AT Tclemcen, we found ourselves in a second and hardly less beautiful Granada—a Granada moreover peopled with those who had made it what it was, a Granada not wholly dead, but teeming with happy, picturesque Eastern life. The climate is delicious, and the whole atmosphere of the place so gracious and sweet to live in, that one is never ready to come away. We made up our minds to stay a week or ten days in this Capua of Capuas, whose climate, scenery, and every element around us, gave wings to the hours. We never knew how the time went; we only know that, like Faust, we said to the hour, “Stay, for thou art fair,” and that it escaped us like a vision. For those who wish to know what Tclemcen, the “Queen of Marreb” (in Morocco), really is, and was, I refer them to the beautiful and careful papers of M. Brosselard in the Revue Africaine. If I were to say half what I want to say about Tclemcen, this little book would swell into a big one; I will, therefore, do my utmost not to be enthusiastic, since enthusiasm leads me into the rash use of so many words.

The Arabs, who are enthusiastic about great things and small, have described Tclemcen in language as brilliant as a bed of tulips. Listen, for instance, to Abd-el-Kader, who made Tclemcen his capital after the treaty of Tafna in 1837: “At sight of me,” says the great poet, “Tclemcen gave me her hand to kiss; I love her as the child loves the bosom of his mother. I raised the veil which covered her face, and my heart palpitated with joy; her cheeks glowed like flames. Tclemcen has had many masters, but she has showed indifference to all, turning from them with drooping eyelids; only upon me has she smiled, rendering me the happiest sultan in the world; she said to me, ‘Give me a kiss, my beloved; shut my lips with thy lips, for I am thine.’”

Another Arab writer thus describes Tclemcen: “Tclemcen is a city enjoying a pleasant climate, running waters, and a fertile soil. Built on the side of a mountain, it reminds one of a fair young bride reposing in beauty on her nuptial couch. The bright foliage which overshadows the white roofs is like a green coronal circling her majestic brow. The surrounding heights and the plain stretching below the town are made verdant by running streams. Tclemcen is a city that fascinates the mind and seduces the heart.” Thus wrote in the 15th century Ibn Khaldoun, the Arab Prescott, whose work no one has completed; and though the sun of Tclemcen has set, it is so beautiful as to fascinate the mind and seduce the heart still.

It was under the bright, brief dynasty of the Abd-el-Ouadites that Tclemcen was virtually the Queen of Morocco. Possessed of a large, enlightened, and wealthy population, of commercial enterprise, of a well-disciplined army, a brilliant court, munificent and cultivated rulers, Tclemcen was one of the best governed and most polished capitals in the world, as her monuments bear witness.

If you go farther back into history, you find Tclemcen was christened “Pomaria” by the Romans, on account of its orchards and fruit-gardens, but the Tclemcen of to-day is far more interesting. It is indeed the Moorish Athens. The modern city lies at the foot of green hills, its minarets standing out against the sky, its terraced houses surrounded by belts of lustrous foliage, whilst beyond stretches a plain as grandly covered with ruins as the seven hills of Toledo; only unlike the hills of Toledo, green, and sunny, and gay.

The life of the streets is intoxicating to an artist. At every corner you see children playing, as brightly dressed as little Prince Bedreddin when he went with his slave to buy tarts; the boys wearing blue and crimson vests, embroidered with yellow braid, scarlet Fez caps, and spotlessly white trousers; the girls, such dainty, dark-eyed darlings! in soft white dresses and haÏks, their waists bound with broad silk scarfs of many colours, and flowers stuck coquettishly behind their little ears. Never were such children as those of Tclemcen, so pretty, so frolicsome, so utterly kittenish and captivating. You could not help stopping to play with them; one would like to adopt half-a-dozen of them as nephews and nieces. The Negro and Jewish children are also very pretty here. The Jewesses brighten the streets as much as the children. They are handsomer here than in Algiers, and wear outside their brocades and silks haÏks of soft, bright crimson cloth, which envelope them from head to foot. The Arab type is handsomer too; I should say much purer. There was a boy of fifteen at the hotel whose face I shall never forget. It was the face one should copy for a Christ in the Temple; perfectly oval, the features refined and pensive; the eyes soft, dark, and full of expression; the mouth sweet and serious. This boy acted as our guide, and as soon as we had arranged our sketch-books and shawls, would lose himself in a reverie. His face then was perfect.

We used to divide our days between the Arab village of Sidi Bou Medin and the mines of Mansooua.

The way to Sidi Bou Medin lies amid one vast cemetery called the Mokbara, where the Tclemcenites have been buried for hundreds of years. A French guide-book has this remark upon the horrible condition of this cemetery,—“Ici s’amoncellent depuis des siÈcles les tombes des TclemcÉniens; le temps les a peu respectÉs:” but is it time alone that has so mishandled the dead?

There was hardly a spot where time (or the road-maker?) had not laid bare some skeleton, and in some places the bones lay in heaps. Some pretty little Marabouts lie scattered about these acres of grave-yard, and near one we saw a ragged Bedouin at afternoon prayer. The kneeling man, the white temple peeping amid olive-trees, the long lines of the cemetery, the yellow evening light bathing all, made a touching picture. The dry bones preached to us. We thought of the Moors driven thither from Spain, and of the sad hearts they brought into exile.

The village of Sidi Bou Medin covers a hill terrace-wise, and is overtopped by a graceful minaret. It has a gracious and sunny aspect, with its hanging gardens of myrtle, and orange, and pomegranate, its running streams, its vineyards and olive-groves, its shining white domes and minarets. Not a French element has entered the place; and when we had climbed the precipitous shady path and entered the court of the great Mosque, we felt as far from France as if Abd-el-Kader’s dream of a new Mahomedan dynasty at Tclemcen were realised, and the Nureddin was summoning, not Bedouins and beggars only, but turbaned princes and rulers to prayer.

Sidi Bou Medin, from whom the village is called, was a great saint, and his tomb (koubba) is considered the sight to see, it being very richly decorated with draperies of cloth and gold, ostrich’s eggs set in silver, chains and amulets of gold and beads, arabesques, mirrors in mother-of-pearl frames, lustres and lamps. To enter this koubba, you first descend into a little court, around which runs a graceful arcade supported on pillars of onyx; the panels are decorated with inscriptions, and hung with cages of singing birds, and the whole place is wonderfully rich and fantastic.

The Arabs heap up wealth on the shrines of their favourites with a zeal unequalled by Romanists, however fervent, and Bou Medin is the favourite saint here. There are many strange, touching, and also—for even saints have humour—comic stories about him. He was born in Spain, and was brought up, first to arms, then to the profession of science; but, after many wanderings to Cordova, to Bagdad, to Mecca, to Constantine, came to Tclemcen, finding it, as he said, “a place in which the eternal sleep must be sweet,” where he died with these noble words on his lips,—“God alone is the Eternal Truth.”

His life, as are all the lives of Mahomedan saints, was meditative and active, miraculous and ordinary, and abounds in legends. He could read the most secret thoughts of men, in testimony of which the Arabs tell this story:—“A certain Sheikh was angry with his wife, and wishing to be separated from her, without feeling quite sure that he had reasonable grounds for doing so, went one day without saying a word to anybody to consult Sidi Bou Medin. Hardly, however, had he entered the room when the Marabout looking at him, called out sharply,—

“‘Fear God, and don’t put away your wife!’

“Of course the Sheikh was at a loss to understand how the saint came to quote the Koran so À propos, to which Sidi Bou Medin replied,—

“‘When you came in, I saw, as it were, the words of the Koran written on your person, and I guessed at once what was in your mind.’”

From the court you enter the koubba itself. The cenotaph, which is of richly sculptured wood, lies under a dusky dome, only lighted by small panes of coloured glass. A blessed disciple and friend of the saint lies by his side.

But it is the beauty of the mosque that those who are not devotees at Sidi Bou Medin’s shrine, care most to look at. Here you see azulejos and artesonados as original in design and as perfect in finish as any in Grenada, and probably of the same period. The tiles of the three primary colours, red, yellow, and blue, within, the sculptured red tiles without, the sculptured porticoes and walls, are quite of the same style, and in no degree unequal to the finest Moorish work we had seen in Spain. There are intact some of those gorgeous inscriptions, historical and religious, such as crowd the seat of the Caliph in the mosque of Cordova, and I do not remember to have seen any defacement or dilapidation anywhere. The building is a perfect specimen of Moorish art, which is always simple where simplicity has its use, and always profuse of ornament, where ornament is in place. Take, for instance, the outer court where the Arabs perform their ablutions before prayer; there you have a marble basin, a floor of faÏence in bright colours, all shut in by an airy arcade and overhead a bright blue sky. What could you add that would not spoil the purpose of the place?—a purifying place that ought to be unadorned. But within, where the devout man has the right to worship, having purified himself, flesh and spirit by the outward and visible sign as well as the inward and spiritual grace, the Mahomedan makes his temple magnificent for the one God and His Prophet. Neither wealth nor workmanship is spared, and the result is what we see, walls covered with ornamentation, most delicate both as to colour and design, pillars of jasper and onyx, arcades of lovely fret-work, the priestly seat or pulpit of cedar-wood richly sculptured—lavishness of labour and perfection of form and colour everywhere.

The ruins of Mansourah, once the rival of Tclemcen, lie about two miles off the town. It is now six centuries since this city was one vast congeries of palaces, public buildings, gardens, baths, hospitals, and mosques. Nothing remains now but ruined walls and the minaret, though these alone are quite sufficient to show what Mansourah once was.

Photographs might help you a little to imagine the place, but, having looked at them, you must shut your eyes and colour the minaret and the walls with richest, reddest ochre, you must clothe the hills in living green, fill the space between hill and sky with soft warm skies of southern blue, and then set the whole picture floating and palpitating in golden mist.

This minaret is unlike anything else in the whole world. It is like a gigantic monolith of solid Indian gold, and is as wonderful as the Pyramids. When you come closer you see what a ruin it is now, and what a splendour it once was; it has been cleft in two like a pomegranate. The construction is of a rich reddish-coloured tile, and these tiles are arranged in panels sculptured and coloured. Some of the colour remains wonderfully bright still, but the whole building would hardly stand the shock of an earthquake, I think. Looking at the inner side, you see the traces of inclined stairs by which mounted horsemen could ride to the top, and by dint of a little patience, you are able to master the original ground-plan of the place. The exquisite columns of jasper and marble have been removed to the museums of Tclemcen, Algiers, and Paris, where are also to be seen many beautiful mosaics, enamelled tiles, shafts, and pedestals.

Whilst sitting at the foot of this minaret and looking from one scene of ruin to another, we found some fragments of coloured glass, blue, green, amber and red, which alone sufficed to show how splendid the mosque must have been. We looked at these bits of broken glass which were brilliant as jewels, and from them to the half-buried portico and the shattered minaret; and gradually the past became vivid as a dream, the dry bones were covered with flesh, the flesh palpitated with happy life, and the city of Mansourah was young and fair and gay again!

But we did not live wholly in the Tclemcen of yesterday. There is quite a little Protestant colony here, and we found ourselves taking up threads of interests long laid aside, and here, in a remote corner of Africa, discussing all those questions dear to the well-wisher of the English Church. We talked naturally a good deal of the Arabs and discovered that we were in a nucleus of what French writers on Algerian affairs call Philo-Arabes. One gentleman, a German, I think, but of whatever nation a most intelligent person, worked himself into quite a passion of indignant eloquence.

“I assure you, Madame,” he said, “that much as I love Tclemcen, and well as my affairs are thriving here, I do not know how to stay. The treatment of the Arabs enrages me—who am a peaceable man—fifty times a-day. You will hear wherever you go that the Arab is a sensual, unprincipled wretch, given to slaying, stealing, and all kinds of vice. You must not believe half what you hear, Madame; I have lived long enough among the Arabs to know what they are, and this is what they are,—harmless, generous, patient, hospitable, religious; they are all this and often much more. If I go from Tclemcen to Oran, do you think I want a pistol? Madame, I need never bear the expense of going to an hotel; every Arab tent or house is open to me; at any man’s table I am welcome to a meal; his children will play with me; his own sons will tend or saddle my horse; at parting he will wring my hands and bid me come again.”

“We don’t hear such things from everyone,” we said.

“Ay, because you have doubtless had more talk with the soldier rather than the civilian, the ruler of the Arab than his fellow-man. But when a Colonel, or a Major, or a Chef du Bureau Arabe, tells you how wicked the Arabs are, and how necessary it is to beat them (leur donner coups de bÂton), he does not tell you all the story, Madame. He does not tell you how there are some who make their fortune by bleeding the poor Arabs, and then go back to Paris to live grandly. He does not tell you how he administers justice, and that is worth your while to hear. I am a Chef du Bureau Arabe, so we will suppose, and I want something, no matter what,—a few jackal-skins for my wife’s drawing-room, a little money, sheep, horses, anything. What do I do? The Arabs have all these things, skins, money, cattle, so I call my Sheikhs together, and tell them what I want, and they get it: what do I care how? and then people wonder that the Arabs rob in their turn! I tell you, Madame, that the Arab is unfairly treated in every way, and that those who treat him so will suffer for it hereafter. He would assimilate with us if we would only let him. To-day, for instance, I met a friend of mine, an Arab who lives in Tclemcen, and I told him that I would bring some English travellers to see his pretty Moorish house. He was as delighted as if he had been a countryman of yours. ‘I will prepare a diffa (feast),’ he said; ‘there shall be a good cous-cous-son to regale your friends,’ and if you go, you will find him, in every sense, a gentleman—polished, kindly, and intelligent. Our boys play together. Do you suppose those young Bedouins will not be influenced by the companionship? If I were to leave Tclemcen to-morrow, there are some Arabs I should part from as from my brothers.”

“And then,” said his young wife, treating the subject from a romantic point of view, “there is something so poetic about everything they do! If you ask a simple question, they answer you with parables and figures of speech. It is like reading the Scriptures. Oh, Madame! my husband is right in advocating the cause of the poor Arabs! I think they would teach us Christians many a lesson of piety and resignation. If a parent loses his child he says, ‘It is the will of Allah. Allah’s will be done!’ The name of God is ever in their mouths, and I do believe in their hearts.”

We heard a great deal more about the Arabs during our stay, and, curiously enough, every one here spoke hopefully of them. I could write a long chapter of the stories that were told us by these warm Philo-Arabes, but they carry double weight when told with flashing eyes and trembling lips. One hardly knows what to believe.

There are a good many Jews at Tclemcen, and it is consolatory to find them—as indeed you find them all over Algeria—living happily among their former enemies. The French conquest has certainly done a great deal for the Jews, who, under the Turkish rule, suffered inexpressible persecutions and hardships. Now they thrive, and thrive deservedly, without any fear that their honestly earned gains will be snatched from them, or that their derelictions will receive harsher punishment than those of their Christian neighbours.

If any one wants to renew his health, or forget his troubles, let him come to North Africa, and breathe the sweet, biblical, sunny atmosphere of Tclemcen. You will find no more tourists there than you would do in the heart of the Great Sahara; and whilst you enjoy all the charm of romantic, isolated Eastern life, none of the material comforts of modern civilization are missing.