Charles Thomas-Stanford

“ Immediately in front is a lovely oasis, rich in palms and fruit trees, offering a delicious contrast of greenery to the rough 202weather-scarred rocks above. Around and below, to the southward, are the rugged foot-hills of the Aurès, and beyond all the great illimitable sea of sand. This is one of those rare places of the earth where nature seems to set herself of deliberate intention to produce an effect. And nothing is wanting to its success; nothing is superfluous. No one could have planned a more fitting, a more impressive, a more romantic, gateway to the desert. ”

“ Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics jostle the faithful on equal terms; men and women sprung from very diverse stocks in Africa, Asia, and Europe, impartially and to all appearance fraternally throng the pavements and the public conveyances. The eye is dazzled by the combination of European fashions and smart French uniforms, with the outlandish aspect of Zouaves and Spahis, the white-robed dignity of the stately Arab and the rich colours of the impassive Turk. ”

“ Perhaps nowhere more than at Sidi Okba, under the shadow of the great conqueror’s tomb, may you feel the haughty disdain of the Arab. He stalks past you apparently in utter unconsciousness of your presence. You belong to a civilization which for the moment has conquered his in war. Allah has willed it. But you represent with your anthropomorphic religion, your abominable demeanour and social arrangements, especially your own lack of dignity and the licence you allow to your women, all that he holds most accursed. You attach undue importance to human life in this world ”

“ The magic carpet of our day has borne us in a brief space through landscapes of astonishing contrast; through territories which are a storehouse of conflicting yet commingled human interests; across the vast cornfields which suggest man’s taming of a newly discovered continent, to the siege-scarred cliffs of Constantine, the awe-inspiring immensity of the Sahara, the speaking ruins of the Roman marches, the Alpine gorges and sylvan sweetness of the Mediterranean shore. ”

“ In this country the French have set themselves from the first to carry on the Roman tradition in the making of roads. In a land which for twelve centuries has known little but destruction and decay they have built, as the Romans built before them, solid, uncompromising, inevitable highways, roads on which armies may march secure of ambush, and almost regardless of the hostility of natural forces;—roads which create not only peace, but prosperity in their course. The road is one of the most effective as it is one of the most permanent works of man. ”

“ Towering above the lesser hills which front its opposite shore are the snow-clad mountains of the Djurjura range, guarding the highlands of Khabylia, and glistening as if with crystals in the strong southern light. All around, on the well-wooded heights, are countless villas, of high and low degree, almost all of dazzling white, the whiter for the sombre foliage of cypress and stone pine and olive in which they are set. Perhaps no city of the earth possesses a lovelier suburb. The Englishman will find himself quite at home. ”

“ The shady, bird-haunted garden of this hotel is a very haven of shelter when the desert wind blows strong and raises the light dust of Biskra in the street without. It is surrounded on all sides by the hotel buildings built in the spacious Oriental manner with corridors opening to the garden and pleasant balconies above.
Biskra of the tourists, urbs circumcurrentium, is in a fair way to rechristen itself Hichenstown. The novelist and his not very edifying story pervade the place; they are thrust at you everywhere with damnable iteration. ”

“ Here we are in the centre of a vast corn-growing district, once the granary of Rome. The country-side is full of Roman remains, of towns and country-houses and farms. At this altitude the climate, if hotter in summer, resembles that of Central France. The landscape is very bare,—a vast sea of corn, without a tree to break its monotony. To the east of Sétif the plain begins to slope downwards; the railway diverges to the south, but the road enters the valley of the Roumel, the river which forms the moat of the rock-girt city of Constantine. ”

“ The French love broad streets, lofty houses, big windows, open spaces, and above all straight lines. The Arab town is a labyrinth of narrow lanes, twisting and curling according to no sort of plan, in fact to all appearance so inextricably confused and so full of blind alleys that one might suppose 49no living man capable of mastering their meanderings. But a stranger need be under no apprehension of being lost. He has only to keep ascending to reach the Kasbeh, the old Turkish fort at the top of the town, or descending, a course which sooner or later will bring him back to civilization. ”

“ But to those rare spirits among us who endeavour to repair the mischief caused by our first parents, Biskra presents very special opportunities. There is very little to see, and nothing whatever to do; it is a capital place for sitting in the shade with a brilliant sky above. The Garden of Eden is an Oriental ideal; these Arabs who exist in contemplation of their palm trees are striving to live up to it. It is not at all an English ideal. The primeval curse lies heavy on the Englishman; he has made the best of it and has come to regard work as a virtue. ”

“ Even in face of our information as to the Sahara’s only partial sterility, we cherish some shreds of wonder at the men who can wring a livelihood and find the means of travel under such inhospitable conditions.
The Sahara has been defined as the region which receives only as an exception any rainfall, whether of Mediterranean origin, or from the tropical regions of West Africa. It is only relatively a desert in the strict sense of the word; no part of it is absolutely without rain, and even in the districts which are reputed the most dry the traveller may meet with violent storms. ”

“ As usual, the French have destroyed most of the remains of the Roman city; the exigencies of space are here a better excuse than exists elsewhere. But the antiquary may still ferret out endless evidences of the ancient town. The ordinary traveller may amuse himself by strolling through the Arab quarter; he may perambulate the gorge by the Chemin des Touristes; he may cross the bridge and ascend the opposing height to view in its majesty this unique city of precipices. With a map and moderate intelligence he will need no guide ”

“ The contour of this 295variable and rocky coast is eminently picturesque, the views of sea and mountain of infinite variety. And afar the dazzling whiteness of Bougie stretching upwards from its harbour among the olive groves invites us. The level lands appear to be of great fertility; amid great fields of corn and vine pleasant and prosperous-looking country houses stand, girt about with fruit trees,—figs, apricots and peaches. In some places the cultivation is carried almost to high-water mark, in others a sward of fine turf seems to meet the sand. ”

“ Will the Arab live apart, as the Jew has often lived apart, or can he be brought to assimilate the ideas and methods of his conquerors? At present he seems dazed; his civilization founded on war has failed him in war. It is useless to think of France converting him to Christianity; you cannot convert a man to a faith you have abandoned yourself. And his religion, absolute and absorbing—not of his life a thing apart, but his whole existence—seems to oppose an impassable barrier to European influences. ”

“ The first view of the streets is something of a shock and a disappointment. We have heard of the ancient Arab city, we have seen photographs of narrow lanes with quaint Moorish houses almost meeting over the wayfarer’s head; and yet we find ourselves driving at a hand gallop through wide, modern streets, with their normal garniture of tramways and motor-cars. An occasional snow-white 23mosque, a public building or two of Arabesque style, suggest the Orient; in other respects the streets are those of a very prosperous and busy modern French town. ”

“ The military and civil control of a subject population, such as the English rule in India, and in recent days the pax Gallica of the Sahara, may be an excellent undertaking for a people of super-abundant energies; for Bugeaud the conquest of Algeria was only a necessary preliminary to its organization as a French colony. “La conquête,” he said in his first proclamation, “serait stérile sans la colonisation. Je serai donc colonisateur ardent, car j’attache moins de gloire à vaincre dans les combats qu’à fonder quelque chose d’utile et de durable.” ”

“ Leaving the car we scramble up by the side of a stream and reach the great watercourse itself. Passing beneath its arches we ascend the valley a little, and turn to look down on its immense proportions. Amid the rough mountain scrub we have passed from all evidence of modern cultivation, and are alone with this mighty fragment of the past. It is difficult to find a reason for the feeling, but few of Rome’s monuments impart a fuller sense of her magnificence than the aqueducts which survive at so many different points of her Empire. ”

“ Everyone, it has been said, has his own Sahara. For many of us perhaps the geography lessons of childhood left an impression of an ocean of shifting sand, sometimes separated from the sea by a narrow strip of cultivated land, sometimes extending to the very shore, from which majestic lions, appropriate lords of the inhospitable desert, gaze pensively at the setting sun. ”

“ Governments seldom dream imperial dreams; they are more concerned to keep their seats. Sovereigns like George III may lose an empire. Mere accidental citizens, as Clive or Rhodes, may create one.
So this fertile North Africa, through history the shuttle-cock of Asia and Europe, with an illimitable hinterland of “rather light soil,” to quote the words of a statesman who had little sympathy with African conquest, became French because an Algerian Dey struck a consul with his fan. ”

“ There are motorists and motorists; to one class the car itself is all-important, the country traversed a minor matter, the surface of the road on which “she” is to display her powers being the first consideration. Such enthusiasts will bring their own cars, and will perhaps not regret doing so. But there are also persons of grovelling mind, who cannot rise to any enthusiasm over carburetters and petrol consumption, who, in fact, regard the motor-car as merely a very agreeable means to a very desirable end. Such lowly souls will perhaps be satisfied with hiring a car in Algiers. ”

“ As we stand in the Forum of Timgad to-day, we may reflect that this noble city was built and inhabited by the ancestors of the gabbling native crowd which is holding its market at the gate. Doubtless in their simple minds these robed figures are wondering what in the world we come for. They must be aware that it is not a religious exercise; we have our holy places to which they observe that some of us betake ourselves on Sunday mornings; no Christian marabout lies buried here, and we are therefore not votaries making a pilgrimage. ”

“ His women are mere beasts of burden, absolutely at the mercy of their lord. A whole world of progress lies between the Frenchman who works his fingers to the bone to give his daughter a dower, and the Arab who sells his to the highest bidder. And in love as in life the Arab is often a nomad, as the desert towns bear witness. But as he stalks haughtily through the streets of Algiers, he is an attractive and interesting figure. ”

“ Hilaire Belloc has set before us the uses, the influence, the interest, and the fascination of the road. In the course of an exploration of one of those ancient highways which we English have permitted to fall into decay and in part to disappear, he has taken occasion to impress on us the part which the road has played in the spread of civilizing influences. Algeria—roadless and anarchical for centuries, orderly and webbed with roads to-day—may add point to his argument. “More than rivers and more than mountain chains, roads have moulded the political groupings of men. ”