A WINTER IN ALGIERS. * Mn. POPE is a traveller of
fair average capacity, who made good use of his eyes during the winter he spent in Algiers for the bene- fit of the climate, and has described what he saw with laudable industry. There is little originality either of matter or manner in his book, but it is not altogether unpleasing, and would even be entitled to less qualified commendation if the author had been content to write more naturally. Unfortunately, he has fallen in too much with the fashion of that modern school of contortionists whose first law of style it is never to call a boat a boat or a spade a spade ; and their second, never to express the most common- place ideas in any but the most farfetched and inappropriate lan- guage. We are glad to perceive that Mr. Pope is not consistent in his affectations, but often deviates into the ways of simplicity i and common sense. For this reason, and because he s still young,—he calls himself the "young friend" of the gentleman to whom he dedicates his book—he cannot yet be so confirmed in his imitation of execrable models as to be past all hope of amendment. For his own sake, therefore, and for that of his future readers if he write again, we 'Dray him to carefully go over his present work, pen in hand, and to score out every con- ceited phrase and sentence which he thought particularly clever when he composed them. The exercise will be very useful to him, and, had it been done before [publication, it would have con- siderably increased the value of his book, though it might have diminished the bulk of it by a good half.
We are not aware that any traveller before Mr. Pope has de- scribed the Negro ceremony of inaugurating the first bean, which he had the good fortune to witness. This relic of the old pagan ritual,
still surviving long after the conversion of the black tribes to Mo- hammedanism, is the most important Negro ceremony of the whole
year, and occurred on Ash Wednesday, when Mr. Pope was a spectator of the rites. They were performed on the sea-shore, and the whole indigenous population of Algiers flocked out to see
The Corsair and his Conqueror: a Winter in Algiers. By Henry E. Pope. Pbulished by Bentley. them in their gayest attire, every Negress carrying a cou.ple of painted candles, and her huge house door-key. A good view of
the performances was enjoyed from a rising ground, on the slope of which sat the Moorish women cross-legged, looking in the dis- tance like so many sacks of flour ranged in rows, whilst immedi- ately below it, sat a large circle of Negroes and Negresses, the latter clothed in white sacrificial vestments, the former half naked, with a fillet of upright feathers round their heads. The cere- monies began in this manner-
" Two powerful Negresses plunged into the sea, and swimming out cast the water high in the air towards the assembly. Then half-a-dozen men within the circle beat drums with drumsticks of curved cane, and the same number gingled each a pair of double iron castagnets, while one played a bamboo reed. flute, a certain regularity of measure being, however, detected in the barbarous hubbub. Before them stood a brazier from which thick white clouds of incense were arising, and with their faces thitherward three or four Negroes executed a kind of religious dance, which consisted in leap- ing frantically up and down, their limbs and head swinging from side to side like pieces of limp flesh in time to the harsh music. borne of them fell after a time exhausted and rolled with frightful convulsions in the yielding sand, upon which the whole assemblage rose, joined hands, and danced wildly around them. Then the orgiasts took short clubs in each hand, and the character of the dance changed as the clubs clashed against each other, and the performers jumped madly up and down en masse. It was just the scene that Robinson Crusoe might have been supposed to wit- ness when he peeped from his hiding-place and beheld the cannibals after they had picked the bones of their unfortunate brethren. Apropos of the subject, how melancholy must have been the thoughts of poor young Ro- binson as he pinched his flesh and wondered whether he should ever live to be underdone ! Their frantic movements were continued for upwards of an hour, and then a bull wreathed with flowers was led by the horns once or twice around, followed by three or four gaunt high priestesses and the mu- sicians, the procession being closed with the now jaded dancers. One of the high priestesses was of enormous height, measuring not less than six feet two, and I need not observe that many men looked short by her side. Three cocks were first sacrificed and the omens examined. These being found to be propitious, a shrill note of joy issued from the women, in which the Mauresques joined, and echo seemed to prolong the sound far over the sleeping sea-lake in front. Then the bull was thrown down on the sand and its throat cut by the gigantic priestess, the attendant priestesses sprinkling it at the same time with milk from small blue vases. Whether purposely or not, the operation was but half performed, and the poor brute staggered once more on its legs with the blood streaming from it, and then fell and expired. The reeking entrails were examined, and another shrill joy-note rending the air announced that for the second time the omens had proved favourable. Then a priest waved thrice aloft the sacrificial knife, and with muttered prayers sprinkled the adherent drops of blood upon the faces of the sacrificers; and again the two Negresses broke from the centre and swam for a short distance into the sea, coating as before the water high above their heads towards the land. The ceremony was now con- cluded, the bull was cut up, and a fire was lighted upon the spot, over which it was roasted and eaten. And not the least picturesque part of the scene was a party of mounted Spokes [Spahis ?] in their red cloaks cur- vetting about on the sand and forcing their horses to take leaps that would have dismounted any but an Arab, for the purpose I suppose of parading their horsemanship before the impassive sacks' within which it was so diffi- cult to believe that women, according to our ideas of the term, were con- cealed. According to the account of the Negroes, who seem to know little more concerning their ceremonies than the mere name, and perform their parts almost like automata, the sacrifice was instituted for three reasons. Firstly, to propitiate the powers of earth and air ; secondly, in honour of the Ethiopian Sidi Belal ; and thirdly, to inaugurate the first bean of the season, no matter bow premature, that is discovered to be ripe. Sidi Belal,
according to the legend, was the slave and afterwards muezzin of Moham- med, and being liberated by him emigrated to this part of Barbary, where he became so eminent for his piety that a Mosque was erected over his re- mains, a few whitewashed walls being all that now point out the sacred spot. Little or no connexion seems to exist between the triple objects of the sacrifice, and their incongruity can only be reconciled by the merest con- jecture. Sidi Mal may have been the first to have introduced the peculiar yellow bean into Algeria which forms so staple an article of consumption among the native races, and by a simple union of ideas his soul might even have been supposed after death to have taken up its residence therein. Py- thagoras had a most respectable connexion among cereals, and his disciples were far too wise to burden their consciences with the notion of having de- voured their grandmothers merely for the pleasure of eating a dish of beans.
The Mohammedans are firm adherents to the doctrine of transmigration, and every bird or beast that approaches a Mosque or Marabout is supposed to
be animated with a spiritual essence of departed relations, and regarded
therefore as sacred. The same superstition consecrates as a matter of course the vegetable creation, and every tree or shrub in holy places is tenanted by its appropriate spirit. The powers of earth and air, in the idea of the inti- mate connexion of those elements with the ripening and developing of the fruit of the soil, are doubtless supplicated for their propitious influence upon the bean-harvest, and the answer of the unknown deities, favourable or not,
would naturally be expressed in the disposition of the omens. The splash- ing of sea-water towards the sacrificers is evidently intended as a lustration, the purifying propensities of salt, whether crystallized or in solution, being
too well known to need comment. No precepts with regard to these sacri- fices are mentioned in the Koran ; and although the Negroes who perform them are strict Mussulmen yet no other portion of the indigenes ever take part in them."
Mr. Pope's observations in Algeria, on the relations between the conquerors and the conquered, tend to the same conclusion as that arrived at by all previous travellers. The French have done nothing to reconcile the Natives to their rule, or to advance them a single step in the direction of Europe civilization. After thirty years of occupation seventy thousand bayonets are as requisite as ever to maintain occupation, possession, and a partial withdrawal of troops would be the immediate signal for a Native rising. Mean- while, Algeria is commercially unprofitable to France, it is a deep drain on her resources, and is useful to her only as a place of exercise for her troops, ancl a sink into which she pours the re- fuse of her population.
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