IN FRENCH AFRICA.*
A GOOD many years ago, among the earliest of her works, Miss Betham-Edwards published a book on Algeria, called A Winter with the Swallows. This book is now out of print, as well as another volume of travels in the same regions, Through Spain to the Sahara. But both, especially the former, remain in the mind of her older• readers as delightful in their freshness, their enthusiasm, and the clear impression they gave of a country which was not then familiar to English people. The present book contains a number of recollections and stories, as yet unpublished, belonging to the same journeys, as well as passages from the two books mentioned above; so that it does not come to us as entirely new, but rather as an old friend in a new dress and new surroundings. To many readers, of course, and perhaps to the majority, it will be entirely unfamiliar. Those for whom Algeria is trodden ground will be interested in tracing the changes worked in a period not far short of fifty years, and strangers to French Africa will be inspired with the same old wish to follow the swallows for which, long ago and in many cases, the author of those books was responsible.
Miss Betham-Edwards first landed at Algiers when Marechal de MacMahon was Governor-General of the pro- vince, a post in which that loyal and patriotic soldier, " the man of one speech," had succeeded the very different and inferior personage, MarechalPelissier. Although the traveller was presented by a friend to Mme. de MacMabon and received with kind hospitality, she candidly confesses that never—in spite of the brilliancy and intelligence which we know she possesses, for her friends among the exacting French cannot easily be counted—did she " extract so much as a single word from `her' distinguished host of the Winter• Palace." With all his un-French taciturnity, however, she heartily admired him, and this although both he and Mme. de MacMabon, as all the world knows, were very far from sharing her political and religious opinions. She draws a somewhat telling con- trast between the Imperial Court at the Tuileries, then in all its
• In French Africa: Scenes and Memories. By Miss Betham-Edwards. Illustrated by Original and Copyright Photographs. London: Chapman and Ball. [10s. ed. net.]
decadent splendour, and the unpretending dignity, the simple goodness and absence of intrigue, to be found at the Vice- Imperial Court in Algeria.
A still more interesting couple, who became Miss Betham- Edwards's lifelong friends, and whom she first met on this early visit to Algeria, were Dr. Bodichon and his golden. haired English wife, one of the pioneers in the higher education of women and other social and philanthropic move- ments. The beginning of the friendship between the author and Mme. Bodichon was characteristic of both. Mme. Bodichon was an enthusiast, not precisely of one idea, for• the advance of her adopted country and the welfare and uplifting of the oppressed races of the world shared her interest with the progress of equality in educational and other• spheres. She • could not at first understand, it seems, how a clever and sympathetic woman such as her new friend could fail to throw herself at once, heart and soul, into the world of philanthropic effort in which she spent her own life and energy. But Miss Betham-Edwards, to the credit of her individuality, refused to be drawn away from her "legitimate calling" of literature. Mme. Bodichon's favourite causes had to be content with her friend's " good wishes." Is it reactionary to express a regret that more women writers of to-day are not guided by Miss Betham-Edwards's rule ?
Dr. Bodichon's claims to interest and admiration were even more marked than those of his wife. No one can study the earlier history of these African provinces under French rule without finding the wonderful Breton doctor in the fore- ground of the picture. Miss Betham-Edwar•ds's account of him and his doings is one of the best parts of her book. She writes of him, " swarthy as a Moor, his tall stature and slow, deliberate carriage being also in keeping with his Oriental neighbours" ; and an eccentric photograph in Arab dress quite bears out her description. She tells of his early career as a " miracle-working " physician in Algiers, sixty years ago, his historical and ethnological studies, his observation and love of animals, his large-hearted charity, his scientific work for the good of the country, such as the planting of whole districts of unhealthy, marshy soil with the valuable eucalyptus; and beyond all this, the political influence which abolished slavery, existing in Algeria under French rule down to 1848. Dr. Bodichon was hardly so successful, we fancy, in his crusade against the Napoleon cult in France. He might show us Napoleon I., " the modern Caesar•," "dwindled and dwarfed to a very contemptible specimen of humanity under the merciless microscope of positive science and physiology." But, however true such an analysis might be, even Miss Betham-Edwards, to whom the very name of Napoleon is odious, would hardly contend that it settles the question: this is one of the matters in which science may claim, but will never have, the last word.
These are not the only portraits drawn from the old picturesque Algerian days. There is Bombonnel, the mighty hunter of those early times when panthers and other• wild beasts infested the colony, and afterwards, in 1870, the famous franc-tireur of whom Victor Hugo said that a few more such fighters would have made the war• end differently. And there arc stately figures of Moors of high degree, of Kabyles and Arabs then half-tamed, " denizens of a world apart"; to say nothing of the general population of the country, natives and colonists, Jews, Turks, negr•oes, with their• varying religions, one more superstitious and savage than another, their customs, sometimes Biblical in charm and simplicity, sometimes of pagan fierceness and cruelty ; the ceremonies and dances, largely tainted with witchcraft, which were then, even more than now, a spectacle almost too horrid and strange to be offered to civilized eyes.
Miss Betham-Edwards saw everything and shrank from no experience, however startling, though she candidly confesses to thrills of horror and disgust at the shocking performances of the devotees of Aissaoua, who burned and tortured them- selves quite after the fashion of Baal's priests of old. She consoles herself rather oddly, and excuses these ignorant fanatics by the passing question, "Are not cilices and scourges seen to-day in our own High Church vicarages P" Comment on this really funny and unexpected coup de patte is perhaps needless and would certainly be unprofitable.
Among the pleasantest parts of the book are the descrip- tions of town and country, many features of which cannot have altered very materially since that first visit when the author's impressions were received. Of course, civilization is always an enemy to the picturesque, and in Algeria, as in Egypt, old cities have lost their Oriental character and the people, under the influence of Northern races and laws, have lost their native dignity and simplicity and gained little that is good in exchange. But colour and natural beauty, and the fascination of old romantic history, remain the same. Tlemcen, for instance, the Moorish capital that was built to succeed Granada after the final expulsion of the Moors from Spain : no amount of modern improvement could do away with the enchanting beauty or the old traditions that belong to Tlemcen and its marvellous ruined neighbour, Mansourah. Of both these, as well as of many other won- derful Algerian sites, Miss Betham-Edwards gives an account which, for vivid painting and for amusing adventures of travel in those more difficult days, must be read with real interest. But perhaps the most attractive pages, some of which seem to invite quotation, are those describing the cedar forest of Teniet-el-Haad, supplied as they are with excellent photographs taken for the book by a French officer. Miss Betham-Edwards travelled up there in wintry weather by way of the now well-known Blidah, where, in those days, she says, " folks could live upon nothing." We fancy this is not the case now. Going on by Miliana, a place of magnificent views and pleasant Moorish society, the party climbed through wild bill-country, to which the military road had not then penetrated, to the little town on the edge of the forest, where they were destined to be weather-bound for some days, their imprisonment being cheered by enormous fires of fragrant cedar logs. But before this they had succeeded in carrying out their visit to the forest itself, an experience not without danger, for they were overtaken by a great snowstorm.
"After steadily mounting for an hour and a half we entered upon the skirts of the cedar forest. . . . As we ascended we gained a wider and yet wider view of the surrounding country. . . . But the sky was overcast, the snow began to fall without inter- mission, and very soon we could only discern the immediate scenery around us. Never shall I forget the grandeur of the cedar forest as we saw it in a snowstorm. . . . The height of the trees, the size of the trunks, the vastness of their spreading shade, the isolation of their positions, render a cedar forest ever majestic. But when the mist hid the mountains, and the storm-wind wrapped the stately crests with snow, the scene became one of awful grandeur."
From the icy wind and the whirling mist of snow the soaked travellers took refuge in a but on the mountain side, but it was soon necessary to venture on the risky descent to
Teniet-el-Haad. The horses and mules could hardly keep their feet on the edge of the ravines, and of all the adventures which Miss Betham-Edwards faced so cheerily this seems to have been the most painful and the most difficult.
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