Artists and Arabs; Or, Sketching in Sunshine

ARGUMENT

The advantage of winter studios abroad, and the value of sketching in the open air; especially in Algeria.

'The best thing the author of a book can do, is to tell the reader, on a piece of paper an inch square, what he means by it.' – Athenaeum.

CHAPTER I. ON THE WING

BY the middle of the month of July, the Art season in London was on the wane, and by the end of August the great body of English artists had dispersed, some, the soundest workers perhaps, to the neighbourhood of Welsh mountains and English homesteads, to – 'The silence of thatched cottages and the voices of blossoming fields.'

From the Tweed to the Shetland Isles, they were thick upon the hills; in every nook and corner of England, amongst the cornfields and upon the lakes; in the valleys and torrent beds of Wales, the cry was still 'they come.'

On the continent, both artists and amateurs were everywhere. Smith toiling across the Campagna with the thermometer at 95 (his reward a quiet pipe at the 'café Greco' when the sun goes down) is but a counterpart of a hundred other Smiths scattered abroad. In the galleries of Florence and Rome no more easels could be admitted, and in Switzerland and Savoy the little white tents and 'sun-umbrellas' glistened on the mountain side. Brown might be seen rattling down an arrête from the Flegére, with his matériel swung across his back, like a carpenter's basket, after a hard day's work sketching the Aiguilles that tower above the valley of Chamounix; and Jones, with his little wife beside him, sitting under the deep shade of the beech-trees in the valley of Sixt.

We were a sketching party, consisting of two, three or four, according to convenience or accident, wandering about and pitching our tent in various places away from the track of tourists; we had been spending most of the summer days in the beautiful Val d'Aosta (that school for realistic work that a great teacher once selected for his pupil, giving him three months to study its chesnut groves, 'to brace his mind to a comprehension of facts'); we had prolonged the summer far into autumn on the north shore of the Lago Maggiore, where from the heights above the old towns of Intra and Pallanza we had watched its banks turn from green to golden and from gold to russet brown. The mountains were no longer en toilette, as the French express it, and the vineyards were stripped of their purple bloom; the wind had come down from the Simplon in sudden and determined gusts, and Monte Rosa no longer stood alone in her robe of white; the last visitor had left the Hôtel de l'Univers at Pallanza, and our host was glad to entertain us at the rate of four francs a day 'tout compris' – when the question came to us, as it does to so many other wanderers in Europe towards the end of October, where to go for winter quarters, where to steal yet a further term of summer days.

Should we go again to Spain to study Velasquez and Murillo, should we go as usual to Rome; or should we strike out a new path altogether and go to Trebizond, Cairo, Tunis, or Algeria?

There was no agreeing on the matter, diversity of opinion was very great and discussion ran high (the majority we must own, having leanings towards Rome and chic; and also 'because there would be more fun'); so, like true Bohemians, we tossed for places and the lot fell upon Algeria.

The next morning we are on the way. Trusting ourselves and our baggage to one of those frail-looking little boats with white awnings, that form a feature in every picture of Italian lake scenery, and which, in their peculiar motion and method of propulsion (the rower standing at the stern and facing his work), bear just sufficient resemblance to the Venetian gondola to make us chafe a little at the slow progress we make through the smooth water, we sit and watch the receding towers of Pallanza, as it seems, for the livelong day. There is nothing to relieve the monotony of motion, and scarcely a sound to break the stillness, until we approach the southern shore, and it becomes a question of anxiety as to whether we shall really reach Arona before sundown. But the old boatman is not to be moved by any expostulation or entreaty, nor is he at all affected by the information that we run great risk of losing the last train from Arona; and so we are spooned across the great deep lake at the rate of two or three miles an hour, and glide into the harbour with six inches of water on the flat-bottom of the boat amongst our portmanteaus.

From Arona to Genoa by railway, and from Genoa to Nice by the Cornice road – that most beautiful of all drives, where every variety of grandeur and loveliness of view, both by sea and land, seems combined, and from the heights of which, if we look seaward and scan the southern horizon, we can sometimes trace an irregular dark line, which is Corsica – past Mentone and Nice, where the 'winter swallows' are arriving fast; making a wonderful flutter in their nests, all eagerness to obtain the most comfortable quarters,1 and all anxiety to have none but 'desirable' swallows for neighbours. This last is a serious matter, this settling down for the winter at Nice, for it is here that the swallows choose their mates, pairing off wonderfully in the springtime, like grouse-shooting M.P.s in August.

A few hours' journey by railway and we are at Marseilles, where (especially at the 'Grand Hotel') it is an understood and settled thing that every Englishman is on his way, to or from Italy or India, and it requires considerable perseverance to impress upon the attendants that the steamer which sails at noon for Algiers is the one on which our baggage is to be placed, and it is almost impossible to persuade the driver of a fiacre that we do not want to go by the boat just starting for Civita Vecchia or Leghorn.

On stepping on board it almost seems as if there were some mistake, for we appear to be the only passengers on the after deck, and to be looked upon with some curiosity by the swarthy half-naked crew, who talk together in an unknown tongue; notwithstanding that at the packet office in the town we were informed that we could not secure berths for certain.

We have several hours to wait and to look about us, for the mail is not brought on board until three in the afternoon, and it is half-past, before the officials have kissed each other on both cheeks and we are really moving off – threading our way with difficulty through the mass of shipping which hems us in on all sides.

The foredeck of the Akhbar is one mass of confusion and crowding, but the eye soon detects the first blush of oriental colour and costume, and on nearer inspection it is easy to distinguish a few white bournouses moving through the crowd. There are plenty of Zouaves in undress uniforms, chiefly young men, with a superfluity of medals and the peculiar swagger which seems inseparable from this costume; others old and bronzed, who have been to Europe on leave and are returning to join their regiments. Some parting scenes we witness between families of the peasant order, of whom there appear to be a number on board, and their friends who leave in the last boat for the shore. These, one and all, take leave of each other with a significant 'au revoir,' which is the key-note to the whole business, and tells us (who are not studying politics and have no wish or intention, to trouble the reader with the history or prospects of the colony) the secret of its ill-success, viz.: – that these colonists intend to come back, and that they are much too near home in Algeria.

Looking down upon the fore-deck, as we leave the harbour of Marseilles, there seems scarcely an available inch of space that is not encumbered with bales and goods of all kinds; with heaps of rope and chain, military stores, piles of arms, cavalry-horses, sheep, pigs, and a prodigious number of live fowls.

On the after-deck there are but six passengers, there is a Moorish Jew talking fluently with a French commercial traveller, a sad and silent officer of Chasseurs with his young wife, and two lieutenants who chatter away with the captain; the latter, in consideration of his rank as an officer in the Imperial Marine, leaving the mate to take charge of the vessel during the entire voyage. This gentleman seems to the uninitiated to be a curious encumbrance, and to pass his time in conversation, in sleep, and in the consumption of bad cigars. He is 6 a disappointed man' of course, as all officers are, of whatever nation, age, or degree.

The voyage averages forty-eight hours, but is often accomplished in less time on the southward journey. It is an uncomfortable period even in fine weather, just too long for a pleasure trip, and just too short to settle down and make up one's mind to it, as in crossing the Atlantic. Our boat is an old Scotch screw, which has been lent to the Company of the Messageries Impériales for winter duty – the shaft hammering and vibrating through the saloon and after-cabins incessantly for the first twenty-four hours, whilst she labours against a cross sea in the Gulf of Lyons, indisposes' the majority of the company, and the captain dines by himself; but about noon on the next day it becomes calm, and the Akhbar steams quietly between the Balearic Islands, close enough for us to distinguish one or two churches and white houses, and a square erection that a fellow-traveller informs us is the work of the 'Majorca Land, Compagnie Anglaise.'

In the following little sketch we have indicated the appearance in outline of the two islands of Majorca and Minorca as we approach them going southward, passing at about equal distances between the islands.

The sea is calm and the sky is bright as we leave the islands behind us, and the Akhbar seems to skim more easily through the deep blue water, leaving a wake of at least a mile, and another wake in the sky of sea gulls, who follow us for the rest of the voyage in a graceful undulating line, sleeping on the rigging at night unmolested by the crew, who believe in their good omen.

On the second morning on coming on deck we find ourselves in the tropics, the sky is a deep azure, the heat is intense, and the brightness of everything is wonderful. The sun's rays pour down on the vessel, and their effect on the occupants of the fore-deck is curious to witness. The odd heaps of clothing that had lain almost unnoticed during the voyage suddenly come to life, and here and there a dark visage peeps from under a tarpaulin, from the inside of a coil of rope, or from a box of chain, and soon the whole vessel, both the fore and after-deck, is teeming with life, and we find at least double the number of human beings on board that we had had any idea of at starting.

But the interest of every one is now centred on a low dark line of coast, with a background of mountains, which every minute becomes more defined; and we watch it until we can discern one or two of the highest peaks, tipped with snow. Soon we can make out a bright green, or rather as it seems in the sunlight, a golden shore, set with a single gem that sparkles in the water. Again it changes into the aspect of a little white pyramid or triangle of chalk on a green shore shelving to the sea, next into an irregular mass of houses with flat roofs, and mosques with ornamented towers and cupolas, surrounded and surmounted by grim fortifications, which are not Moorish; and in a little while we can distinguish the French houses and hotels, a Place, a modern harbour and lighthouse, docks, and French shipping, and one piratical-looking craft that passes close under our bows, manned by dark sailors with bright red sashes and large earrings, dressed like the fishermen in the opera of Mas-aniello. And whilst we are watching and taking it all in, we have glided to our moorings, close under the walls of the great Mosque (part of which we have sketched from this very point of view); and are surrounded by a swarm of half-naked, half-wild and frantic figures, who rush into the water vociferating and imploring us in languages difficult to understand, to be permitted to carry the Franks' baggage to the shore.

Taking the first that comes, we are soon at the landing steps and beset by a crowd of beggars, touters, idlers and nondescripts of nearly every nation and creed under heaven.

CHAPTER II. ALGIERS

THE first view of the town of Algiers, with its pretty clusters of white houses set in bright green hills, or as the French express it, 'like a diamond set in emeralds,' the range of the lesser Atlas forming a background of purple waves rising one above the other until they are lost in cloud – was perhaps the most beautiful sight we had witnessed, and it is as well to record it at once, lest the experience of the next few hours might banish it from memory.

It was a good beginning to have a stately barefooted Arab to shoulder our baggage from the port, and wonderful to see the load he carried unassisted.2 As he winds his way through the narrow and steep slippery streets (whilst we who are shod by a Hoby and otherwise encumbered by broadcloth, have enough to do to keep pace with him, and indeed to keep our footing), it is good to see how nobly our Arab bears his load, how beautifully balanced is his lithe figure, and with what grace and ease he stalks along. As he slightly bows, when taking our three francs (his 'tariff' as he calls it), there is a dignity in his manner, and a composure about him that is almost embarrassing. How he came, in the course of circumstances, to be carrying our luggage instead of wandering with his tribe, perhaps civilization – French civilization – can answer.

The first hurried glance (as we followed our cicerone up the landing steps to the 'Hôtel de la Régence,' which faces the sea) at the dazzlingly white flat-roofed houses without windows, at the mosques with their gaily painted towers, at the palm-trees and orange-trees, and at the crowd of miscellaneous costumes in which colour preponderated everywhere, gave the impression of a thorough Mahommedan city; and now as we walk down to the Place and look about us at leisure, we find to our astonishment and delight that the Oriental element is still most prominent.

The most striking and bewildering thing is undoubtedly the medley that meets the eye everywhere: the conflict of races, the contrast of colours, the extraordinary brightness of everything, the glare, the strange sounds and scenes that cannot be easily taken in at a first visit; the variety of languages heard at the same time, and above all the striking beauty of some faces, and the luxurious richness of costume.

First in splendour come the Moors (traders looking like princes), promenading or lounging about under the trees, looking as important and as richly attired as was ever Caliph Haroun Alraschid.

They are generally fair and slight of figure, with false effeminate faces, closely-shaven heads covered with fez and turban, loose baggy trousers, jacket and vest of blue or crimson cloth, embroidered with gold; round their waists are rich silken sashes, and their fingers are covered with a profusion of rings. Their legs are often bare and their feet are enclosed in the usual Turkish slipper.

This is the prominent town type of Moor or Jew, the latter to be distinguished by wearing dark trousers, clean white stockings, French shoes, and a round cloth cap of European pattern. There are various grades, both of the Moors and Jews, some of course shabby and dirty enough; but the most dignified and picturesque figures are the tall dark Arabs and the Kabyles, with their flowing white bournouses, their turbans of camel's hair, and their independent noble bearing. Here we see them walking side by side with their conquerors in full military uniform and their conquerors' wives in the uniform of Le Follet, whilst white-robed female figures flit about closely veiled, and Marabouts (the Mahom-medan priests) also promenade in their flowing robes. Arab women and children lounge about selling fruit or begging furtively, and others hurry to and fro carrying burdens; and everywhere and ever present in this motley throng, the black frock-coat and chimney-pot hat assert themselves, to remind us of what we might otherwise soon be forgetting, – that we are but four days' journey from England.

There is noise enough altogether on the Place to bewilder any stranger; for besides the talking and singing, and the cries of vendors of fruit and wares, there is considerable traffic. Close to us as we sit under the trees, (so close as almost to upset the little tables in front of the cafés), without any warning, a huge diligence will come lunging on to the Place groaning under a pile of merchandise, with a bevy of Arabs on the roof, and a party of Moorish women in the 'rotonde'; presently there passes a company of Zouaves at quick step, looking hot and dusty enough, marching to their terrible tattoo; and next, by way of contrast again, come two Arab women with their children, mounted on camels, the beasts looking overworked and sulky; they edge their way through the crowd with the greatest nonchalance, and with an impatient croaking sound go shambling past.

The 'Place Royale' faces the north, and is enclosed on three sides with modern French houses with arcades and shops, and when we have time to examine their contents, we shall find them also principally French. Next door to a bonnet-shop there is certainly the name of Mustapha over the door, and in the window are pipes, coral, and filagree work exposed for sale; but most of the goods come from France. Next door again is a French café, where Arabs, who can afford it, delight in being waited upon by their conquerors with white aprons and neck-ties.

The background of all this is superb: a calm sunlit sea, white sails glittering and flashing, and far to the eastward a noble bay, with the Kabyle mountains stretching out their arms towards the north.

At four o'clock the band plays on the Place, and as we sit and watch the groups of Arabs and Moors listening attentively to the overture to 'William Tell,' or admiringly examining the gay uniforms and medals of the Chasseurs d'Afrique – as we see the children of both nations at high romps together – as the sweet sea-breeze that fans us so gently, bears into the newly constructed harbour together, a corvette of the Imperial Marine and a suspicious-looking raking craft with latteen sails – as Marochetti's equestrian statue of the Duke of Orleans, and a mosque, stand side by side before us – we have Algiers presented to us in the easiest way imaginable, and (without going through the ordeal of studying its history or statistics) obtain some idea of the general aspect of the place and of the people, and of the relative position of conquerors and conquered.

As our business is principally with the Moorish, or picturesque side of things, let us first look at the great Mosque which we glanced at as we entered the harbour, and part of which we have sketched for the reader.

Built close to the water's edge, so close that the Mediterranean waves are sapping its foundations – with plain white shining walls, nearly destitute of exterior ornament, it is perhaps 'the most perfect example of strength and beauty, and of fitness and grace of line, that we shall see in any building of this type.3 It is thoroughly Moorish in style, although built by a Christian, if we may believe the story, of which there are several versions; how the Moors in old days took captive a Christian architect, and promised him his liberty on condition of his building them a mosque; how he, true to his own creed, dexterously introduced into the ground plan the form of a cross; and how the Moors, true also to their promise, gave him his liberty indeed, but at the cannon's mouth through a window, seaward.

The general outline of these mosques is familiar to most readers, the square white walls pierced at intervals with quaint-shaped little windows, the flat cupola or dome, and the square tower often standing apart from the rest of the structure as in the little vignette on our title-page, like an Italian campanile. Some of these towers are richly decorated with arabesque ornamentation,' and glitter in the sun with colour and gilding, but the majority of the mosques are as plain and simple in design as shown in our large sketch.

Here, if we take off our shoes, we may enter and hear the Koran read, and we may kneel down to pray with Arabs and Moors; religious tolerance is equally exercised by both creeds. Altogether the Mahommedan places of worship seem by far the most prominent, and although there is a Roman Catholic church and buildings held by other denominations of Christians, there is none of that predominant proselytizing aspect which we might have expected after thirty years' occupation by the French! At Tetuan, for instance, where the proportion of Christians to Mahommedans is certainly smaller, the 'Catholic church' rears its head much more conspicuously.

In Algiers the priestly element is undoubtedly active, and Soeurs de Charité are to be seen everywhere, but the buildings that first strike the eye are not churches but mosques; the sounds that become more familiar to the ear than peals of bells, are the Muezzin's morning and evening salutation from the tower of a mosque, calling upon all true believers to —

'Come to prayers, come to prayers,

It is better to pray than to sleep.'

The principal streets in Algiers lead east and west from the Place to the principal gates, the Bab-Azoun and the Bab-el-Oued. They are for the most part French, with arcades like the Rue de Rivoli in Paris; many of the houses are lofty and built in the style perhaps best known as the 'Haussman.' Nearly all the upper town is still Moorish, and is approached by narrow streets or lanes, – steep, slippery, and tortuous,4 which we shall examine by-and-bye.

The names of some of the streets are curious, and suggestive of change. Thus we see the 'Rue Royale,' the 'Rue Impériale there is, or was until lately, a 'Place Nationale,' and one street is still boldly proclaimed to be the 'Rue dé la Révolution'!

In passing through the French quarter, through the new wide streets, squares and inevitable boulevards, the number of shops for fancy goods and Parisian wares, especially those of hairdressers and modistes, seems rather extraordinary; remembering that the entire European population of Algeria, agricultural as well as urban, is not much more than that of Brighton. In a few shops there are tickets displayed in different languages, but linguists are rare, and where there are announcements of the labels have generally a perplexing, composite character, like the inscription on a statue at the Paris Exhibition of 1867, which ran thus 'Miss Ofelia dans Amlet.'

Before we proceed further, let us glance at the general mode of living in Algiers, speaking first of the traveller who goes to the hotels.

The ordinary visitor of a month or two will drop down pleasantly enough into the system of hotel life in Algiers; and even if staying for the winter he will probably find it more convenient and amusing to take his meals in French fashion at the hotels, ringing the changes between three or four of the best, and one or two well-known cafés, There is generally no table-d'hôte, but strangers can walk in and have breakfast or dine very comfortably at little tables 'a part,' at a fixed hour and at a moderate price. The rooms are pleasant, cool, and airy, with large windows open to the sea.

Everything is neatly and quietly served, the menu is varied enough, with good French dishes and game in abundance; the hosts being especially liberal in providing those delicious little birds that might be larks or quails, – which in Algiers we see so often on the table and so seldom on the wing.

Half the people that are dining at the 'Hôtel d'Orient' to-day are residents or habitués; they come in and take their accustomed places as cosily, and are almost as particular and fastidious, as if they were at their club.