Ernest Alby

Marches—The five marabouts—Cards and chess—Night march—The Sultan’s arrival at the camp—His wife—Female camp—Zaka the cup-bearer—Abd-el-Kader’s Court of Justice.

On the 30th of September, at sunrise, Abd-el-Kader gave the signal of departure. After a march of two hours we reached a desert country; the road was extremely bad, and frequently broken by ravines. To our left ran a long chain of wooded mountains, which we had not yet left behind us, when Ben Faka ordered a halt, and pitched the camp on the banks of the Ouet Mina.

The next day, the 1st of October, whilst I was watching the negroes who were taking down the Sultan’s tent and loading it on the mules, I saw Ben Faka with three haicks under his arm, followed by three Italian prisoners. I went towards them and asked whither they were going, but before they had time to answer me Ben Faka, in a voice broken by rage, commanded me to leave them, and to mount my mule. I was struck with a sinister presentiment as to the fate of the three unhappy prisoners. From afar I saw Ben Faka give them the haicks, of which they had long stood in need, as they had nothing to wear but their ragged shirts. My three companions in misfortune then took the road to Tekedemta. The Sultan sent them to the works there, and it was only by his especial orders that Ben Faka had given them the haicks. At Tekedemta the poor fellows were exposed to every kind of privation and ill usage; one of them sunk under it. The two survivors afterwards gave me an account of their sufferings, which would appear incredible to any one who did not know the Arabs as well as I do. This separation was most painful to me; we had endured together hunger, cold, insults, and blows; we had talked together of our sorrows, our hopes, and our hatred of the Arabs.

We started at daybreak, and marched eastward, still keeping the chain of mountains on our left. After a march of three hours, Ben Faka pitched the camp on the left bank of the Ouet Mina, upon a plateau covered with empty silos. Not a tent or even a single Arab was to be seen: the horsemen were obliged to ride for three or four hours in search of barley for their horses.

On the 4th of October we again struck our camp, and marched to within half a league of the wooded mountains I have mentioned above. Ben Faka pitched the camp on a small plain by the side of a stream which runs into the Ouet Mina. This plain is uncultivated, and in the winter it is so overflowed by the Ouet Mina as to look like a lake. It is covered with shrubs resembling the sweet briar, which bear a fruit like the medlar, only smaller, and containing a kernel. Like all the shrubs of this country, these swarm with large white snails and slugs enough to feed an army for some days. Next day we continued our march westward, bearing a few degrees to the north. We quitted the banks of the Ouet Mina, but the wooded mountain was still to our left.

After six hours’ march we halted on a plateau covered with heaps of stones which looked like the ruins of a town: but Abd-el-Kader and his marabouts told us they had never heard of the existence of one on that spot.

On the 6th of October, after a march of two hours, the camp was pitched on a plateau at the eastern extremity of the plain of Mascara, at a place called Teknifil. Near it, on five hillocks, stand five marabouts. Here we heard that the French had sent an expedition from Oran, and that General LÉtang was marching on El-Borgj, a village two leagues to the north of Teknifil. Abd-el-Kader immediately went to El-Borgj with all his cavalry, and forced the inhabitants to abandon it. Next day the baggage, the flocks, the women, and children of the Borgia tribe were scattered about the plain, and orders were likewise sent to the inhabitants of Mascara, which is four leagues from Teknifil, to abandon the place. We stayed at Teknifil a fortnight, during which time Abd-el-Kader gathered together all the tribes that remained faithful to him, and when his army amounted to five or six thousand he followed the French to the plains of Macta. Every day couriers arrived at the camp with false news, either that the French were surrounded on all sides, or that they had been cut to pieces by the Sultan. The Arabs announced the news to us, and accompanied it by blows, abuse, and menaces of death. Moreover, we were half starved, and the hopes with which Abd-el-Kader’s kindness had inspired us were now turned into despair.

Our days seemed long and gloomy: the Arabs maltreated us, and separated Meurice and me from the coral fishers. We had talked so long of our hopes, our home, and our families, that these subjects were quite worn out. At last, in order to pass the time, I set to work to make a chess board and a pack of cards. I stole a board from one of the powder chests (which it was my great amusement to water, at the risk of my life), and divided it into squares: I then cut some chess men out of branches of oleander: I also stole a few sheets of paper, for which Ben Faka beat me with a stick, and made a pack of cards of them. My knaves were jockeys with pipes in their mouths, and red, green, and white jackets; the queens were ladies dressed in the European fashion,—one with a bonnet, another with a foulard, another with hair dressed À la Chinoise, and the fourth with long ringlets in the English style; the kings had huge crowns on their heads. Ben Faka and Ben Abu, who had the care of Abd-el-Kader’s tent during his absence, sent Meurice and me to guard it during great part of the day; for Christians and slaves as we were, they trusted us far more than the Arabs. The cushions and the sofa had been removed, and we were especially commanded to touch nothing in the tent, as the touch of a Christian would defile anything belonging to the Sultan. We lay on the carpet of this august and holy dwelling, and played at chess and picquet. The marabouts, in spite of their horror of any representation of the human face or figure, were struck with admiration at the accuracy with which I had copied the European costume in my knaves and queens. They were very anxious to understand the game of picquet, and overpowered us with questions about every card we played. Their cards are quite different to ours, and I have seen draughts in their cafÉs but no chess boards, though one day when Abd-el-Kader saw me playing at chess with Meurice, he said, “My grandfather used sometimes to play with pieces like those on a draught board.”

On the 20th of October, after a halt of fourteen days at the five marabouts, during which time we were exposed to threats, blows, and cruel privations, the tents were struck. A courier arrived at the camp, in the middle of the night, with the news that the French were marching towards Oran, and that the Sultan would be at Mascara on the morning of the 21st. In spite of the lateness of the hour (it was midnight) Ben Faka ordered the troops and the baggage to set out. There was a thick fog, and we suffered cruelly from the cold and damp, which I am sure laid the seeds of the illness under which poor Meurice finally sank. Meurice and I were mounted on the mules which carried the Sultan’s coffers. Each quarter of an hour we heard the voice of Ben Faka calling through the darkness, “France! Meurice! are you on your mules?” “Yes.” “Don’t get down, and above all don’t change with any of the horsemen.” “Never fear.” Ben Faka’s uneasiness was not without cause: he was responsible for any disorder that might happen during the march, and he was always afraid that if we quitted our mules the soldiers of the escort would pillage the Sultan’s treasure; for dogs and Christians as we were, Ben Faka knew that we were more trustworthy than the proud Arab warriors. With the first rays of the sun, we arrived with all the treasure safe at the pretty town of Mascara.

The camp was pitched at the foot of the mountain which bounds the plain of Mascara on the north. A little stream, whose banks were covered with oleanders, ran through the midst of it. Mascara stands in the centre of a mountain gorge, on a steep and precipitous hill; the white and cheerful-looking houses are surrounded by a perfect grove of fig trees, and a few graceful poplars and slender minarets rise like lances among them. The view was so charming that I stole a sheet of paper and went outside the camp to sketch it. But I had scarce begun, when a mounted chaous rode up to me and gave me a blow with his stick. To avoid a repetition of it, I ran back to the tent with my unfinished sketch.

A courier brought the news of Abd-el-Kader’s arrival at the camp, and the infantry instantly armed and went about ten minutes’ march towards Mascara, where it drew up in two lines. Presently the cavalry arrived at full gallop, and was drawn up by Muftar in two bodies behind the infantry. As soon as Abd-el-Kader had passed them, the last soldiers, both horse and foot, quitted the line, and ran to place themselves in two rows before his tent. As he entered it, three discharges of cannon from Mascara announced the Sultan’s return to the neighbouring tribes. The soldiers kept up a constant firing in honour of the great victory which the Sultan had gained over the French.

All that day the camp was in a state of great confusion; horsemen belonging to the adjacent tribes were continually coming and going, and feeding their horses in the camp: this, added to the cries of joy and exultation, and the incessant galloping and firing of the soldiers, produced an indescribable tumult and clamour.

At sunset Abd-el-Kader mounted his horse, accompanied by a few marabouts and the thirty negroes, and rode to his wife’s tent, which is pitched three or four miles to the south of Mascara, on a spot near which Abd-el-Kader has a garden and a marabout.

The chiefs who accompany the Sultan also have tents for their wives and families at the same place, where there is a sort of female camp. That inhabited by Abd-el-Kader’s wife is woven of black camel hair.

The Sultan is said to be a most tender husband, and his conduct proves the truth of the report, for he has not a single concubine. His wife is very pretty; her tall slender figure is seen to great advantage under the graceful folds of her haick, which is girded round her middle with a red worsted cord. The Arabs usually like large fat women, but Abd-el-Kader’s taste is different. Though often absent from his wife for three or four months at a time, his attachment to her remains unchanged. Even from the banks of the Ouet Mina he frequently sent her presents of fruit, butter, honey, and other rarities. He has had one daughter by her; and though it was asserted that she was delivered of a boy on the very day on which the French entered Mascara, I do not believe it; for if Abd-el-Kader really had a son I am sure the Arabs would have told me so. During the night the thirty negroes keep watch round the tent that nothing may disturb the repose of Abd-el-Kader and his wife; and during their absence from the camp, a guard of foot soldiers supplies their place around the Sultan’s tent.

In the middle of the night a man peeped cautiously out of the Sultan’s tent, darted out, and tried to make his escape; but the sentinels who were not asleep seized him. It was Zaka, an old negro slave, and Abd-el-Kader’s cup-bearer. He had long been used to take advantage of the moments during which the Sultan left his tent to enter it and rob his treasure. The thirty negroes, either blinded by the confidence with which his high functions inspired him, or unwilling to denounce their comrade, had never stopped him, although they had frequently seen him leave the tent at undue hours, and during the absence of the Sultan. But the Arab soldiers were much less accommodating; and when Abd-el-Kader returned to the camp at sunrise they brought Zaka before him, together with several sultani (a silver coin) found on his person.

The coffee-sellers deposed, that Zaka had for a long time been in the habit of spending a great deal of money in their booths, and of treating his friends there daily. Haicks, bernouses, yataghans, and splendid pistols were found in his tent; and every one knew that his means were small and uncertain. Abd-el-Kader ordered him to be put in irons for an unlimited time; and he was brought to our tent, and placed under the guard of his friend Ben Faka. As the punishment promised to last very long, the chaous struck a nail through the bar which joins the irons, instead of securing it with a padlock.

Ben Faka was presently summoned to his duties in Abd-el-Kader’s tent; and after his departure Zaka crept to the further extremity of the tent, threw himself on the ground like a man overcome with fatigue, and pretended to sleep. Meurice watched all his movements with great attention, “The negro is trying to escape,” said he. “He is asleep,” I replied; “besides, both his feet are hampered.” “Say rather, he is pretending to sleep,” answered Meurice; “only watch his proceedings.” Zaka took down a rifle which he laid across two bales; he then pulled off his black bernouse, hung it over the gun, and crouched down behind it. I left the tent, and soon after saw him slowly cross the camp, wrapped in his white haick, and hiding his face. As soon as he had reached the limits of the camp he took to his heels, and soon disappeared among the fig trees on the mountain.

When Ben Faka returned to the tent, and found that the prisoner for whom he was personally responsible had escaped, he flew into a violent passion, and loaded us with blows and abuse, for not having prevented Zaka’s flight. A hundred horsemen mounted immediately, and rode in all directions in pursuit of him. Ben Faka was anxious to conceal the escape of Zaka from the Sultan, as he hoped that the fugitive would be retaken before the news of his flight could reach Abd-el-Kader. But the horsemen had not returned when a chaous summoned him into the presence of the Sultan. As Ben Faka was going towards the tent he met Zaka in the midst of an escort of horsemen, with his hands tied behind his back; he took possession of his prisoner, and went with him to the Sultan’s tent. Without further enquiry, the Sultan condemned Zaka to be put in irons for an indefinite time, and to receive six hundred blows a day with a stick, for three successive days; two hundred at seven in the morning, two hundred at noon, and two hundred at night; in all one thousand eight hundred blows in three days. Zaka was instantly brought before our tent, and laid flat upon his face; two of his friends held the skirts of his bernouse, while the chaous administered to him the first two hundred blows.

The important post which Zaka had filled, joined to his munificence, had gained him many friends, to whose zeal he now entirely owed his life. He could not possibly have survived the one thousand eight hundred blows well laid on, but the chaous took care not to hit very hard, and the Arabs who held the skirts of his bernouse stretched them so tight, as considerably to deaden the force of the blows. When the chaous had administered the first two hundred, Zaka was brought into our tent, where his friends busied themselves in kneading and chafing his whole body, and in warming him; and Ben Faka, who now remembered nothing but his former friendship, loaded him with attentions and gave him coffee. By degrees Zaka recovered, but he was not released from his irons, and at the time of my departure he was still stretched upon the ground, vainly expecting each day the Sultan’s order for his release.

The Sultan administers justice in a very simple and expeditious manner. The contending parties are brought to his tent, where the accuser first makes his complaint; the witnesses, if there be any, are then examined, after which the accused makes his defence. Both accusation and defence, like all Arab explanations, are long-winded and clamorous. When the pleadings are at an end, the Sultan decides singly, and without appeal. Without saying a word, he condemns the guilty to any kind of punishment by signs to the chaous. He raises his hand, and the accused is carried to prison; he holds it out horizontally, and the accused is led beyond the limits of the camp, and his head is cut off by the chaous; he bends his hand towards the earth, and the accused is dragged away and bound, laid flat upon the earth, and beaten with a stick. The Sultan usually determines the number of blows; if he omits to do so, it is left to the discretion of the chaous.

Most of the complaints and accusations are of thefts, a crime exceedingly common among the Arabs, and generally treated with great leniency, especially by Abd-el-Kader, who is neither cruel nor vindictive.