J83L] Affairs in General 87 



than we have at present of the fact. The French are just the people to 

 make something of those savages. They teach them to dance, curl their 

 moustaches, and lounge in opera-boxes. If the Saracens grow sulky, 

 they send a brigade of six-pounders to convert them without delay, and 

 the thing is done ; the savages ride out, flourish their scymetars, and 

 swear by the beard of the prophet to sweep the infidels from the face of 

 the earth. The French commence a fire of round and grape, follow it 

 up with the bayonet, and in two days their aides-de-camp are riding full 

 gallop back to Algiers, with news that the general and his staff are giving 

 a ball and supper in the Harem. The last news says : 



" ALGIERS, Nor. 25. 



" The taking of Mediah, the residence of the Bey of Titery, and the 

 submission of that Bey, will complete the pacification of the whole 

 regency. In the battle before Blida we had 30 men wounded. In that 

 which has just taken place in Mediah we had 100 hors de combat." 



Thus the French have conquered a kingdom as large as Spain, with as 

 fine a climate, and commanding the entrance to that land of terrors and 

 treasures, the central region of Africa. They are going on a la Franqaise 

 in all points. They have compelled the Moors to clean their streets, and 

 do not despair of making them wash their shirts and faces in time. 

 They have run up a central avenue through Algiers, and ventilated the 

 town. They have slain the mongrels that infested the streets, and 

 reduced an establishment of dunghills as venerable as Mahomet. They 

 have built an Opera-house, ordering the wealthy Moors to put down 

 their names on the box-list, and subscribe, as becomes patrons of the fine 

 arts. They have arranged a circle of private boxes in this theatre, to 

 which the ladies of the several Harems have keys, and where they listen 

 to Italian songs, learn to be delighted with the romantic loves of Europe, 

 and turn over a leaf in human nature, which no Algerine Houri ever 

 turned before. A detachment of dancing-masters has been brigaded for 

 the service, and modistes "from Paris " are rapidly opening shops in the 

 " Grande Rue Royale." The ladies are, as might be expected, in rap- 

 tures with the change, and go out shopping with the air of an elegante 

 of the Fauxbourg St. Germain. Galignani daily communicates to the 

 Algerine coffee-houses the news of a world of which they hitherto knew 

 no more than of the news of the dog-star. All is gaiety, gesticulation, 

 and the march of intellect. If a great three-tailed bashaw feels disposed 

 to express the slightest dislike of the new regime, they order him to be 

 shaved, dispossess him of his turban, pipe, and scymetar, and send him 

 to learn the manual exercise under one of their Serjeants. The remedy 

 is infallible. In twelve hours a revolution is effected in all his opinions; 

 he learns the French art of looking delighted under all circumstances, 

 and returns from the drill a changed man. The offending Mauritanian 

 is disciplined out of him, and the parade has inducted him into the march 

 of mind for the rest of his days. The French are distilling brandy from 

 sea- weed ; are teaching buffaloes to draw their cabriolets, have already 

 formed a subscription pack of tiger hounds ; and, except that they are 

 scorched to a cinder, with the more serious evils that they must wait a 

 week for the Paris news, and have not yet been able to prevail on Potier 

 and Mademoiselle Du Fay to join their theatre, are as happy as sultans. 



The town has been prodigiously perplexed with questions of the 

 oddest and most impudent kind within the last week. We give a few 



