The Republican Journal

WANDERINGS IN NORTHERN AFRICA.

The Tourist Finds Many Easy and Interesting Excursions Already Arranged for him in the Province of Algeria. The Desert of Sahara not Half so Bad as it has Been Painted.

[Correspondence of The Journal.]

Algiers, June 10, 1901. Thanks to French and English enterprise, in the railroads, highways and well mountain passes, the traveler who has two weeks to spare may see pretty well the big province of Algeria by the way, is something over 1,000 miles long by approximately 500 broad. Diligences go where the railroads do not yet penetrated; in every direction carriages or wagons may be hired for short trips, or mountain climbing; and where absent, native caravanserais taste of that variety which is spice of life. Tourists may journey in comparative comfort by French Sahara-on camel they insist on doing the thing way, though that is no longer necessary. Popular belief still continues the Sahara as an immense moving sand, with fertile oases here and there, as expressed by the simile of the panther's skin, all idea whose only fault is truthfulness. The Algerian Sahara consists of two distinct regions, the Upper and Lower Sahara. The former a vast depression of sand extending on the east as far as frontier of Tunis: the latter a plateau, rising in some places three thousand feet, stretching west to the borders of Morocco. The worst of it all is like a garden compared to the Arizona desert or other portions of our great West is to the moving sand, which is likened to a net, though bad, it happily does not extend over a great area. Besides the oases proper, Beni M'zab, Ghardaia, Sidi Cheikh, Ksours-there are groves and palm gardens all along the edges of it, in ravines that cross the land even in the shifting sands, irrigation is possible. From time immemorial artesian wells have existed in the desert, spreading life and wealth. In torrents, rushing through narrow gorges, irrigate the valleys where curious dams retain the water. The streams that pass through these dams, especially in the heavy rains of winter and melting of mountain snows in early spring, are again absorbed by the Sahara, irrigating canals. Wherever a thread of the precious liquid can be led, wheat, corn, and alfalfa are grown to the utmost. The Lower bounded on the north by the Atlas range of Aures and the foothills of Bou-Kahil--occupies a depression, below the level of the sea in some places soil, a part of which forms a salt water lake saltier than the great Salt Lake, which, as everybody knows, is saltier than the sea. In summer the Sahara lake is of no great size owing to evaporation. It is covered with a thick and glistening coat of salt so dazzling in the sun that one cannot distinguish where the salt ends and the water begins. Its bottom is of black mud, emitting an unpleasant odor-which is probably due to the presence of bromides: and criss-cross all over it are veins of solid salt forming natural causeways, the natives traverse in safety with their mules or camels. Considerable rivers cross the desert-notably the Chott, Aures, Ghadaghar: but they are permanent streams in the upper part of their courses. Lower down their waters dry up under the arid African sun, or are drunk by thirsty sand, or are absorbed by plants, or filter through the upper strata and flow along the clayey bottom which underlies it. In many places shallow depressions are found, full of water, which seem to indicate a subterranean lake. In other parts water lies close to the surface of the enclosed in a sandy substratum under a bed of sulphate of lime, crystallized on its upper surface and amorphous under. One has only to penetrate the layer of gypsum to create a well. When the Arabs want to plant a date palm they scrape off the entire upper layer and set their palms in the aquifer soil beneath, thus forming orchards sunk like ants' nests, considerably below the level of the surrounding country. The western Sahara that adjoins Morocco is mostly made up of rocky steppes, depressions between them being filled with sand, the higher plateaux scored with immense ravines, without water or vegetation. A more desolate region can hardly be imagined--but it is in the least like the Sahara of school-books. Rain seldom falls in the lower part, and in the highlands it only during severe storms, or when occasionally abundant snow has melted in the mountains that the waters do any uniting in the deep defiles, and streamlets form a mighty river which for a day or two overflows the lower Sahara. Then the sands have absorbed it and nothing remains but a few shallow pools, where gazelles drink, or a slight rise in the frequent wells which supply caravans with water. These periodical inundations, though needed, are not half enough to supply the Beni M'zab, who cultivate gardens in the beds of the great ravines which dominate their seven cities. In Tafna they treasure up every precious drop in reservoirs; they are also obliged to cut deep wells in the rock and collect the infiltration of water in the calcareous strata. In order to understand the varying characteristics of Algeria, it should be remembered that the country has two other distinct and strongly marked divisions besides the desert of Sahara. They are known as the Tell and the High Plateaux. The former is a strip of undulating, beautifully cultivated land, like an English park, extending inland from the Mediterranean from fifty to a hundred miles. The High Plateaux extending from east to west, is formed by vast, dreary plains, separated by parallel ranges of mountains. These terraces increase in height as they recede from the Tell, and again decrease as they approach the Sahara, thus forming a double series of gradients, the highest being perhaps four thousand feet. Mountain spurs, crossing these stages on the way to the sea, cut them up into a series of basins, each of which is generally occupied by a small salt lake. Alternations of intense cold and extreme heat prevail here. Instead of sea-breezes, only the hot blasts of the desert blow over this inferno. There are no trees, and no vegetation but stunted scrub and weeds, on which the sheep and camels browse, which form the wealth of the wandering Arab. It is said to be rich in minerals and valuable marbles, however, and in seasons of unusual rains considerable alfa is grown for its fibre. If my lot had to be cast permanently in either place-which Heaven forbid-I should infinitely prefer the honest desert. Of course we have not space in the columns of The Republican Journal to speak of half the excursions we have actually made in Algeria, nor a hundredth part of those within easy reach of the traveler. A little jaunt of last week, which shows as well as any the sharp contrasts of African scenery, led us through Mansurah and Hammam-Bou-Ghara along the Tafna river. Leaving Tlemcen by the Bou-Medina gate, we journeyed southward a couple of miles, to a mean little Arab village with one tall minaret, snuggled close up under a hill which shelters it from the dreaded sirocco. This is El Eubbad, the once celebrated home of science and religion in the golden days of long ago, when Tlemcen was inhabited by warriors and statesmen. Not a trace of its former glory remains: but a little farther on we came to the ruined palace of Abouel-Hassan Ali, the "Black Sultan," whose name and ancestry is written over the entrance-gate as "Our Lord the Sultan Abdulla Ali, son of our Lord the Sultan Abi Raeed Othman, son of our Lord the Sultan Abi Goosuf, son of Yacoob Abd-el-Huk." His reign began A. D. 1337, and continued eleven years, but here it is inscribed over the door as A. H. 739. On tablets at the main entrance to the mosque his name is also written, Our Lord the Sultan Abouel Hassan Abdulla Ali." This was his favorite abode among scores of palaces, as one may easily believe from the traces of exquisite decorations, beautiful gardens, and the wide panorama of plain and mountain to be viewed from its terraces. Close by is the Koubba (tomb) of Sidi Bou-Medin, the patron Saint of Tlemcen. His correct name was Shaoib-ibn Hoosain el-Andalousi Abou Median- and no wonder his followers shortened it for every-day use into Bou-Medin! He was born in Seville, nine or ten centuries ago. Coming to Fez when a young man, he devoted himself to theology, and after doing missionary work all over Spain, Algeria and even in far off Baghdad, he died near Tlemcen at a ripe old age. To the Mohammedans his tomb is the most sacred of shrines, and therefore all foreign visitors should remember the injunction: "Take thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." To be sure, it seems to us a senseless custom-and so to them would be the removal of men's hats in our sanctuaries. If we must invade the holy places of other people, we should conform as far as possible to their ideas of what is proper. It is not much to do to slip off one's dusty boots at the outer door of the court-yard; and one will have his reward in the increased attention paid to him by the guardians of the place. A short staircase descends into an ante-chamber, lined with tombs: to the right is the entrance to the sacred Koubba, which contains two tombs- that of the saint himself and of his friend and disciple, Sidi Abd-es-Selam, of Tunis. The roof and walls retain all their fine old arabesque work, the main feature of which is the infinite repetition of a cartouch containing the inscription El-Mulk Lillah-"The kingdom is God's." The whole quaint interior is crowded with banners of brocaded silk, votive candles, ostrich eggs, the usual paraphernalia of Arab tombs. The mosque itself is a glorious building, a regular pocket-edition of the Alhambra, in the best style of Moorish art and sparkling all over with the most beautiful tile-mosaics. Mansouri, a mile or so farther on, is hardly less remarkable. Its history is worthy of its time. After Abou Yakoub had besieged Tlemcen four years, he turned his camp into a city and surrounded it with high walls and towers, of which a large portion now remains. They enclose a nearly perfect square of 250 acres. The historian Ibn Kaaldoun says: It was filled with large houses, immense buildings, sumptuous palaces and irrigated gardens. It was in the year 1302 that the king built its walls and that he created a splendid city, famous both for its vast population, its extensive trade and its massive walls. He included in it public baths, caravanserais, a hospital and a mosque with a lofty minaret. In a short time it took the first place among the cities of Barbary. However, Mansouri was evacuated when peace was made, only four years later, and altogether deserted for a quarter of a century; until the second siege of Tlemcen, when the "Black Sultan," after capturing the capital, built a palace at Mansouri and prepared to enjoy life with a few hundred of his wives. But the misfortunes of war soon drove him away, and ever since its empty mosques and palaces have been crumbling to decay. The minaret of Abou Yakoub, 125 feet high,-built of hewn stone and by far the most beautiful architectural monument of Moorish times in Algeria-still remains, having been recently strengthened and repaired. The Arabs of the neighborhood say that Yakoub, being in a hurry to complete his minaret, employed a Jew to help his Moslem masons. But God did not bless the work of the Jew, and as fast as he reared a portion, though ever so carefully, it fell to the ground. The city walls are forty feet high and four feet thick. A curious feature is that the towers are entirely without gates or doorways. It is said that they were used only for stores, and that the custodian entered them from the top by means of ropes. All around lies a rich and beautiful country, entirely unlike the parched, sun-burnt Algeria of which one gains a notion from books. Every mound and hollow and plain luxuriates in olives, figs, cherries, almond, pistachios, until all the landscape is one immense orchard. The meadows are carpeted with flowers and the hillsides tapestried with heath or orchids. A pathway leads across the fields to what is called a troglodytic city-meaning a range of caverns, once inhabited but now abandoned. On top of all is the koubba of Lalla-Setta-the ancient worthy who, during one of the many sieges of Tlemcen bethought himself to stuff a goat with barley and then head him for the enemy's camp. The besiegers killed the goat, and seeing that it was so bountifully fed, abandoned all hope of taking the city and forthwith struck their tents.

FANNIE B. WARD.