168 SMOKING IN ALGIERS. 
is cut down and perforated by the workmen, and fitted with 
a terra-cotta bow and an amber mouth-piece.” 
Blackburn, in his work entitled “ Artists and Arabs,” gives 
the following picture of life and manners in Algiers :— 
“There is one difficulty here, however, for the artist—that 
of finding satisfactory models. You can get one at last, and 
here is her portrait. Her costume, when she throws off her 
haik (and with it a tradition of the Mohaminedan faith, that 
forbids her to show her face to an unbeliever), is a rich, 
loose, crimson jacket embroidered with gold, a thin white 
bodice, loose silk trousers reaching to the knee and fastened 
round the waist by a magnificent sash of various colors, red 
morocco slippers, a profusion of rings on her little fingers, 
and bracelets and anklets of gold filagree work. Through 
FEMALE SMOKING IN ALGIERS. 
her waving black hair are twined strings of coins and the 
folds of a silk handkerchief, the hair falling at the back in 
plaits below the waist. She is not beautiful, she is scarcely 
interesting in expression, and she is decidedly unsteady. She 
seems to have no more power of keeping herself in one posi- 
tion or of remaining in one part of the room, or even of being 
quiet, than a humming-top. The whole thing is an unutter- 
able bore to her, for she does not even reap the reward—her 
father, or husband, or other male attendant always taking 
the money. She is petite, constitutionally phlegmatic, and 
as fat as her parents can manage to make her; she has small 
