JOURNEY TO CONSTANTINE.

269

CHAPTER X.

THE traffic between Philippeville and the interior of the province of Constantine is the most important in Algeria, and is daily increasing, from the growing disposition of the native population to devote themselves to agricultural pursuits. Nevertheless, the road over which the whole of the produce of the country must pass to be embarked, is in a very bad condition, not from wilful neglect, but from an apparently irreparable deficiency of stone for metalling the surface. During the summer it is traversed by an ordinary French diligence daily, as far as Constantine; but in the rainy season the service is often interrupted. The amount of rain which falls on the northern coast of Algeria increases considerably as one goes from west to east; a phenomenon for which I am quite unable to give a sufficient reason, but which is ascertained beyond a doubt. The soil of the country, saturated with

* Observations extending over five years gave for the annual rain-fall at Oran, 40 centimetres; for that at Algiers, 81; and for that at Philippeville, no less than 120.

270

VILLAGE OF ST. ANTOINE.

moisture, changes into deep mud, and effectually
hinders locomotion. In default of stone for metalling,
great efforts are made in parts of the eastern pro-
vince to keep the routes in some sort of order, by
flattening them with an iron roller of enormous
weight. One of these machines, which I saw in
operation a few miles from Bona, had no less than
thirty mules harnessed to it. The cylinder was more
than six feet in diameter, and worked in a wooden
floor which had been heaped with stone to increase
the pressure.
It was impossible to turn it, and,
therefore, means were provided for harnessing the
animals to either end as occasion demanded.

In going to Constantine, the country in the immediate neighbourhood of the road presents the appearance of being well cultivated for a considerable distance from Philippeville. Four or five miles brings one to a little village, St. Antoine, which is, unlike its neighbours Damremont and Vallée, extremely prosperous. As at Jemappes, the water is plentiful and good, and the soil favourable to all products except the chestnut. There are thirty concessionaires, all French, whose grants were of not less than five hectares each; but, as elsewhere, the labourers are mostly Germans, Piedmontese, and other foreigners; and in course of time these will probably become tenants, the proprietors withdrawing into Philippeville, or even returning to France, and leaving the manage

PARISIAN COLONISTS.

271

ment of their properties to an agent. At El Diss, which is about nine miles from Philippeville, the Arabs have become tenants of the French, paying their landlords a corn-rent of half the produce.

The road for the first twelve or fourteen miles is the same as that to Jemappes, and for this extent and five or six miles farther, European cultivation appears to be going on favourably, and the clearance of the country to be proceeding steadily. The bush recedes every year farther from the neighbourhood of the road, as the requirements of the colonists for fuel or fresh soil increase. For a few miles, before arriving at El Arouch, it entirely vanishes, but at the latter place it temporarily reappears. This is the site of a fortified camp, which was established in 1844 to secure the communications of Constantine with Philippeville and Bona, to which latter place there is a packhorse road from this point, passing through Jemappes, which is about seventeen miles distant. It was on this road that the adventure related in the last chapter took place. Between St. Charles and El Arouch is the village of Gastonville, where the Republican Government, immediately after the revolution of 1848, established an agricultural colony of Parisians. Such of these as remained naturally took to keeping inns or cafés, and their land is cultivated by Maltese and Spaniards. After passing El Arouch, the character of the country changes. It becomes

272

GRAFTING OF WILD OLIVES.

clear and open, with not a tree to be seen except the wild olive. The traveller is in fact entering upon the limestone which forms the substance of the plateau of the Atlas. Still, however, the cultivation of cereals goes on, and the olive-trees are very generally grafted. Wherever this last is the case, it bespeaks an European proprietor or tenant. The grafting of the wild olive has only been introduced recently, and nowhere, that I saw, has been adopted to any great extent, except in the Eastern province. But it has been extremely successful, and is undoubtedly one of the most likely means of developing the resources of the country: for there is no natural production to which the soil seems so universally favourable as the wild olive. The magnitude of the

trees perfectly astonished me.

They are often forty

or fifty feet high, and in some localities attain the size of an elm of forty years' growth in England. The colour of the foliage too is very different from that of the Italian olive, being a much darker green. About two miles from Bona there is a grove of these trees, of such a size that I would not believe my eyes at a distance; and took the pains of going up to them to make sure that I was not deceived.

From El Arouch the ascent becomes gradually more marked; and a short time before reaching El Kantour (the gap), the skilful hand of the engineer is visible in the terraces by which the route is carried

up the mountains to the pass by which the traveller enters upon the Atlas plateau. I estimated the height of the col at El Kantour at about 1,950 feet above the sea-level. Immediately after passing it, the road descends again to the level of 1,450 feet, and from thence as far as the neighbourhood of a point called El Hamma, where a hot-spring of great force bursts out of the ground, proceeds, rising and falling alternately, over a limestone soil, which is bare of every kind of tree, but in the vicinity of the road very often broken up and bearing fairly grown grain-crops. These are sown sometimes by Arabs, who are only partially nomadic; but more generally by Kabyles, who are altogether stationary, and much cleaner farmers as well as more industrious than their Mahometan brethren. Beyond the zone of cultivation stretches away the bare steppe, grey with the leaves of the wild artichoke dominating over the rest of the herbage with which it is covered. The view is bounded by low mountains of limestone, and the general appearance of the whole reminded me a good deal of many parts of Cumberland.

The Hamma (Water) is something more than fifty miles from Philippeville, and about ten from Constantine. It is at the head of one of the cracks (so to speak) in the limestone stratum, which converge into the main split through which the Oued-el-Rummel bursts; and the stream which issues forth falls into

T