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Europe and the Mediterranean—Algiers—The clash of civilizations—Things ancient and modern—The strangers’ quarter—Arabs, Berbers, Moors, Jews, and others—A tale of a telegram.

“E’en now the devastation is begun

And half the business of destruction done.”

Goldsmith.

Some of the ashes of the Roman Empire have been recovered. The Mediterranean is once more a European lake. The Turk indeed still holds its eastern shores; the amazing Sultanate of Morocco yet persists in the west; strong, after the manner of Barbary for centuries, in the jealousies of Europe. Yet the Turk, while maintaining his assertion of the Unity of the Godhead, which divides him from Christendom, is, nevertheless, in other ways almost to be accounted a member of the European family; and even in the vigorous days of the Empire the wild tribes of the Greater Atlas recked little of the might and majesty of Rome. These are the limitations; our concern is with the achievement, and especially with the fertile country, once Rome’s granary, now after a thousand years of neglect and abasement restored to the orderly uses of civilized man. We are to visit a land unsurpassed in the variety of its historical vicissitudes, and strewn with the stones of many empires; a land where to-day a European nation, cherishing, perhaps more than any other, Roman traditions in its law and polity, controls by force of arms and of character a vast and heterogeneous population, previously united only in its submission to the brooding blight of Islam.

“The grand object of travelling,” said Dr. Johnson, “is to see the shores of the Mediterranean; on those shores were the four great empires of the world; the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. All our religion, almost all our law, almost all our arts, almost all that sets us above savages has come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean.” The Doctor’s aspirations were doubtless confined to its northern shore. If he had indiscreetly placed himself within the jurisdiction of the Dey of Algiers or the Bey of Tunis he might have found his value appraised on a basis different from that which prevailed at The Club, and in default of ransom have been set to uncongenial tasks. We are more fortunate in our generation.

To men trained in the traditional scholarship of English schools and universities certain places of the earth are holy places. The Acropolis of Athens, the heights and harbour of Syracuse, the Roman forum; perhaps in a scarcely less degree, Constantinople seen from the Bosphorus;—these stir to life sentiments born of youthful struggles and enthusiasms, but buried beneath a load of years crowded with other interests. Such sentiments may even prevail over those which attach to more recent history and national predilections. The approach by sea from the Atlantic to the Straits of Gibraltar is an experience to move the most indifferent; to an Englishman a very moving experience. He has passed Cape St. Vincent, with its undying fame, and the Rock is ahead, with its triumphant symbolism of his country’s world-power. Across the straits lies the rocky coast between Tangiers and Ceuta, a rampart of that vast continent, the last home of mystery, which has played so great a part in the lives of the present generation of Englishmen. And the Rock itself, detached, impregnable, is rich in English memories from Blake to our own day.

Yet to him who has preserved some shreds of his classical learning, the passage from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean has a still deeper significance. It marks the separation of the old and the new worlds. At the Pillars of Hercules the old world ended; they guarded the threshold of the unknown. On the inland sea within were cradled the civilizations on which our own is mainly based—Hebrew, Hellenic, Roman. Perhaps we may wonder at their limitations, especially at the comparative inefficiency of Rome in maritime affairs. If Rome with her vast resources had owned a spark of the naval enterprise of ancient Phœnicia or modern Britain; if she had spent on the sea a tithe of the energy she exercised on land—exhibited nowhere more completely than in that Northern Africa to which we are bound—the history of the world might, indeed, have taken a different course. But it was reserved for the great awakening of the fifteenth century to probe the secrets of the mysterious Atlantic, and to throw open vast fields for conquest and colonization to the European races. And when through the gathering darkness we look back to the twin peaks, we recall the legend of the two dragons guarding the entrance to the Garden of the Hesperides, and wonder if it was invented by ancient mariners to cover their lack of enterprise.

Many Mediterranean cities present a fair prospect to him who comes by sea, especially in the pearly radiance of the Mediterranean dawn. Algiers surpasses all. The steepness of the hill-side which it fills and its own white brilliancy give to it a special distinction. Many writers, following a leader as sheep that have gone astray, have compared it to the tiers of seats rising one above another in a Greek theatre—a fanciful and baseless comparison. There is no such ordered arrangement. The straight lines of modern houses enclose a central mass of strange irregularity, so confused that from a distance it has the semblance of a heap of ruins. This is the remnant of the Arab city, a swarming ant-heap of native life, filled with strange and savage memories of the astonishing pirates who were through centuries, and even until living memory, the scourge of Christendom. The sea front has entirely lost its ancient aspect; its long line of symmetrical houses, with its Boulevard de la République, and its Boulevard Carnot, recalls Palermo or Messina. And stretching south and east along the hills which encircle the bay the city’s suburbs seem to have no end; white houses gleam amid dark foliage and splendid villas crown the heights.

The first view of the streets is something of a shock and a disappointment. We have heard of the ancient Arab city, we have seen photographs of narrow lanes with quaint Moorish houses almost meeting over the wayfarer’s head; and yet we find ourselves driving at a hand gallop through wide, modern streets, with their normal garniture of tramways and motor-cars. An occasional snow-white mosque, a public building or two of Arabesque style, suggest the Orient; in other respects the streets are those of a very prosperous and busy modern French town. It is easy to see that Algiers enjoys a municipality anxious to be in the forefront of civic progress; that M. le Maire is determined that his city shall not be ashamed to look Marseilles and Nice in the face; and that as the native and the stranger wander incuriously through the streets, earnest committees—sanitary committees, waterworks committees, lighting committees, tramway committees, committees for the regulation of everything that can be regulated—are seated in upper chambers eagerly concerting measures for their welfare. And it may even be that civilization is sufficiently advanced for a Ratepayers’ Association to be keeping a bilious eye on the proceedings of its chosen representatives, and endeavouring to solve the eternal problem—Quis custodiet custodes?

It will be recalled that the immortal Tartarin suffered a similar disenchantment. He had figured to himself an Oriental town of fairy mythology, holding a middle place between Constantinople and Zanzibar—"il tombait en plein Tarascon." But that soaring and romantic spirit refused to be bound in the chains of the commonplace, and, following humbly in his wake, let us strive to see an Arab beauty beneath the veil of our neighbour in the tram-car, and to hear in the rumble of a distant train at night the roar of ravening lions.

ALGIERS: DOORWAY IN THE RUE DE LA KASBAH

The hasty and inconsiderate modernization of an ancient and historic town such as Algiers suggests serious considerations. The process of destroying what is noteworthy for age or beauty in the name of improvement would seem to be generally accepted as one of the conditions of progress. Cities and towns, it is not unnaturally held, are not museums or curiosity shops; men are massed in them to gain their livelihood, or to pursue their pleasures. The antiquaries, those who admire and study the works of the past, because they are the works of the past; the nature-lovers, who “cultivate the beautiful without extravagance”; these are an insignificant section drawn for the most part from that hard-working class which is known to politicians as the idle rich. Their protests are of no great avail. Governments, if well-meaning, are lukewarm; local authorities, eager to be in the municipal movement, are commonly apathetic as regards the claims of mere ancientry or natural comeliness. Of what the modern Italians are doing to desecrate Rome and despoil Florence it is difficult to speak with patience. And it is the work of their own fathers that they are pulling down or vulgarizing. The conditions here are quite different, and the reforming zeal of the French so far less flagrant. They have replaced by their own civilization what they regard as the barbarism of a conquered race; they wanted the city of that race to live in, and they found it in every way repugnant to their tastes and unsuited to their needs. The soldiers began the work of destruction; soldiers destroy ruthlessly in the day of battle; but the persistent waste of the horde that follows after—the engineers, the architects, the speculative builders, the railway constructors, and the great industrial companies—is infinitely more damaging in the long run.

And what are we that we should cast a stone at the French? How much have we spared of old London and its suburbs? How much of the urban beauty and rural charm of England did our rude forefathers of the nineteenth century wantonly and light-heartedly destroy? When have railway projects or proposed public works been stayed on æsthetic grounds? Do the station and bridge at Charing Cross lend dignity to our great river? And, to look further afield, to what fate have we, masters of the Nile, condemned Philae?

In this changeful North Africa succeeding conquerors have imposed their civilizations and their works upon those of the conquered in a manner which has scarcely any parallel in Europe. Carthage destroyed, Rome came in her might and built a hundred cities, conducted water, brought huge areas into cultivation, and made roads after her manner; and in due time overthrew her own ancient altars in zeal for a new faith. In the age of her decrepitude Byzantium strove to maintain the Pax Romana, to curb the Vandal usurpation and the Arian schism, and to keep the aspirations of the indigenous population within bounds. All went down in a day before a troop of Arabians who rode as conquerors from Egypt to the Atlantic. Islam followed in their wake. The civilization derived from Europe disappeared; the watercourses were broken, the desert resumed its sway, and the stones of Roman temples and basilicas went to build the mosques and villas of the visitors. For twelve centuries the creed of Mahomet held dominion; Europe was busy with its own affairs, and endured the insolent depredations and exactions of the Deys with scarcely a serious attempt to suppress them. But at length the cup was full. An English fleet struck the first blow; a few years later France took the subjugation of Algeria seriously in hand; and to-day European civilization is once more paramount in the ancient provinces of Rome.

There are hotels in the town, frequented, perhaps, more by commercial than by leisurely travellers, and the visitor will probably prefer to lodge himself at Mustapha Supérieur. Here, if he chooses a house in a good situation, and obtains a room with a southern aspect, he may feast his eyes untiringly on a scene of great beauty. At his feet lies the bay where Charles V landed his ill-fated expedition—a shallow bay in which often the waves breaking afar out roll to the land in foam. Towering above the lesser hills which front its opposite shore are the snow-clad mountains of the Djurjura range, guarding the highlands of Khabylia, and glistening as if with crystals in the strong southern light. All around, on the well-wooded heights, are countless villas, of high and low degree, almost all of dazzling white, the whiter for the sombre foliage of cypress and stone pine and olive in which they are set. Perhaps no city of the earth possesses a lovelier suburb. The Englishman will find himself quite at home. The villas and the hotels are to a great extent occupied by his compatriots; and the institutions of his country are fitly represented by an Anglican church and a nine-hole golf-course. If he should be led to climb through an aromatic wood of eucalyptus to the home of “le golf,” and be able to remove for a moment his eye from the ball, he may enjoy a most glorious prospect. The snowy Djurjura of the south-east finds a rival in the Lesser Atlas to the south-west, and between the two lies a billowy champaign of cultivated and wooded hill and plain. If his preconceived notions of Algeria, like the great Tartarin’s, are dominated by the Sahara, if of Africa he knows only the river banks of Egypt and the rolling veldt of the South, he will perhaps recognize once more that Africa is ever the continent of surprise.

To return to the town. If at first sight the aspect of the French quays, and the modern streets, shops, and boulevards, destroys pre-existing illusions, ample amends are made by the colour and variety of the crowds which frequent them, a very colluvies gentium. Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics jostle the faithful on equal terms; men and women sprung from very diverse stocks in Africa, Asia, and Europe, impartially and to all appearance fraternally throng the pavements and the public conveyances. The eye is dazzled by the combination of European fashions and smart French uniforms, with the outlandish aspect of Zouaves and Spahis, the white-robed dignity of the stately Arab and the rich colours of the impassive Turk. It is only after a time that one is able to separate them into classes, and to perceive that the native inhabitants fall naturally into further subdivisions.

The greater part of the inhabitants of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, known collectively to Arabs as the Maghrab, and to our forefathers as Barbary,—an island girt by sea and desert,—still represents those original peoples who preceded the Phœnicians and the Romans. They have endured and survived many conquests, for the most part accommodating themselves to the conquerors’ institutions and religions. The Arabs called them Berbers,—the origin of the name is doubtful. Being to-day Arab in all but descent,—and very mixed in that,—they are described in common parlance as Arabs.

In A.D. 647, when the Sultan Othmar decided to attempt the conquest of North Africa, it was still under the rule of the weak Byzantine Emperors, Gregorius being its governor. Othmar collected 20,000 of the élite of the Arab forces, and added to them a similar number of Egyptians. This small army performed a brilliant feat of arms. Advancing against Gregorius, who was stationed at Sbeitla (in Tunisia), the Arab leader, Abdulla Ibn Säad, offered the Christian leader terms: that he should embrace Islam and render tribute to the Sultan. These being declined, a fierce battle raged for several days. Gregorius was in command of 120,000 men, but they were probably no match for the disciplined Arabs. It is said that his daughter, a maid of incomparable beauty, fought at her father’s side, and promised her hand and a fortune to whoever should kill Abdulla. This seems to have been a somewhat ill-advised proposal, for Abdulla, hearing of it, offered the same reward to the slayer of Gregorius. After several days of desperate fighting the Christian host was utterly defeated. Gregorius fell in the final onslaught, and his daughter was bestowed on Ibn Ez-Zobeir, who had slain him.

So ended the first Arab attack on Northern Africa. It had momentous consequences. Not only did it bind to Islam for twelve hundred years the provinces which for centuries before had been Christian and an appanage of Europe, but it paved the way for the Arab invasion of Spain.

Abdulla’s raid was shortly followed by other military expeditions. Eighteen years later Sidi Okba, having established a permanent government, pursued his course through what is now Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean. In order to complete the downfall of Christianity, a special tax was imposed on Christians, a leaf out of the book of Constantine the Great, who, in order to ensure its spread through the Roman world, had ingeniously enacted that no pagan master should own a Christian slave. The tax had the effect desired, and the whole population embraced the faith and rule of Islam.

Four hundred years later a great Arab immigration took place. The brigand tribes of Hillal and Soleim being driven from Arabia into Egypt, speedily found their way thence into Northern Africa, which they overran like a flight of locusts. From these nomad hordes are descended in the main the Arabs of to-day.

If the true Arabs only represent a fraction of the total Mohammedan population, variously estimated at a third and a sixth, they have imposed on the remainder their language, their religion, their institutions, and their customs, with the result that in a sense all are Arabs, though not of race. The pure-bred Arab is of an aristocratic type—tall, thin, muscular, and of dignified carriage. His narrow and retreating forehead indicates no great brain power; this feature is sometimes so marked as to give an aspect of semi-idiocy.

A rigorous childhood ensures the survival of the fittest; the Arab children are left to themselves, naked in heat and cold, in sun and rain and frost, and only the hardiest reach manhood. The result is seen in the finely tempered physique of the race, in the Arab’s extraordinary powers of endurance, and in his disregard of hardship and suffering. Whole tribes are infected with what are called the diseases of civilization; typhus and smallpox sometimes blaze like a flame among them; the Arab scorns precaution or cure, and lives or dies with indifference.

As becomes his aristocratic traditions, he prefers war to peace, and plunder to work. His nomad life, which accords with these tastes, is probably an accident forced upon him by the climatic conditions of the country. His wealth depends on his flocks and herds, his very existence is tied to the necessity of finding pasture for them. New ground has ever to be sought, different altitudes being visited according to the season and the period of rainfall. For a people of filthy habits a nomad life has many advantages; the constant change of camping-ground counteracts in some degree the want of sanitary conditions.

ALGIERS: MOORISH DOORWAY, RUE PORTE NEUVE

According to European ideas the Arab is a barbarian, sans foi ni loi. With some limitations, as in his hospitality, although he will not scruple to rob his guest next day, he has no sense of honour, and aims not at telling the truth, but at telling a lie adroitly. His women are mere beasts of burden, absolutely at the mercy of their lord. A whole world of progress lies between the Frenchman who works his fingers to the bone to give his daughter a dower, and the Arab who sells his to the highest bidder. And in love as in life the Arab is often a nomad, as the desert towns bear witness. But as he stalks haughtily through the streets of Algiers, he is an attractive and interesting figure. And who may measure his disgust at the triumph of the infidel?

It is impossible to contemplate this strange being, moving among a medley of races, without wondering what the future has in store. Will the Arab live apart, as the Jew has often lived apart, or can he be brought to assimilate the ideas and methods of his conquerors? At present he seems dazed; his civilization founded on war has failed him in war. It is useless to think of France converting him to Christianity; you cannot convert a man to a faith you have abandoned yourself. And his religion, absolute and absorbing—not of his life a thing apart, but his whole existence—seems to oppose an impassable barrier to European influences. You cannot reason with a man under a spell. Yet it is impossible to suppose that the present situation can continue indefinitely, and this is fully recognized by the French themselves. The only solution so far attempted is in some kind of education for Arab children. Our problem in India and Egypt is a less urgent one; we have not colonized either country as the French have colonized Algeria.

The sang pur of the original inhabitants, called Berbers by the Arabs, is most fully represented by the Khabyles, who inhabit the mountainous tracts of the littoral, both east and west of Algiers. They were Christian under the later Roman rule, but adopted the religion of Islam after the Arab invasions. Otherwise they have little in common with the later comers; physically they are more nearly allied to the races of Southern Europe. Living in their mountain fastnesses they have retained their own customs and institutions, some of which are said to show a trace of Roman influence. Their women are not veiled, and occupy a much more independent position than is usual in Mohammedan countries. Their men, to be seen in the streets of Algiers, may frequently be distinguished from the Arabs by their fair complexions, blue eyes and reddish hair. They have no inclination to a nomad life, and are naturally industrious, freely offering their labour to the French colonists. They would seem to present a more likely field for the spread of social progress according to European ideas than does the lazy indifference of the Arab; but in their case, too, religion is a bar.

ALGIERS: MARBLE DOORWAY, RUE BRUCE

The Mohammedan townsfolk, chiefly engaged in commercial pursuits, are called Moors, a name which has no connection with Morocco. Chiefly Arab or Berber in ultimate descent, there is among them much admixture of Turkish and European blood. Their somewhat effeminate appearance exhibits the influence of generations of town life. They affect brightly coloured clothing, embroidered waistcoats and voluminous trousers fastened at the ankle. They deal largely in embroidery, perfumes, and fancy articles, and may commonly be seen lolling in their little shops in attitudes of exaggerated indolence and unconcern. The Moorish women, like those of the Arabs, are veiled; a white linen handkerchief is tied closely across the nose, leaving the eyes visible, and perhaps somewhat heightening their effect. A white shawl, called a haik, is thrown over the head and extends to the knees or lower; the legs are encased in very voluminous trousers tied at the ankles, and setting in a way which gives them the appearance of being stuffed full. Altogether a very ungainly costume. But even so they are less wanting in dignity than the middle-class European women decked in a travesty of a mode which is itself absurd. The veiling of all Mohammedan women for the last twelve hundred years is due to the jealousy of the prophet of his young and beautiful wife Ayesha.

Since the decree of 1870, which constituted them French citizens, the Jews have gradually ceased to wear a distinctive dress, and have become, as far as outward semblance goes, merged in the European population; but their physiognomy bewrayeth them. It is, however, as far at least as the men are concerned, of a less marked type than that of the German and Russian Jews, with whom we are more familiar; and, possibly from some admixture of Arab and Spanish blood, has an air suggestive of better breeding. The Jews have existed in Algeria from early times; according to tradition since the fall of Jerusalem. It is certain that the first Arab invaders found many Jewish colonies which had made numerous proselytes among the indigenous population. But the modern Algerian Jews are probably derived in the main from the Jews who were expelled from Italy in 1342, and from the emigrants from Spain in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These Spanish Jews, better instructed and more cultivated than their African brethren, have exercised a dominating influence, exhibited to-day in their names, their customs and their language. The Jew of the South is scarcely to be distinguished from the nomads among whom he lives.

The Jew will go to any country, and live under any government; and he can make a living anywhere, except, it is said, in Aberdeen. He has been trained for countless generations to endure the restraint of princes and the buffets of outrageous fortune; but probably at no time and in no place has he had to put up with such treatment as was commonly meted out to him by the Deys of Algiers. Habitually subject to every kind of indignity, he was liable on the smallest provocation to be put to torture and to death. If he raised a hand to the striker the hand was lopped off. “But,” said one of them to an English traveller, “look what a lot of money we make.”

Profits may no longer be what they were, but the ancient race has ceased to quail before the oppressor. It is indeed not slow to exhibit the contempt which it was long forced to conceal. A little Jew entered a railway carriage in which every seat was taken but one, and over that sprawled a big Arab, who showed no intention of making room. The Jew pushed him aside with scant ceremony, whereupon the Arab turned and said, “Est-ce que vous desirez me manger?” “Vous manger? Moi?” replied the other; “je suis juif.” The refined insult of this reference to Jewish rules of diet was doubtless lost on the barbarian, but it is a happy illustration of the passing of the old order.

In Algeria the Jews number about 70,000, or in the proportion of one to six of the European population. Since their admission to French citizenship they appear to have performed the civil and military duties attaching to it in the most exemplary manner. This has not prevented the rise of a very strong anti-Semitic feeling among the European immigrants. It is based partly on the objection to the Jews which is felt in other countries, on the fact that they toil not, neither do they spin, but that by commercial arts they grow rich where others fail, and are able to make more money in five days than “Christians” can in six. This is appreciated, it may be, with especial force in a new colony, to which adventurous spirits resort in hope of fortune, only to find that every avenue is already closed to all but Jewish enterprise. Partly this animosity is due to local causes, to the solidarity with which they have used their electoral privileges, with a view, it is said, to support their own interests, rather than for public objects. It will be recalled that in 1898, at the instigation of the notorious Max Régis, a mob composed of the turbulent elements always present in Mediterranean towns attacked and pillaged the shops and warehouses of Jewish traders in Algiers. This tribulation, however serious in itself, must have seemed comparatively slight to a race which remembered the rule of the Deys. And the crisis past things have settled down again. An agitation for the abrogation of the rights of citizenship granted in 1870 still exists, but it is unable to produce serious grounds in support of such an extreme step. To an observer it would appear that the commercial and financial enterprise of the Jews must be of immense advantage. Algiers itself is booming. Mr. Lloyd George’s mouth would water at the rise in the value of suburban land from a few pence per metre ten years ago to more than as many francs to-day; and building is progressing in all directions. The command of capital which the Jews with their international connections possess is almost certainly an important factor in this prosperity. And the decline of credit in England, the fear of spoliation by predatory politicians, from which its capitalist classes, rightly or not, are suffering, may be having unsuspected results in assisting the development of other countries.

Another race of traders will attract the attention of the observant stranger. Of heavy build, flat-faced, broad-nosed, and thick-lipped, the Mozabites have nothing in common with the physical qualities of the Arab. They represent a section of the original Berber inhabitants; although, it may be from the different conditions under which they have lived for many centuries, their appearance bears no great resemblance to that of their Khabyle connections. They inhabit a far country, the district of El-Mzab, in the most arid part of the Sahara. By persevering toil they have turned this inhospitable region into a garden; have dug wells and created a complicated system of irrigation. They are no less active as traders than as agriculturists. They have established markets in their own oasis, and frequent others throughout the Sahara. A considerable portion of the tribe has long lived in Algiers, being encouraged by the Deys. They have almost a monopoly of certain of the more humble trades; they are especially butchers and greengrocers.

The Biskris, a very low-class Berber tribe from the neighbourhood of Biskra, are the water-carriers and scavengers of the city. They form picturesque groups around the fountains in the Arab quarter. Their dark complexions suggest a considerable admixture of negro blood. The true negroes are also numerous, and with their alert and smiling faces offer an agreeable contrast to the sombre impassiveness of the Arab. As elsewhere, they do much of the hard work of the country, as masons and workers on the roads and railways. Negresses are employed as servants, and especially as masseuses in the Moorish baths.

Such, mingled with Frenchmen, Italians, Spaniards, Maltese, and a sprinkling of almost every European race, are the numerous types of diverse humanity which the streets of Algiers everywhere present. In so rich a scene the artist will find fruitful sources of inspiration, both of form and colour; the ethnologist will have scope for studying the features and carriage of different races, and for tracing the effects of their not infrequent intermixture; to the politician it will all give furiously to think. During the last century or two a large portion of the Mohammedan world has fallen under Western dominion. France, like England, has acted on the Roman principle, parcere subjectis et debellare superbos, but neither has succeeded in infusing the conquered races with the ambition of citizenship, as Rome did. Their attitude at best seems to be one of sullen acquiescence in the inevitable, at worst that of a hunted beast who waits his opportunity to spring. And the most incurious tourist will not escape a certain wonder at the strange and varied inhabitants of a city so near his home that he may read his Monday’s “Times” on Wednesday afternoon.

To outward appearance Algiers is a busy French town. But when we come to probe below the surface we find that the Golden East, with its leisurely and slipshod methods, holds us in fee. The mere sending of a common telegram is no light matter. I desired to telegraph five words to an inhabitant of the city of Funchal in the island of Madeira. I took the despatch to a branch office at Mustapha, officered by female clerks. It caused some commotion. The young women laid their heads together, pored over several tattered volumes, and finally informed me, with a certain touch of commiseration, that the charge was four francs and fifteen centimes a word. Now as the charge from London is one shilling a word, this was obviously too much. What visions of Madagascar or Macao they had conjured up I know not; they are, I believe, both islands, both, like Macedon, Monmouth and Madeira, have M’s in them, and both are distant enough to justify some such charge. I tried to point out that Madeira does not ride in such remote seas, but to no purpose; and wearily I betook myself to the chief post office. This is a magnificent building in the finest style of neo-Arab art, glorious within and without. It is agreeable to find that the French authorities are now erecting great buildings in the local style, instead of reproducing the monotonous ugliness of the Third Empire. If only the Boulevard facing the harbour could be so transformed, the view of the port would indeed be worth looking at. In this resplendent Temple of Mercury one youthful clerk is considered sufficient to receive the telegrams of Algiers. He took my paper, counted the words backwards and forwards, and said airily, “Un franc.” I inquired whether he meant for each word, or for the whole. He replied for the whole. Now he was evidently erring on the side of moderation, as his sisters had erred on the side of excess. I protested that I would not pay so little. Books were consulted, higher officials interviewed, many shoulders shrugged and many palms spread, but to no purpose. Meantime in a somewhat impatient queue the telegraphic business of Algiers stood waiting. At length I was invited to state what I would like to pay, and I suggested a suitable amount. It was then discovered that as the charge for Teneriffe, which is also situate in the Atlantic Ocean, is one franc twenty centimes (or thereabouts) a word, this figure might not be unsuitable for Madeira; on that basis the account was adjusted, and Algiers restored, after a considerable interval, to telegraphic communication with the outer world.

Although the words colonization and colonists are on everybody’s lips, Algeria is not in fact a colony. It is attached to the Ministère de l’Intérieur, and is therefore technically a part of France. It is divided into three departments, each of which sends to Paris two deputies and one senator. The suffrage is “universal,” but confined to citizens of French origin or naturalized. The Mohammedan natives are subjects, not citizens. A colonial air is given by the existence of a Governor-General, appointed by the President on the advice of the Ministre de l’Intérieur. The organization of local government is similar to that of France.