumber, and I understand why the Orientals recline at their repasts....
Suddenly I was roused by Madani. “We ought to be getting away,” he said, “but the bash agha is still asleep.”
“Well, wake him,” I replied.
“Oh, I can’t. None of us can; we’d never hear the end of it,” broke in Madani. “But you can.”
“But I certainly won’t,” I retorted. “I’m sleepy enough myself. Make the kadi do it!”
This seemed to amuse Madani, and he returned to the other chiefs and I saw that my suggestion was causing them joy. But not to the kadi, who, as usual, protested, and I realized that he was the sort of joke-man of the district. At last, however, he was bustled into the room.
He looked anxiously about and, finally, seeing the large brass tray on which the mechoui had been served, he took it up and dropped it with a crash on the part of the floor which was uncarpeted. Then he fled out on to the plain.
The bash agha opened one eye, then the other, then seemed about to sleep again. However, at that moment a diversion was caused by the entry of the aged agha with the statement that there was a man with a petition to make.
The bash agha came to and, sitting up, settled his turban and became at once the “Emperor.”
The caïds became “princes,” and squatted down in a semi-circle on the carpet; the chauffeur ventured back and started mending a tire. The petitioner marched in and, after kissing the old man’s shoulder, went and sat at a distance. For ten minutes he said “How-do-you-do” in different poses and accents. For a moment there was a lull, and then all of a sudden the storm burst, as in a torrent of words he poured out his story.
He talked so rapidly that I only understood vaguely, but I gathered that his flock had been stolen by nomads of the bash agha who had come up from the south. The bash agha was silent for a time, then he too burst into a flood of verbiage.
It was a most extraordinary group. The bash agha at one end of the room, sitting on a heap of cushions, his whole attention riveted on the man before him who squatted, speaking rapidly, but with practically no gestures.
Occasionally one of the caïds would throw in a remark, but otherwise one would have supposed that the matter was quite indifferent to them. And yet it was a question which to these Arabs was one of the greatest importance.
The complaint was of the tribe of the district who accused one of the nomad tribes of the Larba, now pasturing near-by, of stealing sheep. The sheep had disappeared ten days ago and had been tracked with that mysterious instinct across those limitless wastes of desert to Ghardaia, three hundred miles to the south. The man wanted their return as well as the punishment of the thieves.
The bash agha turned to the kadi, who for the moment ceased being the joke-man, and spoke a few words to him.
The kadi nodded.
The bash agha addressed the Caïd Madani.
“This affects your tribe. You will send a mounted man to Ghardaïa forthwith. He will apprehend the robbers and have them drive the flocks back here. You will bring them before me at Chellala.”
“Inch Allah,” acquiesced Madani.
Justice was done. A horseman was to ride over the desert to Ghardaïa and back, and I pictured a Lord-Lieutenant of Sussex saying to the sheriff: “You will tell a constable to bicycle to Edinburgh and fetch back a couple of hundred sheep,” just as one might say, “Go and post this letter.” It was a marvelous example of the simplicity of primitive justice.
The bash agha rose. The complainant kissed his turban, and we all followed the old man out.
During lunch the sky had become gray and the wind was coming from the north in cold gusts, bringing clouds of sand and grit.
We all piled into the car again and started on our return journey.
The sky grew darker and in a few minutes the rain began. Rain in Algeria is quite common on the coast in winter or spring, but rain in the neighborhood of the desert rarely comes after March, and when it does it is good for the cultivator but it is not amusing for those who travel. The first dried river-bed we came to was far from dry, the second was running with water, the dry track before the third had become a morass, the third was gurgling gaily down, and the road was an inch or so under water.
At this point we punctured. We all got out and looked at the flat tire, but no one did anything.
I said, “Suppose we change the wheel.”
The chauffeur said, “The spare wheel is punctured too. We must change the inner tube, but I don’t think it will last long.”
We got out the inner tube; it looked rather wretched, and a preliminary pump-up revealed that it held little air. Another one was found which appeared to be air-tight. The rain swept icily across the great plain. The kadi shivered and drew his burnous about him. Marhoun took off the wheel; the bash agha smoked his pipe as he sat on the running-board. The caïds talked and laughed at the miserable kadi. There was none of that fever and excitement and cursing of the chauffeur which one would have seen among Europeans on such an occasion. The chauffeur had forgotten to mend the spare wheel; it was the will of God and nothing could be done to remedy it.
At last we started again, but the next oued was a rushing torrent. The car floundered in water swirled about the axles, the engine roared, the chauffeur shouted something and every one, except the bash agha, tumbled out into the water. I followed and started pushing, while the water raced round us about up to our knees. The car began to move, and at last laboriously climbed out of the river.
“Only just in time,” exclaimed Aïssa. “Look.”
I did so, and I saw, to my amazement, a kind of swirling mass of water sweeping down the river, and before I could count two the oued had become a raging, overflowing torrent. A few minutes sooner and car and all would have been swept away.
“Luckily that is the last oued,” said Ali.
We all got in and started off again. The chauffeur put on speed, and we bumped furiously over the holes in the road. Then the other tire went. We stopped and all got out and then all got in again.
“Ma kanch chambre à air,” said the chauffeur. (“No more inner tubes.”)
In a few minutes the original tire went again, and we all got out again and all got back. We crawled along on the rims. Suddenly I became aware that my feet were getting very cold and wet. I could not understand. I asked Madani, but he had reached a state when he no longer seemed to care. He was telling his beads.
I moved my legs about and suddenly, to my astonishment, discovered that my feet were hanging in space. I peered down and perceived water and mud splashing all round me, and realized that the bottom of the car had fallen out. Visions of the pantomime gentleman whose carriage loses its floor and who is obliged to run between the wheels, sprang before me. And I saw myself and Madani being precipitated on to the road and having to run wildly back to Chellala, unable to make the chauffeur hear our cries of distress.
However, this catastrophe did not take place, for the simple reason that the car suddenly stopped of its own accord. We all got out again. No one seemed to dare to ask what the matter was.
“Ma kanch petrol,” said the chauffeur calmly.
“No more petrol!” exclaimed the bash agha nervously. It was the first time during the whole of the proceedings that he had shown any emotion.
“Ma kanch,” repeated the driver.
No one spoke. I heard Madani murmuring “Mektoub,” but otherwise there was silence as we stood there in the driving rain watching the car. Then suddenly the bash agha said, as if to the skies, “I pray Allah that it is raining like this in the Tell; my brother’s crops have sore need of rain.”
“Inch Allah,” they all said.
It filled me with amazement. I had before me the complete abstraction of immediate discomfort, the unaccountable Oriental mind, praying to Allah, miles from anywhere, soaked to the skin, and with no means of getting home. I thought of my English friends and their attitude and thoughts on such an occasion. However, it was no good standing in contemplation.
“Well, what do you propose doing?” I ventured at last. “I am getting cold.”
“I don’t know,” replied the old man, brushing drops of rain off his beard. “What do you think, my friend?”
“To my mind the only possible thing to do is to walk back before it gets too dark,” I said.
“But the rain,” said the kadi, “and the mud, and the wind!”
“A little rain and wind more or less never did me any harm,” I replied; “though perhaps I am more used to it than you.”
“Of course, he is right,” said Madani. “We will leave the chauffeur with the car and we’ll be in Chellala before six.”
“Come on,” said the Caïd Ali. “I know a short cut across the hills which will reduce our journey by at least a third.”
The kadi started murmuring again, but seeing that the bash agha agreed to this proposal, he felt that he could not let an old man of seventy do what he feared to do, so he reluctantly followed us. In single file we started across the waste of water and tufts of alfa.
Madani led, then came Ali, after him Aïssa, then the bash agha, then myself, and behind me the kadi, with Marhoun bringing up the rear. The wind blew fiercely across our path, bringing great sheets of soaking rain, but our camel’s hair burnouses kept the wet out wonderfully. Only the kadi, who had a kind of black woven burnous, complained that he was getting soaked. I distinctly heard Marhoun laughing in the driving rain.
Gradually we approached the hills, all wrapped in mist, and descending into a habitually dry river-bed, splashed up the muddy bank.
Suddenly the kadi gave a yell.
“I’ve lost my shoes,” he screamed.
“Where?” I exclaimed.
“In the mud! They got stuck and came off!”
The procession stopped. Aïssa started laughing. I became perfectly helpless as I watched the wretched judge making futile dives for his slippers in the muddy torrent.
At last Marhoun got the better of his mirth and managed to secure the lost property, but, as can be imagined, the elegant slippers looked like bits of old leather ready for the dust-heap. The kadi began wailing again, and said he would go back, but Marhoun pushed him up the bank and he plodded on.
We soon came to a goat-track and gradually began climbing the steep slopes of the hill. As we rose, the mist closed down upon us and wrapped us in its damp embrace. I could no longer see Madani, and the bash agha was only a dim form before me. The kadi I didn’t need to see as his wail of malediction on motor-cars and excursions, and idiots who could live out in the desert, never ceased.
After an hour or so we reached the summit and gathered together in a ghostly group.
“Not very far now,” said Ali gaily. “Reminds me of winter in the trenches. Eh, Aïssa?”
“Yes, the Vosges,” he replied. “Not too tired, bash agha?”
The old man shook his head and he brushed the drops from his burnous.
“Well, let’s proceed,” said Madani. “We don’t want to be caught by the night.”
“My shoes are full of stones,” moaned the kadi. “Well, take them out,” exclaimed Marhoun.
Without further ado we started along the crest and soon began descending another path. The wind was less fierce on this side of the mountain, but the mist swirled like a great shroud about us. None of us spoke as we plodded on in our dripping burnouses. My mind became a sort of damp blank as I mechanically followed in the procession.
Suddenly the bash agha said to me over his shoulder, “What has become of Miss G., who was in Laghouat for two months this spring?”
“Eh?” I said.
He repeated his question.
“Oh, she has gone back to Scotland,” I replied.
“Why did she go?” again asked the old man.
“Oh, I suppose she wanted to see her family and get back to this sort of weather,” I answered vaguely.
“She was a very nice girl,” said the bash agha. “She was full of gaiety. I liked her.”
He lapsed into silence again. I followed on, wondering how the brain of Jelloul ben Lahkdar, bash agha of all the Larbas, reasoned, that he should suddenly ask me the whereabouts of an English friend of mine while descending the slopes of the mountains of Chellala in a Scotch mist. The working of an Oriental mind has always been and always will be a mystery to me.
However, the mist was beginning to clear and the rain was abating when suddenly, from nowhere, the sun, brilliant in its setting, burst through the clouds, and we looked out on to the smiling village of Chellala nestling among its green trees, and out on to the great plains of the Sersou, right away to the blue mountains of the Atlas in the distance. That wonderful Algerian climate, where there is never a day without a little sun to keep one’s spirits alive to the glories of nature!
Every one seemed to cheer up.
I turned round and looked at the kadi and I mercifully restrained my laughter, as the picture of wretchedness he presented was too genuine to admit of more jests.
“You’ll be in dry clothes soon, kadi,” I exclaimed.
“I shall take great care never to leave my home again, Inch Allah,” he groaned.
At the moment Marhoun started singing one of those strange, melodious songs of the great South with the deep, long note drawn out at the end. Aïssa picked it up and sent back the verse, trembling, high and melancholy. Marhoun returned with the refrain, so soft, so gentle, that I approached the bash agha and asked him the meaning of the words.
He smiled and said, “I can not give it exactly translated because it is too beautiful in Arabic, but it runs thus: ‘My love is as great as the fire, and it consumes my heart.’”
And I repeated it to myself, wondering on the strange nature of the Arabs, as the sun, all orange and gold, dipped behind the hills, wrapping the land in golden radiance.
5. The Turkish Bath in Algeria
We have heard a great deal in this book about religion; let us turn our attention for a brief moment to its great adjunct, especially in the Moslem faith— cleanliness.
To the average Englishman the words “Turkish bath” suggest tiled chambers, whiteness, great heat, much water and complete exhaustion. This is what he has seen in Jermyn Street. In his imagination he may have conjured up a vision of the hammam of the East with its marble halls and multi-colored tiles, its splashing fountains and exhilarating hashish, while ebony-bodied negroes flit noiselessly about. Now, though this average Englishman will never be bathed in this Arabian Nights atmosphere in Algeria, let it be known that his imagination has not altogether run into the realms of fable.
In certain private houses of great chiefs this atmosphere, to a lesser degree, exists, and the owner of the bath insists on all the most luxurious rites being carried out. However, as this remains private property it can not be entered into, and it will suffice to describe the common Turkish bath known in Algeria as le bain maure, which resident or tourist, pedler or caïd, respectable maiden or femme du Quartier, must use if cleanliness is to be observed.
In this haunt of steam and strange odors there will be found neither the tiled chambers of Jermyn Street nor the splashing fountains of Haroun al-Raschid. The entrance to the bath is usually imposing; this is presumably to attract the passer-by. The entrance-hall is also roomy, and with a purpose, as it is here that many of the Faithful come to say their prayers after their ablutions. After this there is a series of primary disillusions. I purposely use the word “primary.”
To undress, one is ushered into a small chamber, where probably a number of other persons of all ranks and ages are already undressing. One hastily confides one’s purse to the owner or manager of the bath, who puts it in his pocket. This looks risky at first sight, but it is in reality quite safe. Having disrobed, an emaciated bandit appears and, placing a towel about one’s body and one about one’s head, proffers a pair of wooden clogs, which are flat pieces of wood the shape of the sole of a shoe with a strap to go across the foot. They appear to be harmless affairs at first sight; I emphasize “sight,” for the moment one suggests that they should be modes of locomotion one is disillusioned. For some unknown reason these clogs have a distaste to progress in a forward direction and seem bent on going either to the right or to the left, or in both directions at the same time—anyway, at right angles to the proposed progress of the wearer, which rationally should be toward the bath.
At first it needs the strength and will power of a great and persevering man to advance with the aid of the wall out of the lofty court to the heated chamber. The passage is usually narrow and full of stagnant water, the light is conspicuous by its absence, and as one gropes for the entrance one’s mind rushes back to memories of the dungeons beneath the Ducal Palace in Venice. When at last the massive door has been pulled back, one’s terror, if anything, increases. A cloud of damp, suffocating steam fills the chamber, the body becomes suddenly moist, and one instinctively turns to the exit. However, it is too late; the emaciated bandit is behind, and pushes one forward through pools of water to a large square slab.
The eyes are gradually getting used to the dim light thrown by a single sputtering candle, and one distinguishes little by little the forms of other people washing in various corners of the room. The heat is intense, the steam swirls about the ceiling, the grunts and murmurs of the bathers make one think of Doré’s illustrations of Dante’s Inferno. However, little time is allowed for reflection in this place of torment, as suddenly the skeleton which has done the undressing and the guiding pushes one on to the floor, where, lying on a kind of blue duster, one awaits the rack!
And here the beauty, the glorious compensation for all the rest, begins. Of all the masseurs in the world, be they British, Latin, or Scandinavian, there are none I have met who can equal the Arab of the Algerian south. No training, no knowledge of anatomy—these men, by some curious instinct, understand the wants of the body, and as one lies in this steaming atmosphere one feels all the pains and poisons of the human frame being magically pressed out of one. It is a complete relaxation, a complete cure to all ills, and when the coarse glove is put on and the rolls of fat come out of the opened pores of the skin, it is done as gently as a mother powdering her baby. Soap follows, warm water after that, until the cold douche, poured out of a wooden bucket, brings one to one’s feet and, transformed and light-hearted, one returns fearless along the dark passage to be massaged with towels till dry.
The result is magical; magical the swiftness with which it is all accomplished, magical when one realizes that the total fee for the bath is five francs.
The white-tiled chamber and the exhilarating hashish may add to the delight of the thing, but to feel a sensation of real fitness give me the common Arab masseur in the common Arab bath in the far south.
I am told that the negresses who look after the women who attend the bath on specific days of the week have also great merits. Of this I am ignorant, but of all things I miss most, when away in Europe, my emaciated bandit who “masses” out of my body all weariness—mental and physical—disease and cares, who sends me out into the street capable of sitting down to write a chapter of Algeria from Within.
6. The Keef Smoker
Before closing these sketches of Arab life a word must be said on a vice which is luckily not very prevalent, but which nevertheless exists in many centers.
I speak of keef-smoking.
Keef is the dried flower of the hemp-plant chopped up and smoked like tobacco, rolled in a cigarette, or in the bowl of a small pipe. In a different form it is the basis of the hashish sweets, rarely seen in Algeria, but very common in the Near East.
The effect of keef on the smoker is to make him practically independent of food and sleep as long as he is under its influence, and a habitual keef-taker is easy to detect. His eyes are very bright, his face is pale and drawn, his arms and hands are terribly thin, his movements are restless. At the same time he is not at all dazed like one under the influence of a drug, and though after a few days’ smoking he will drift off into a kind of feverish sleep, during the early periods he is extraordinarily lucid. In fact, it is said that the first effects of keef are to make the brain work at three times its normal pace.
European tourists in the south occasionally get hold of some keef to smoke, and complain that it has had no effect at all beyond giving them a sore throat. This is quite normal, as the fact of smoking a little hemp in a pipe or cigarette will hurt no one if not continued. To feel the effect of keef one must smoke for at least one night through, and three days are necessary to get really poisoned. The danger of an experiment of this kind is that the desire to go on may seize one, and once keef has taken hold of a man it is rare to see it give him up. However, it is quite amusing to go to a keef-smoking den, all the more so as it has to be done in secret and with the connivance of a smoker, as no outsiders know where these little nocturnal réunions take place.
As a matter of fact I doubt whether there is much danger of the police interfering as, though it is against the law to smoke keef, the French are not going to try to stop something which must always go on, and unless the offense is deliberately open they will not peer into the dark streets to catch a few poor Arabs.
The town where keef-smoking is the most prevalent, I believe, is Ghardaïa—not of course among the puritan Mzabites, but in the Arab quarter. This is partly due to the fact that these Arabs are far away from their own people, and club together in small groups to do what they would not dare do before their relatives in their own oases.
I remember going to one of these places in the Mzab with some English friends who wanted to see the den for themselves. We were a curious party—an English girl, a short-story writer and another man connected with letters—none of whom knew the country well, while our Arab guide was the khodja of the Bureau Arabe, a man unbelievably fat, who rather sailed along the street than walked. We passed through interminable little streets, pitch black, fell up and down steps until we came to a tumble-down house, all dark save for a yellow light which flickered in an upper chamber. The tinkle of a mandolin floated out, a warm breeze sent little whirls of dust up the narrow way, the stars stood out bright in the sky.
Our immense companion tapped mysteriously at the door, the sound of the mandolin ceased, and we heard some one coming cautiously down-stairs. A few whispered words were exchanged, followed by the noise of heavy bolts being drawn, the door swung back, and we found ourselves in front of a rickety wooden staircase at the foot of which stood an Arab in tattered clothes, who held aloft a hissing acetylene lamp. He scrutinized us closely, and then, bidding us enter, drew aside as we filed slowly past and followed our fat friend up the stairs. The janitor waited till we were all inside, and then with a clash shot back the bolts, and we felt ourselves prisoners in this illicit haunt.
At the top of the stairs we came to a room dimly lighted, and the first thing which struck our attention was an enormous skin full of water. When I say that it struck our attention it is not quite exact, as in reality it was struck by the head of my friend S. A., who had not noticed it until a stream of icy water poured down his back. When we had recovered from this pleasing little incident we looked about us.
On the floor all round the little room squatted men of all ages and grades—some in rags, some in prosperous-looking gandourahs, some in very modern red fezzes—but all with the same hungry look on their drawn faces. At the far end the Arab who had opened the door attended to the little fireplace ornamented with colored tiles and on which he prepared coffee and mint tea; in the middle of the group sat the mandolinist playing with a far-away look in his shining eyes.
The air was heavy with a sweet, rather sickly smell, an odor not unlike new-mown hay, only stronger. A bench was mysteriously produced for us and for our stout companion, who explained that if he sat on the ground he would never be able to get up again. Tea was placed before us, and then rather diffidently one of the corpses on the floor rose and offered Miss G. a small pipe. Seeing she was prepared to smoke, he drew a wallet from the folds of his gandourah and filled the bowl with the strange grayish-green, tobacco-looking matter, and handed it back to her.
In the meanwhile we had also been supplied with similar pipes, and in a few moments we had lighted up. The taste was not pleasant to the regular pipe-smoker like myself, and at the same time it was not as nasty as my first attempts at smoking when in the depths of a wood my brother and I, aged nine and ten, filled a cast-off pipe of my father’s with brown paper in the belief that we were smoking!
Keef is better than brown paper. The taste and smell were rather like that of hay.
When the company saw that we were quite human and ready to join in the fun there was a general relaxation. All the pipes were lighted, the mandolinist tuned up, and soon the whole crowd was as merry as children at a birthday party. In fact, so great was the effect of the atmosphere that S. A. insisted on singing himself, and would have danced had not M. J., who has his interests at heart, held him forcibly on the bench.
I don’t know how long this would have gone on had not a discreet signal from the street warned us that the police were making their rounds. In a second the light was dimmed, the music ceased, and we sat as still as mice until we heard the measured tramp of the Arab constables disappearing up the street. We felt it more discreet to depart ourselves, so we took leave of our fevered-eyed hosts and returned to our inn.
Though I spent a rather restless night, I don’t know if it was the effect of the reef or not, and we all certainly felt quite fit the next day.
Still, I can never think of that night without smiling; it was all so mysterious, so much part of another world, and I often wonder if M. J., as he sits editorially in London, or S. A., scooping in royalties, or Miss G., in her English surroundings, realize how they peeped into the past for a few seconds and lived again the life which, if it had not been Algerian, would have probably been celebrated by another De Quincey.