The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-07-06
IN NORTHERN AFRICA.
TLEMCEN, THE ILLUSTRATORS
Contemporary of Grenada Across the
 Straits in Spnin.
Especial Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courer)
Tlemoen. Africa, June list, 1901.

and Courier)
 Tlemoen. Africa, June 1st 190l
 Entering this historic town by the
 Bou-Liedina Gate, you pass at once in
 to the noble avenue of the Mechouar
 or citadel--under a triple row of pop
 lars. planes and acacias, whose eafy
 shadow is so dense that no ray of the
 fierce African sun can pierce it, ever
 on midsummer noon. Aft thle
 beautiful ntroduction-you,' mind
 teeming with recollections of Tlemen's
 stormy and romantic history-hoW
 much greater is your disappointment
 to find the city of to-day so shabby and
 unattractiVe, it's former wealthy popu-
 lation of half million dwindled to a poverty stricken community, of seven
 teen thousand! When the Moorish cit
 ies in Spain were at the zenith of their
 splendor this contemporary of Grenada
 was equally renounced foR it's artists
 and scholars, poets and philosophers,
 its civilization and refinement, com
 merce and wealth-the capital of a
 powerful nation and the center of 3
 worldwide trade. Long, long before
 IietI 6OlteIl ucty--CSILllll lc0 blIol '
 Christ was born--it was a powerful
 city, known as Pomeria. Ruined dur Ing the Vandal invasion and subse- quently forgotten it was rebuilt A. D. 790 by Idris ben Idris ben Abd-Allah, an enterprising Arab who bought it from the Berber nation of the Zenata and established his brother in posses sion. He named it Aghadr, and erect ed the great mosque whose remains are to-day his most impressive monu- ment. The brothers and their descend ants held it a hundred and fifty years, when it passed into the hands of va rious tribes of the desert, and finally to the then all-powerful Almora avides, about the year 1OS0. The new masters renamed it Tagrart, and fortified it strongly and increased its commerce. Then for a long period, Tagrart figures In history as royal city, "a city of soldiers, among whom was a guard of several thousand Christians. The ,AlmoraNides, (meanng Afiirmers of the unity of God), were intensely religious, and wise withal in their day and gen. eration, giving equal protection to all foreigners, Jews and Christians. At one time there were many thousands of Christians in the place, who had church of their own and practically their won government. The present bar rack of the Spahis was the foreign ba zaar of that day, within whose high walls Spanish. French, Genoesd, Pisan and Venetian merchants displayed their wares, under the exclusive gov ernment of the consuls-the only stipu- lation being that its gates should pe closed at sunset.
 The greatness of Tagrart, so well be- gun by the Almoravides, eliminated under their successors, the better known (because later) Almoahides who came into possession in 1145, changed it's name to Tlemcen and built l l new wall, in wider circles around the several older walls. Then for hundred years it remained one of the chief cit i as of the great Mohammedan empire i! ,f the west; until early in the Thir- | eenth century, when Ghamarasan, of l he tribe of Abd-el-Quad, conquered it; | md presently it became capital of the | xingdom which embraced the present | provinces of Gran and Atgiers. Then ollowed a dreadful period of long sieges, low starvation, and cruelties innum- rable blackening even the dark pages f African history. The first siege, be- ,un because the Sultan of Tlemcen re- used to give up fugitives to the mas acre, lasted nearly nine years, and tas raised only after the murder of ! 4bou- Yakoub, Sultan of Fez. His uccessor the terrible tBlack Sultan''- lbou- el- TIassan Ali-returned unax- ectedly to the fray and so captured the ity, but lost it again after ten years f horrible misrue. The walls built round the camps of the enemy during hose memora ble sieges may still be raced. Tn 1859 Tlemcen was captured V the Turks under Salah Rais, Pacha f Algiers. So complete was it's fall hat again was the Arab proverb veri- ed. "Where the hoof of the Turkish orse had trod, the grass refuses to low" Science, literature and art, }ng decaying. became suddenly ex- net, agriculture declined; commerce nd manufactures died a natural death, nd even piracy-the only industry" rat then flourished in northern Africa, as out of the question at this distance 'on1 the sea. From 1890 to '36, posses on of the town was disputed between 1e Emperor of Morocco and the Turk h troops--tfe latter being in the pay { France and occupying the citadel. tS his completed it's architectural ruin, ith foreign soldiers quartered in the { echouar, and the whole army eff the 1 mir clamoring at the gates. Finally $ fecem was ceded to Abd- el-Kader by l le treaty of Tafua and in '42 the $ rench took possession. Since then s has in a measure returned. ( ,1ne special manufactures have been i tablished, such as brightly colored s ankets and the red shawls, called I hlila, worn by the Jewish women. he neighborhood is fertile and singu- f rly well supplied with water, and f emcon is the chief town of an exten- c ye district which exports every year + rge quantities of olive oil, dried figs, 1 f m four alfa Ca kind of hay), wool, n eep. horned cattle, besides cloth, car ts and articles in leather of native @ anufacture. But it is sad to see that little remains e
 the Tlemcen of song and story, eX- n pt it's romantic situaton-on the ,pe of I.alla Setta mountain, nearly rec thousand feet above the sea, it's C markable climate. (for Africa), it's o ve trees, centuries old, and the o ins of it's once magnificent religious " ifices. All the palaces of which his- s " and tradition tell us have vanish from the face of the earth and their e