Ernest Alby

Dschigeli—The Foreign Legion—Climate—Attack of the Kabyles on the Blockhouses—Massacre of a Kabyle Village—Samoom—Homeric Fight—Death of my Friend—Fort Duquesne—Formidable Starfish—Shipwreck—Engagement with the Kabyles—Escape of the Prisoners—Burial of their Dead.

Dschigeli, August, 25.

We reached Dschigeli on the 15th, after a most prosperous voyage of thirty-six hours, which included a short stay at Budschia.

During the summer the surface of the Mediterranean is almost always as smooth as a mirror. The blue transparent water looks so gentle and harmless that one can scarce believe in the terrific powers which slumber in its bosom. In the later autumn it entirely alters its character; storms, and frequently even hurricanes, render the African coasts the most dangerous in the world; the more so, since the whole territory occupied by the French does not contain a single safe and capacious harbour of refuge. Last year, the French lost in the roads before Stora, a short distance from hence, no less than forty vessels in one night.

The Government has endeavoured to remedy this evil by constructing artificial harbours, and has, at an enormous cost, somewhat enlarged that of Algiers by sinking blocks of stone and a species of cement into the sea; but of course little can be effected in this manner.

Dschigeli, which also has only a small roadstead, is built on a rock rising out of the sea; it belongs to the province of Constantina and lies between Budschia and Philippeville. It is inhabited by Turks and Arabs, who formerly drove a thriving trade in piracy. Although the town looks like a mere heap of stones, it is said still to contain much hidden treasure. The soldiers are already hoping for an outbreak among the population which may afford them an excuse for pillaging the town. This does not, however, seem very likely, as the Arabs are on very good terms with the garrison, and not without reason, for the Kabyles who dwell in the neighbouring mountains would not treat them so well as the French do.

The whole district between Algiers and Dschigeli, along which runs the high range of the Aphronne mountains, is the proper country of the Kabyles.

The French possess no more of it than what they have enclosed within a line of blockhouses, that is, about half a square mile. Our battalion, the third of the Foreign Legion, forms the whole garrison: it is commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Picolou, a Frenchman. Like the rest of the Legion, this battalion is composed of men of all nations and all ranks: Spaniards and Italians, Germans and Belgians, Dutchmen and Poles, only no English. Most of them have joined the service out of mere folly, some from political or civil offences, and a few from misfortune.

These men are for the most part brutal and undisciplined, but ready to encounter anything. They form a band who, under an energetic leader, might do great things. Like all hirelings, our corps has much of the character of Wallenstein’s camp. At first I thought that my fate was a very tragical one, but even this comfort was soon taken from me. There is not one among us who has not the history and adventures of his life to tell, and the worst of all is that one is forced to confess that there is nothing tragical which has not its comic side. I may safely assert that I have heard more biographies in one day here than are to be found in all Plutarch.

Nearly all the commissions in the Legion are held by Frenchmen who look upon this as a short cut to advancement. Among the officers are also a few Poles and Swiss; the latter of whom have joined the service since the revolution of July. But, in general, it is very difficult for a foreigner to attain to the rank of an officer.

Although Dschigeli lies under nearly the same latitude as Algiers, it is far hotter and more unhealthy. Nearly half the garrison is rendered unfit for service by fever, which makes the duty of those who are well doubly severe. The oppressive heat has a very remarkable effect upon all new comers, whose strength leaves them from day to day; and men, as strong as lions before, creep about with pale yellow faces and with voices as small as those of children. Every morning before daybreak seven or eight corpses are secretly carried out of the town. Hitherto I have resisted the influence of the climate, but I take more care of myself than the rest, and do not indulge in eating fruit, &c. The first rule of health is to follow as nearly as possible the manner of life of the natives of foreign countries, for one may fairly presume that they have good reasons for adhering to particular customs from generation to generation. Most inhabitants of the north of Europe ruin their health by persisting in the same habits abroad which they follow in their own country.

September, 1840.

We spend alternately fourteen days in the town, and fourteen in the blockhouses: the latter is by far the most interesting. The blockhouses, placed in a semicircle on the heights surrounding the town, are built of oak planks imported from France and of sufficient thickness to turn a bullet. They are generally two stories high, and are protected by a wall and a ditch. The largest are provided with two cannons and some wall-pieces, which are of great service.

To prevent time from hanging heavy on our hands, our friends the Kabyles come down from the neighbouring mountains to pay their respects to us. They greet us from afar with a torrent of friendly epithets, such as “hahluf” (swine), &c., which is quickly followed by a shower of balls. We are no less civil in our turn, allowing them to approach within a short distance, when we treat them to a volley of musketry and a few discharges from the field-pieces; whereupon they usually retire somewhat tranquillized but still vehement in abuse. We of course have much the best of it behind our walls and ditches, but from time to time some of us are wounded or killed.

A few days ago they attacked us with unusual fury and pertinacity. Some time before sunrise we saw a large party of Kabyles coming down from the mountains: as far as the eye could reach the place swarmed with white bernouses. Every blockhouse was attacked at the same moment. Our well-directed fire was insufficient to keep off an enemy which pressed upon us in dense masses, and in a moment they were close under the walls. Here they could no longer do us any damage with their shots; but in their rage they threw huge stones over the walls upon our heads. We made a rapid retreat into our blockhouses and barricadoed the doors. In one moment the Kabyles climbed the outer walls, and attempted in their blind fury to storm the blockhouses. Some of them tried, but in vain, to throw the cannon over the walls; and they now had the worst of the fight.

The half of our party who were in the upper story removed a plank which was left loose for the purpose, and poured their fire down upon the heads of the Kabyles, while some cannoneers who were with us threw a number of hand-grenades, of which we had good store, among them. This was rather more than they could bear, and they dispersed in all directions, yelling fearfully; they however carried off their dead and wounded, for the Mohamedan never leaves his comrades in the hands of the foe.

They did not repeat their visit for several days after this.

The Kabyles, who are a strong and courageous race, inhabit fixed dwellings, and employ themselves in agriculture as well as in cattle-breeding. They always fight on foot, armed with a yataghan and a long rifle which will carry almost as far as our wall-pieces.

They hardly ever attack by night, for one of the precepts of the Koran is—neither to wander nor to wage war by night, and this they pretty scrupulously obey; and indeed they are altogether far better Mohamedans than we are Christians.

I need not add that on these occasions every one does his duty, for each fights for that which he most values, namely his head. He who falls into the hands of the Kabyles is born under no lucky planet—his head is instantly cut off and borne away as a trophy.

The Commandant marched up into the mountains one night with the whole garrison, to chastise the Kabyles for their insolence. We started at midnight under the guidance of some Arabs who knew the country and marched, without stopping and in deep silence, up hill and down dale until just before daybreak, when the crowing of cocks and the baying of dogs gave us notice that we were close upon a tribe. We were ordered to halt, and two companies with a few field-pieces were left behind on an eminence.

After a short rest we started again, and the first glimmer of light showed the huts of the tribe straight before us. An old Kabyle was at that moment going out with a pair of oxen to plough; as soon as he saw us he uttered a fearful howl and fled, but a few well-directed shots brought him down. In one moment the grenadiers and voltigeurs, who were in advance, broke through the hedge of prickly pear which generally surrounds a Kabyle village, and the massacre began. Strict orders had been given to kill all the men and only to take the women and children prisoners: for we followed the precept of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

A few men only reeled half awake out of their huts, but most of them still lay fast asleep; not one escaped death. The women and children rushed, howling and screaming, out of their burning huts in time to see their husbands and brothers butchered. One young woman with an infant at her breast started back at the sight of strange men exclaiming “Mohamed! Mohamed!” and ran into her burning hut. Some soldiers sprang forward to save her, but the roof had already fallen in and she and her child perished in the flames.

We then returned with our booty, and it was high time, for other tribes of Kabyles came flocking together from every side, attracted by the noise. We were forced to retreat in such haste that we left the greater part of the cattle behind. The fire of the companies we had stationed in our rear with the field-pieces at last gained us time to breathe. We however had but few killed and wounded.

A few days after, a deputation was sent by the survivors with proposals for the exchange of the women and children against cattle, which was accepted. It is a point of honour with the Kabyles not to leave their women and children in the enemies’ hands. They most conscientiously ransomed even the old women whom we would willingly have given them gratis.

For several days we have been suffering severely from the wind of the desert (samoom) which prevails here during the months of August and September. This wind is scorching and impregnated with minute particles of sand. At its approach all are filled with terror, large drops of sweat stand on one’s brow, and the only means of escape is to lie flat on one’s face and to hold one’s breath. Those who inhale the air die in twenty minutes.

Fortunately the samoom only lasts from a quarter of an hour to twenty minutes, but it returns several times a day. During its prevalence all hostilities cease; for the natives and the very wild beasts are subject to its influence. When surprised by this wind during a march, all instantly halt. Camels, horses, and mules, instinctively turn their backs to the wind and hold their noses close to the ground until the danger is past.

The day before yesterday we had a hot encounter with the Kabyles, after a fashion truly Homeric, in defence of our oxen. Our company was ordered to escort the cattle, which are numerous, to the water.

The incessant heat had already dried up all the fountains and springs within the line of the blockhouses, so that we were forced to drive the cattle beyond it to a stream which flows from the mountains and never fails. We advanced as usual en tiralleurs to cover the watering-place, but we had scarcely reached the further side of the stream when we were greeted on all sides by yells and bullets. The Kabyles had hidden themselves in the brushwood close by, and occupied an eminence opposite to us. In order to make use of our strongest weapon, the bayonet, which is much dreaded by the Kabyles, we advanced up the hill with levelled bayonets and took it at the first attack. But scarce had we reached the top when we received a heavy fire from all sides, the Kabyles having surrounded us in a semicircle. In a moment we had several killed and wounded and were forced to retreat faster than we had advanced, the Kabyles pressing furiously on our rear. The commanding officer exclaimed: “Sauvez les blessÉs! Sauvez les blessÉs!”

A non-commissioned officer close beside me had been shot through the jaw; he had completely lost his senses, and was reeling round and round like a drunken man. I seized him under the arm and dragged him towards the nearest blockhouse into which the company retreated. We were the very last, and the Kabyles yelled wildly close behind us while their bullets whistled in our ears; I was not hit however, and succeeded in bringing my charge safely home, conscious of having done my duty as a soldier and as a man. We had but just reached the blockhouse when the Commandant Superieur came up with a reinforcement of several companies, and sent us all out again to rescue the cattle, which by this time had all but fallen into the enemy’s hands. The beasts were so deeply engaged in the noble occupation of drinking that it was almost impossible to move them from the spot.

We now repulsed the Kabyles, and at length the horsemen succeeded in driving off the cattle. After this we came to a sort of tacit understanding with the enemy to leave each other in peace at the stream, for they too had to water their cattle there and might have been seriously incommoded by us from the blockhouse.

This was my first battle in the open field, and I cannot say that it made much impression upon me. My imagination had pictured the terrors of the scene so vividly to me that the reality fell far short of it. I was moreover prepared for it by all manner of perils which I had encountered by land and by sea. I have frequently observed that men of lively imagination (and accordingly most southerns) have a greater dread of fancied than of real dangers. Before the decisive moment arrives they have exhausted all the terrors of death and are prepared for the worst. The cold phlegmatic northern, on the contrary, goes with greater coolness into battle, but often finds it worse than he expected.

I have suffered a severe loss; the only friend I had found here died a few days ago. Similar tastes and a like fate had drawn us together. He was of a good family at Berlin, as the high cultivation of his mind sufficiently proved; but an unfortunate longing for excitement and adventure had driven him from home. I am convinced that he died of home-sickness. He had never served before, and could not, therefore, brook this brutal and savage life so well as I could, and a fever hastened his death. He had written to his father for money to obtain his discharge, under the conviction that he could not endure his life here, and was in the daily expectation of an answer. His imagination already transported him back to his family; but he grew weaker every day and at length had to be carried to the hospital, where I visited him daily when my turn of service did not prevent me. When I went yesterday and inquired after him, one of the attendants pointed to his bed: on approaching it I found him dead. No one, not even his next neighbour, had heard him die. He was buried next morning with no kind of ceremony, and I followed him to the grave alone. It is well for him that he is at peace! His spirit was too gentle to bear the sight of all this cruelty and wretchedness. One must case one’s heart in triple brass to bear existence here at all.

Since the 1st of December our company has been quartered in Fort Duquesne, which stands upon the sea and defends the south-eastern side of the town. This fort is built upon a rock rising so abruptly from the sea that a few half-bastions towards the land are sufficient for its defence. A wooden shed has been erected to shelter the garrison from the weather.

We are uncommonly well off here, for the duty is not severe: most of our time is spent in fishing. The coasts of Africa abound with various sorts of fish which, to us at least, appear excellent; but indeed many circumstances combine to make us think so. A small kind of oyster, which is also met with in Spain, and sea-hedgehogs are particularly abundant. We only have to take them off the rocks, to open and eat them.

The starfish too are common here, and I have a strange tale to tell of one. During the month of August the soldiers were in the habit of bathing in the sea every evening, and from time to time several of them disappeared, no one knew how. Bathing was in consequence strictly forbidden, in spite of which several men went into the water one evening; suddenly one of them screamed for help, and when several others rushed to his assistance they found that a huge starfish had seized him by the leg with four of its limbs, whilst it clung to the rock by the fifth. The soldiers brought the monster home with them, and out of revenge they broiled it alive and ate it. This adventure sufficiently accounted for the disappearance of the other soldiers.

The rainy season, which generally lasts three or four months, has already set in accompanied by hurricanes of extraordinary violence, which fortunately last but a short time, though indeed quite long enough to cause the death and ruin of countless sailors. A few days ago a vessel was dashed to pieces against the very rock upon which the fort stands. It turned out to be a French merchant brig, which had anchored in the roads to avoid the raging of the elements. Another night, while I was on watch, the storm increased by degrees to a perfect hurricane; the rain came down in torrents, and the darkness was such that it was impossible to see a yard before one’s face. In a moment the wooden shed was unroofed, and the waves dashed over the very top of the rock. Next morning the fragments of a vessel lay at our feet; the roaring of the wind and waves had entirely overpowered the crash of the shipwreck. Every soul on board had perished except a little dog which stood wet and trembling on a jutting cliff and was with difficulty induced to come to us: he appeared to be still expecting his master.

The Mediterranean has scarce any tide, but the north or south wind affects the ebb or flow on the African coast though only to the depth of a few feet. After a few days of calm its blue waters are so clear that the fish and seaweed, some hundred feet below, look as though one might touch them. There is a peculiar charm in thus looking down into the secrets of Neptune’s kingdom. I often lie for hours on a jutting cliff, watching the crowd of fish sporting below, and the tortoises, those drones of the sea, lazily basking on the surface of the waves.

My mind involuntarily reverted to my childhood, and to my mother’s story of the enchanted prince whom a beautiful mermaid imprisoned in her crystal palace deep under the sea. After a hundred years, which passed like a few months, the charm was broken and the prince returned upon the earth to ascend the throne of his forefathers. But, alas! all was changed—his race was extinct and there was none that knew him; he himself had long since forgotten the language of men. Then he longed to return to his crystal prison and cast himself headlong into the waves.

At times I can scarce refrain from following the example of the enchanted prince and going to lead a harmless peaceful life with the fish, far from the rapacious envious race of men. But even this were vain, for under the water too there is strife, and greediness, and ambition—every thing, in short, save calumny.

February, 1841.

For nearly two months we have not once been disturbed by the Kabyles, and we should have enjoyed a state of the most tranquil peace and content had it not been for the fleas. These bloodthirsty monsters are indeed the most terrible enemies we have in Africa—nothing can protect us from their hostilities. I assure you that Kabyles and panthers, nay, even tight boots, or a bad conscience, are not to be compared to them. They are worst in the wooden barracks and the blockhouses. One must be worn out with fatigue in order to sleep there at all, and then one wakes covered from head to foot with specks of blood.

On the night of the 4th of February, contrary to their usual custom, the Kabyles paid us a very well-meant visit. We lay in our barracks, not dreaming of any danger, when we were awakened at eleven o’clock at night by repeated shots, and by some bullets which came through the deal boards of our barracks. In an instant we were dressed; each man snatched up his musket, and went out. The shots came from a rock to the westward of the town and only separated from it by a small arm of the sea. By some strange neglect no blockhouse had been built on this spot, which commanded the town. The Kabyles had stolen through the line of blockhouses in the dark, and from this rock they now fired into the town with their long rifles with some effect. The companies soon fell into rank. Lieutenant-Colonel Picolou, a cool determined officer, made his appearance immediately, and placed all the sentinels of the town on a battery exactly opposite the rock, to answer the fire of the Kabyles and thus to make them believe that the whole garrison was there: in the meantime we marched out at the gate in perfect silence, reached the rock unobserved, and fell suddenly upon their rear. At the very moment when they saw us and raised their wild howl, we gave them a volley and charged them with the bayonet. As the Kabyles are totally unacquainted with the use of it, they could offer us no effectual resistance although they were double our number. Those who were not killed threw themselves into the sea, for, being mostly good swimmers, they chose rather to trust to the tender mercies of the waves than to ours. But even the very elements conspired against them. The sea was very rough, and the waves dashed the poor fellows to pieces against the rocks. But few escaped to tell the mournful tale to their kinsfolk. We remained on the rock till the following morning.

We had only taken three prisoners, for in the heat of the skirmish the soldiers cut down every one. Some, indeed, had even cut off the heads of the wounded with their own yataghans. The Commandant Superieur rewarded these heroes with five franc pieces, and stuck the heads over the city gates, where they remained until the stench became intolerable. Truly I almost begin to think that we have learned more of the barbarous manners of the Kabyles, than they of our humanity and civilisation.

In two days, a few old men belonging to the almost annihilated tribe came to implore peace and the permission to remove and bury their dead, which latter request was granted. They also wished to ransom the three prisoners, one of whom was the son of their chief, and offered forty oxen for them, but the Commandant demanded eighty and the negotiators were forced to depart without them. Greatly to the annoyance of the Commandant and the astonishment of us all, one fine day the prisoners had disappeared. They had been confined in a dry cistern close to the sea and had, with inconceivable difficulty, worked their way through to it in one night, let themselves down into the water by means of their long woollen girdles, and swum to the other side. This was no slight matter, as the coast is tolerably distant and one of the prisoners had his thigh shattered by a bullet. They then escaped safely through all the outposts. For eight whole days the Kabyles kept coming to fetch the dead bodies of their relations. Their joyful songs contrasted sadly with their melancholy faces. They were entirely crushed by this last blow, which they looked upon as a chastisement from Allah, because they had transgressed his command to wage no war by night. Most of the corpses had to be fished up out of the sea.

I watched them one morning at this employment. The Kabyles stood round a body they had just found, and drew the mantle from off the head. Scarce had an old Kabyle seen the features of the corpse, than he turned away his face to hide his tears; perhaps it was his son. And the soldiers who stood by jeered him!

Truly war is wild work; especially a war to the knife, such as this. It is lucky for us that custom renders us indifferent to our own dangers and miseries, but then we often grow equally indifferent to the woes of others.

March, 1841.

We have just heard that we are to have a new Governor; no other than General Bugeaud who made the treaty with Abd-el-Kader, at Tafna. He is a vigorous, enterprising man, and great things are expected from him.

An expedition into the interior against the Bedouins is talked of, in which we are to take part; and we have already received orders to embark in a steamer for Algiers in a few days. Well, I shall not be sorry to make acquaintance with those houseless, wandering sons of the desert.