THE INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER. 



AUGUST, 1866. 



ALGIERS AS A WINTER RESIDENCE. 



BY M. BETHAM EDWARDS. 

 {With a Coloured Plate!) 



Very few people are aware of the riches and beauty of the 

 French colony that lies only two days' journey from Marseilles. 

 To the artist , Algiers offers quite an unrivalled field for 

 picturesqueness of costume and gorgeousness of colour ; to 

 the tourist, a diversified and wonderful country peopled by 

 distinct races, each having a historic and romantic interest ; 

 and to the invalid, a climate which without any extravagance, 

 may be called perfect during six months of the year. 



The journey from London to Algiers is pleasant enough, oc- 

 cupying four or five days. To those who are fortunate enough not 

 to suffer from mal de mer, nothing can be more agreeable than 

 to skim across the blue Mediterranean in the light Messagerie 

 steamer. One generally finds a company of talkative, genial 

 French officers on board, and from them learns something in 

 advance, of the country which has suddenly become the most 

 interesting of all others. It is easy to see that Algeria is not 

 a strong point in national vanity, and that by universal opinion 

 the colony has no brilliant future before it. The country is 

 fertile to a fable, the climate is superb, the situation of the 

 port could not be better ; yet all these advantages are as 

 nothing weighed against such grievances as undue taxation, Arab 

 incendiaries, the want of good roads, and so on, ad infinitum. 

 It is, therefore with some sort of preconceived sympathy that 

 one sees the first silhouette of the Libyan coast, thinking less 

 of Dido and her story as we scanned it in our schoolboy days 

 than of Abd-el-Kader, marauding Arabs, and French families 

 striving to get a scanty living in the once-famed granary of 

 Europe. 



The first view of Algiers is sufficiently striking. Built 

 upon a hill, its sunny green terraces of Moorish houses glisten 



VOL. X. — NO. I. B 



