If you are of an imaginative and romantic turn of mind, if you have thought of Algiers as the Pirate City, the haunt of the Barbary rovers and the capital of the deys, rather than as a pleasant winter-resort, an African edition of Nice or Cannes, then you should by all means approach it for the first time from the sea, preferably at dawn, when the sun comes up like thunder from behind the purple mountains beyond the bright blue bay, gilding the spires and minarets and turning to mellowed ivory the crowded whitewashed buildings which rise, tier on tier, from the water’s edge to the citadel which crowns the lofty hill on which the city stands. Seen thus, the Algerine capital is but little changed from those distant days when the red-bearded sea-rover whom we call Barbarossa came sailing out of the east to make it the seat of pirate power; when its harbor sheltered the swift galleys of the corsair fleet; when thousands of Christian slaves labored in chains within its walls; and when its very name spelled terror to the seamen of every country in Christendom.

But on coming down from the heights of the Grand Kabylia, as we did, the approach to Algiers is extremely disappointing, for the road, which is of rough pavé, crossed and recrossed by tracks on which clatter hooting electric trams, leads through the sordid and unlovely suburb of Mustapha Inférieur, a noisy industrial district teeming with foundries, factories, belching chimneys, and monotonous rows of workmen’s dwellings. It is the difference between approaching New York by sea or entering it through Harlem.

Viewed from the deck of a steamer some distance out from shore, Algiers seems to be a great triangle of dazzling white framed in vivid green, the quays forming the base of the triangle and the kasbah its apex, with the verdure-clad hill-slopes of the Sahel for a background. For sheer loveliness its only rival among the seaports of the Nearer East is Constantinople, which is in a class by itself. But, as in the case of all Oriental cities, distance lends enchantment, for, as the steamer draws nearer, what had appeared from a distance to be wholly picturesque becomes in part prosaic, the modern French town, built on the level ground beside the sea-shore, masking to a considerable extent the ancient city of the deys, which climbs the steep hill behind the European quarter to the kasbah, or citadel, four hundred feet above the waters of the harbor.

Upon disembarking one has the uneasy feeling that somehow he has made a mistake, that he is not in Africa after all, for the streets and buildings which confront him are all aggressively modern, without a trace of that colorful Orientalism which the posters and pamphlets of the tourist companies had led him to expect. On the quays are the landing-stages, the custom-house, and the railway station, while, lined up outside, are taxicabs, private motor-cars, and luxurious motor-buses belonging to the various hotels. We are in Africa, at the gateway to the Magic East, yet a camel would be as much out of the picture here as at the Grand Central Terminal in New York. Forty feet above the quays, supported by a series of massive arches of masonry and reached by means of ramps, is the imposing Boulevard de la République, bordered on the landward side by rows of arcaded office-buildings and on the seaward side by a fine promenade, which forms a great balcony as it were, nearly three quarters of a mile in length, overhanging the Mediterranean.

A block or so back from the sea-front are the principal business streets of the city—broad, tree-shaded thoroughfares, crowded with tram-cars, motors, and carriages and lined with department-stores which are branches of the great establishments in Paris, specialty shops of every description, steamship agencies, consulates, news-stands (Sunday’s Paris newspapers are sold on Monday afternoon in Algiers), restaurants, cafés, and cinemas advertising the latest films of Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, and Charlie Chaplin. Barring the red tarbooshes of the Arabs, almost the only Oriental note is provided by the post-office, a new and imposing structure in neo-Moorish style, for throughout Africa the French have had the good taste to use a modified native style in the erection of public buildings instead of reproducing the monotonous ugliness of the Second Empire.

But behind the screen formed by the modern buildings of the French city, where the hillside begins its steep ascent, lies the picturesque Arab quarter, a labyrinth of narrow, tortuous lanes, alleys, and culs-de-sac, turning and twisting like so many snakes. These thoroughfares are made to appear even narrower than they are by the peculiar architecture of the houses, whose second floors, supported on cedar poles, extend over the street until they almost touch, the space between being so narrow that it would seem as though a householder, by leaning from his second-story window, could shake hands with his opposite neighbor. A visit to the quartier arabe leaves one breathless—breathless because you hold your breath in order to avoid inhaling the stenches which rise to heaven; breathless because all the streets are in effect staircases, the longest, the Rue de la Kasbah, which leads from the harbor to the citadel, having 497 uneven stone steps. I know, because I counted them. The streets being so steep and narrow, there are, of course, no carts, carriages, cars, nor camels; all burdens are transported by porters or donkeys, and he who desires to explore the native town must walk, or rather, climb, which is good for the figure but hard on the lungs. Up and down these narrow ways moves an endless procession of colorful and interesting figures—Arabs in turbans and tarbooshes, brawny, big-muscled stevedores with bare legs and arms, spahis in crimson cloaks, gabardined Jews with patriarchal beards, shifty-eyed Levantines, French soldiers, caps cocked rakishly and about their middles broad red sashes, priests of the missionary orders in white cassocks and shovel-hats, veiled Moslem women, slipping along between the high walls like sheeted ghosts, and swarms of dirty, noisy, half-naked youngsters who thrive amid the filth of the gutters and importune the visitor for “Un sou, m’sieu.... Donnez-moi un sou!” It is not so easy for a stranger to lose his way in this maze of narrow streets as one might suppose, for he has only to keep ascending and he will eventually reach the kasbah, the old Turkish fortress which commands the town, while, descending, he will sooner or later find himself in the European quarter and civilization again.

The houses, built of stone and whitewashed and re-whitewashed continually, are square, flat-topped buildings, windowless save for a few narrow slits protected by iron bars or gratings. Occasionally a fine gateway breaks the surface of the walls, and, should the door be ajar, one may catch a fleeting glimpse of a marble-paved and colonnaded patio filled with sunlight, flowers, and palms. Thus encloistered, the Arab women spend their eventless days, the monotony of existence broken only by occasional shopping expeditions or the weekly visit to the cemetery. What takes place behind those mysterious green doors is a popular subject for speculation, but I imagine that the life within is not greatly different from that of Occidental households. Now and then one hears strange tales of European women, wandering alone through the dim and narrow streets, who have been seized and dragged within, to be heard from never more. Most of these stories are pure inventions, told by a dragoman or guide to whet the curiosity of the tourist; but that does not mean that it is wholly safe for foreign women to visit the native quarter unaccompanied, particularly toward nightfall, for the streets are none too well policed, and, even should a European woman disappear, it is extremely doubtful whether the French authorities would dare to institute a house-to-house search for her, for an Arab’s harem is sacred, and to invade it for any reason whatsoever might well entail consequences of the gravest character.

But the Oriental life is slowly dying out; the quaint charm of the East is giving way to the hurly-burly of Western civilization. The tide of modernization is gradually but inexorably engulfing the hill on which what is left of the old pirate city stands. The ancient walls are gone, the gates also; most of the old minarets have disappeared. The palace of the deys has become barracks for French soldiers, and the last time I was there the newly washed uniforms of the troops were flapping on a line within sight of the pavilion where the last of the corsair rulers slapped the face of a French consul with his fan. Of the numerous mosques, none of which may be entered by non-Moslems, perhaps the most picturesque is that of Sidi Abd er Rahman, whose venerated tomb is within its precincts. Facing on the Rue de la Marine is the Great Mosque, the Djamaa el Kebir, distinguished by its magnificent colonnade. It is said to be the oldest in Algiers, an inscription on the pulpit showing that it existed in 1018. In the Place du Gouvernement is the new Mosque, which was built in 1660 in the form of a Greek cross according to designs drawn by a European architect who had been captured by the corsairs and enslaved.

Though the almost total absence of any really fine examples of native art and architecture is due in part to centuries of warfare and the destruction caused by successive bombardments, it should be remembered that, even during the great days of Islam, Algiers was never, culturally speaking, of much importance. Such love of beauty as the Algerines possessed was fully satisfied by a beautiful woman; the building of a galley was far more important to them than the building of a mosque; the Christian captives who received the most consideration were not artists and architects but gunsmiths, ship-carpenters, and stone-masons; they carved their history with the sword rather than with the chisel.

Unlike most cities of Barbary, Algiers is lacking in historic background. In Roman times, it is true, there stood on what is now the city’s waterfront a small town called Icosium, but it was presumably a place of little consequence, for it is seldom mentioned in history. The present city was founded by the Arabs about the middle of the tenth century, but it remained comparatively unimportant until the expulsion of the Moors from Spain in 1492, when large numbers of them settled here and adopted the profession of piracy with the double motive of profit and revenge. From that period dates Algiers’s importance as the chief stronghold of the Barbary pirates. Thenceforward, for nearly three hundred and fifty years, its harbor afforded shelter to the corsair fleets that terrorized both shores of the Mediterranean, ravaged the Atlantic coast of Spain, sacked Baltimore in Ireland, and even carried their depredations as far westward as the Canaries and as far northward as Iceland.

The amazing rise to power of the Algerine pirates may be said to have commenced with the struggle for the possession of the Penon, a small island, connected with the mainland by a mole, which provided a place of refuge for the corsair fleet and to-day forms the inner harbor of the great modern port. After their occupation of Oran and other towns on the coast of Africa, the Spaniards seized and fortified this island and held it for nearly twenty years, its position athwart the entrance to the roadstead enabling them to hamper, if not actually to control, the movements of the Algerine fleets. But in 1516 the emir of Algiers, Selim bin Teumi, growing weary of Spanish interference with the pleasant and profitable game of piracy, sought the aid of the celebrated Turkish sea-rovers, Arouj and Khair-ed-Din, better known as the Barbarossa brothers. They accepted the invitation promptly, and it was a sad day for Selim bin Teumi when they did, for scarcely had Arouj set foot in Algiers before he caused the emir to be assassinated and himself took possession of the city. After the death of Arouj in an obscure fight near Oujda, his brother Khair-ed-Din took up the reins of power at Algiers, and, in order to bolster up his position, offered the city to Selim I, sultan of Turkey, who accepted the offer and named Khair-ed-Din his viceroy, or capitan-pasha. Thus began the Turkish domination of Algeria, which lasted for upward of three hundred years and brought worries and woes innumerable to Europe.

Now that he had the might of the Ottoman Empire behind him, Khair-ed-Din turned his attention to the Spanish garrison on the Penon. Bringing up heavy artillery, he subjected the fortress to fifteen days of intensive bombardment, and, when all save a handful of the garrison had been killed, carried it by storm. The Spanish commander Martin Vagas, taken prisoner, was offered his choice between death or conversion to Islam. Being a stout son of the church as well as a gallant soldier, he chose the former, whereupon he was sentenced to die by flogging, and his dead body was dragged through the streets, cut into pieces, and thrown into the sea.

With the double-barreled idea of preventing any repetition of the Spanish occupation and of providing a securer harbor for his fleet, Khair-ed-Din conceived the idea of connecting the Penon with the city by means of a huge mole. For those days it was a herculean undertaking, but an ample supply of forced labor was at hand in the corsairs’ Christian captives, thirty thousand of whom were employed at the task, while an inexhaustible mine of building-materials was provided by the ruins of the old Roman city of Rusgania. The work was completed in three years, and thenceforward for more than three centuries the corsair fleets found refuge within, safe from the storms of the Mediterranean and the attacks of the enemies; for Khair-ed-Din mounted heavy batteries on the Penon and in 1544 erected a lofty lighthouse to guide his home-bound rovers. The present great harbor, covering 222 acres, was commenced by the French in 1836—the first time blocks of concrete were used in such an operation.

From about 1518 until 1587, Algiers was the capital of the beylerbeys, the Turkish viceroys of North Africa, whose rule extended over Tripolitania, Tunisia, and Algeria. From 1587 until 1659 the Barbary states were governed by Turkish pashas, sent from Constantinople for terms of three years; but in 1659 a military revolt in Algiers put an end to this system of government, reduced the pashas to nonentities, and greatly weakened the Turkish power in Africa. From 1659 onward the Barbary states, though still nominally parts of the Ottoman Empire, were in fact anarchical pirate republics which chose their own rulers, supported themselves by plunder, and made their own treaties—which they rarely observed.

During the first of these three periods, as David Hannay has pointed out, the beylerbeys were admirals of the sultan commanding great fleets and conducting serious naval operations for political ends, for at that time, it should be remembered, under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire was at the zenith of its power and glory, Turkish rule extending from Germany to Zanzibar, from Persia to the borders of Morocco. The beylerbeys were slave-hunters, and their methods were ferocious, but the reader should be reminded that their Christian enemies were neither more chivalrous nor more humane. Plunder, however, was the sole object of the pashas who succeeded them after 1587—plunder of all who went upon the sea and of the native tribes on land. The maritime side of this wholesale and systematic brigandage was conducted by the captains, or reises, who formed a sort of guild, a veritable pirates’ union. Cruisers were fitted out by capitalists, just as privateers were fitted out by private parties, both in the North and the South, during the Civil War, each being commanded by a reis. Most of the ships were built at Bougie, the timber being obtained from the forests of the adjacent hinterland. Ten per cent of the value of the prizes was paid to the Turkish ruler—variously known as pasha, agha, bey, or dey—of the Barbary state from which they came.

Until the seventeenth century the corsairs used galleys, long single-decked vessels propelled by fifty or more oars, the rowers being prisoners of war who were chained to the sweeps, sometimes even when their vessel was in harbor. The Algerines were eventually taught the superiority of sailing-ships, however, by a Flemish renegade named Simon Danser, and among them for a time was an English gentleman adventurer of the distinguished Buckinghamshire family of Verney—the original, perhaps, of Rafael Sabatini’s “Sea Hawk.” Though the fleets put into commission at Algiers were so much the most formidable that the name of Algerine became a synonym for Barbary pirate; the same lucrative trade was carried on, though on a smaller scale, from Tripoli and Tunis, as well as from various Moroccan seaports, the most notorious being Salé, which gave its name to the Sallee rovers. The introduction of sailing-vessels enabled the pirates greatly to extend the theater of their operations. The galleys, being unfit for the high seas, were confined to the Mediterranean coasts, but the sailing-ships passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and ranged far into the Atlantic, burning seaports in the Canaries, harrying the western seaboard of Spain; and in 1631 two private crews under the command of Murad Reis, a native of Flanders, landed at Baltimore in Ireland and carried off its inhabitants, who were sold into slavery in Algiers.

The first half of the seventeenth century was the heyday of the Barbary pirates. More than twenty thousand captives were said to be imprisoned in Algiers alone. Those possessed of property could redeem themselves, but the poor were sold at auction like cattle, though occasionally their masters would give them their freedom upon their professing Mohammedanism. But thousands died from fever, from exhaustion, or under the lash. The women were less fortunate: they were taken into the harems and became concubines of their masters. A long list might be compiled of persons—not only Italians, French, and Spaniards, but English, Dutch, and German travelers in the South—who were captives for a time in Barbary. Don Miguel de Cervantes, the author of “Don Quixote,” and his brother Rodrigo were captured by Barbary corsairs in 1575 off Marseilles and taken as prisoners to Algiers. As the letters found upon the former were taken to prove that he was a man of importance and in a position to pay a high ransom, he was put under special surveillance. Their father made every effort to effect their release, but the money which he sent to Algiers by two priests of the Order of Mercy was sufficient only to ransom Rodrigo. Miguel and his companions in misery made several daring efforts to escape, which were, however, invariably discovered or betrayed, whereupon he always chivalrously took the blame upon himself, being sentenced on one of these occasions to two thousand strokes of the lash; but the Turkish viceroy remitted the sentence, which was tantamount to death, and thereby rendered an inestimable service to literature. In 1580, just as Cervantes was being sent to Constantinople, two Trinitarian monks arrived in Algiers and effected his release by paying a ransom of two hundred gold ducats—equivalent to about a thousand dollars—not a high price, it would seem, for one of the greatest writers of all time. Speaking of authors, it will be recalled that Defoe’s immortal hero, Robinson Crusoe, before setting out on his voyage to the South Seas, was captured by a Sallee rover and worked as a slave in Barbary—an incident which was probably founded on one of the adventures of Alexander Selkirk.

When a prize was brought into Algiers the captives were required to declare their quality and condition, and a flagging memory was revived by a taste of the bastinado. The dey selected one prisoner in ten for himself, his preference being generally for skilled workmen and, of course, for young and beautiful women. The others were sold by public auction in the slave-market for the benefit of the owners of the galleys and their crews. Incredible as it may seem, the European powers tacitly accepted this piracy and slave-hunting by maintaining consuls at Algiers, through whose agency those of the captives whose friends could find the ransoms demanded were, after much delay, released, though it is said that they had to pay for the water they drank at the public fountains during their incarceration. Perhaps the most successful agency for the release of Christian captives, however, was the religious order of Trinitarians, or Redemptionists, as they are now called, who collected vast sums of money for the purpose, and, when other means failed, offered themselves in exchange for Christian captives.

Though for three hundred years and more the most powerful states of Europe paid tribute to the corsairs and tolerated their insults, they had only themselves to blame, for the continuance of African piracy was wholly due to European jealousies. France openly encouraged them during her long, fierce rivalry with Spain; and when she had no further need of them they were supported against her by England and Holland. Indeed, British statesmen of the eighteenth century saw no shame in asserting that Barbary piracy was deserving of British encouragement because it served to check the competition of Britain’s Mediterranean rivals in the carrying trade. (Which serves to remind us that even to-day British public men are supporting the opium trade with China for equally sordid reasons.) Yet, in view of the weakness of their fleets as compared with those of the European powers, it remains a matter for profound astonishment that the corsairs succeeded in playing their great game of bluff so long. When William Eaton, the American consul at Tunis, who himself in later years smashed the power of the Tripolitan pirates by his amazing desert march on Derna,⁠[5] was sent in 1799 to negotiate a treaty with the dey of Algiers, he wrote, “Can any man believe that this elevated brute has seven kings of Europe, two Republics, and a Continent tributary to him, when his whole naval force is not equal to two line-of-battle ships?”

But, though the various powers were ready enough to tolerate piracy when it affected their rivals, their complaisance quickly disappeared when it affected themselves. In 1655, as a result of repeated attacks on British shipping, Admiral Robert Blake was ordered to teach the corsairs respect for the British flag, which he did by administering a sound thrashing to the Tunisians. During the reign of Charles II a long series of expeditions against the pirates was undertaken by the British fleet, sometimes single-handed, sometimes in coöperation with the Dutch. In 1682 and again in 1683 the French fleet bombarded Algiers, and on the second occasion the Algerines repaid the little pleasantry by blowing the French consul from the mouth of a gun. In 1804 the United States took a hand in the game by sending a squadron under Commodore Preble to the Mediterranean. During a naval demonstration against Tripoli the frigate Philadelphia went aground in the harbor and was captured by the corsairs, but was burned a few days later, under the very guns of the city, by a daring expedition led by gallant young Stephen Decatur, who subsequently commanded with marked success all the American naval operations against the cities of the Pirate Coast.

When the dove of peace settled upon European soil after Waterloo, it was generally agreed that the time had arrived to bring the activities of the corsairs to an end. Accordingly, at the Congress of Vienna, Great Britain was delegated by the other powers to clean up the Barbary Coast, and in 1816 Lord Exmouth was ordered to exact promises of good behavior from the bey of Tunis and the dey of Algiers at the mouths of his guns. The negotiations proceeded amicably enough, but scarcely had they been concluded before a number of British subjects were attacked and brutally ill-treated by the pirates of Bône, whereupon the British government sent Exmouth back to exact reparation, and, acting in conjunction with a Dutch squadron under Admiral Van de Capellen, he administered a smashing bombardment to Algiers.

This recalls the romantic attempt at escape of Ida M’Donnell, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Admiral Ulric, consul-general of Denmark, and wife of the British consul at Algiers. When the bombardment was about to begin, M’Donnell was loaded with chains by order of the bey and thrown into a dungeon. Mrs. M’Donnell, cutting off her hair, attempted to reach the British fleet disguised as a midshipman, carrying on her arm a basket of vegetables in which her baby was hidden. She was detected and detained, but the child was sent out to the flag-ship under a flag of truce with the dey’s compliments.

Though the salutary lesson taught them by Lord Exmouth’s guns terrified the pirates both of Algiers and of Tunis into surrendering upward of three thousand captives, they were not reformed nor were they capable of reformation. The leopard cannot change its spots. Ere many months had passed the Algerines were again at their work of plundering, burning, and slave-hunting, though on a smaller scale; and in 1824 another British squadron under Sir Harry Neal had again to bombard Algiers, but the great pirate city was not thoroughly tamed until its occupation by the French in 1830.

Through one of those curious anomalies with which the musty pages of history are enlivened, the result which the European powers in concert had been unable to accomplish in spite of three hundred years of outrage and insult was brought about by the stroke of a fan. The incident which was destined to have such important consequences for North Africa and for civilization arose—as modern international incidents have frequently arisen—from a financial controversy. During the period of the Directory two Algerine Jews, Bacri and Burnach, had supplied the French government with large quantities of grain, but their claims were repudiated by the succeeding governments of Bonaparte and the Bourbons. The question of the debt would not in itself have been sufficient to produce a rupture, but the dey, Hussein—to whom the Jews had probably promised a substantial rake-off—pressed the claim as his own. Exasperated by the numerous delays, he sent for the French consul, M. Deval, whom he received at the kasbah in a sort of pavilion. The interview, which was exceedingly acrimonious, was abruptly terminated when, giving rein to his passion, the pirate chieftain struck the French envoy in the face with his fly-flap. France’s retaliation for this affront was more prompt than vigorous; it took the form of an ineffectual blockade of the port of Algiers by a squadron of war-ships. Though this action inconvenienced it did not particularly worry the dey, who showed his contempt by firing on La Provence, a vessel which entered the harbor of Algiers under a flag of truce in August, 1829. This ended the patience of the French government, which determined to terminate the intolerable situation by a punitive expedition, the minister of war, Marshal de Bourmont, himself taking the command. On June 14, 1830, the red-trousered battalions disembarked under cover of the war-ships at Sidi-Ferruch. Five days later they smashed the enemy at Staoueli. On July 4 the Fort de l’Empereur was blown up. On the following day Algiers capitulated, and the pirate standard which had flaunted so long above the kasbah was replaced by the tricolor. After terrorizing the Mediterranean and defying Christendom since the Middle Ages, the Barbary pirates had come to the end of the road.

Meanwhile the revolution of July, 1830, had broken out in France. The new government found itself greatly embarrassed by the situation bequeathed it by the preceding régime. Parliament, as a whole, was strongly opposed to the nation’s embarking on an African adventure; but French troops were, on the other hand, in possession of Algiers, and popular sentiment—which in France can never safely be disregarded—was opposed to their withdrawal. The situation was, in fact, not unlike that which confronted the American government in 1898, when Admiral Dewey had captured Manila. The administration at Paris did not want Algeria, any more than the administration at Washington wanted the Philippines, but neither of them was in a position to withdraw its forces. Fearing to arouse the jealousies of the other powers by following up its conquest, its freedom of action hampered by its treaty engagements with England, yet realizing that evacuation would mean a prompt resumption of piratical activities, the Paris government determined to pursue a middle course, called restricted occupation, which consisted merely in occupying the principal ports and waiting to see what would happen. The diplomats of the Quai d’Orsay were extricated from their embarrassing position, however, by the Algerines themselves, who attacked the French troops and gained some small successes. This was all that was needed. It now became necessary to avenge the honor of the flag. Reinforcements were rushed to Africa, columns were pushed east, south, and west, and the hinterland was gradually occupied and pacified. Thus was brought about the French conquest of Algeria, and, as time went on, of all North Africa.

Having proceeded thus far with my sketch of the conquest of Algeria, I might as well round it out here as to resume it later on. The five years, then, which followed the capitulation of Algiers were a period of anxiety and uncertainty for the French, who, undetermined whether to evacuate or retain the country, remained on the defensive, their dominion extending over only six coast towns. In Algiers, Bougie, and Bône their position was tolerably secure, but along the western littoral, at Mostaganem, Arzeu, and Oran, they found themselves menaced by a most formidable adversary in the person of the young Abd-el-Kader, who had been proclaimed emir at Mascara in 1832, when only four-and-twenty years of age.

Abd-el-Kader’s family were sherifs, or descendants of the Prophet, and his father was celebrated throughout North Africa for his piety and his charity. As a youth he received the best education attainable by a Moslem of princely rank, especially in theology and philosophy, in horsemanship and in other manly exercises. A born leader, a man of exceptional intelligence, a great soldier, an able administrator, a brilliant and persuasive orator, a chivalrous opponent, a skilled swordsman and a fearless horseman, Abd-el-Kader was one of the most remarkable figures which Africa, or, indeed, the whole Arab world, has ever produced. Of him, as of Bayard, it might be said with entire truth that he was sans peur et sans reproche.

For fifteen years he held in check all the forces which France, the greatest military power of the time, could bring against him, treating on terms of equality with the French government, which maintained representatives at his court. Undisputed master of the great province of Oran, he crossed the Shelif in response to the appeal of the natives of Middle Algeria, who flocked to greet him as though he were an emperor. He defeated the French on the banks of the Macta in June, 1835, and then all western Algeria belonged to him, his possession of it being confirmed by the Treaty of Tafna, by the terms of which the French surrendered several important cities in the west while Abd-el-Kader on his part vaguely recognized French sovereignty in North Africa.

This was a political as well as a military triumph for the young leader, who regarded the peace as but a truce which would give him a breathing-space in which to gain strength to renew the struggle under more favorable conditions. The capture of Constantine by the French in 1837, which, he claimed, was an infraction of the treaty, provided him with a pretext for reopening hostilities, and two years later he turned loose his hordes once more. Meanwhile his power had been steadily increasing. He was amply provided with materials of war, having magazines and arsenals scattered through the heart of the Tell. He had a regular army of ten thousand men, both horse and foot, to say nothing of the fifty thousand goums—irregular native cavalry—which the great chieftains brought to his standard. He was obeyed by a whole hierarchy of khalifas, aghas, and caïds. And the people, seeing in him not only a champion of their liberties but a man of transcendent piety, a soldier-saint, worshiped the ground beneath his charger’s hoofs.

Marshal Valée, who first opposed him, relied on defensive tactics, but in 1840 the conqueror of Constantine was replaced by General Bugeaud, who was destined to become Duke of Isly and a marshal of France. Bugeaud, who was first, last, and all the time a fighter, lost no time in adopting the offensive. Increasing the mobility of his troops by lightening their equipment—which they repaid by affectionately calling him “Père Bugeaud”—and forming a number of flying columns, he proceeded to carry the war into the province of Oran, from which Abd-el-Kader drew his principal resources. One after another all the strongholds of the emir were captured and destroyed. In the spring of 1843 the Duc d’Aumale made a successful surprise attack upon his camp at Tanguin, whereupon the emir retreated into Morocco and persuaded the Shereefian emperor to become his ally and declare war on France. Upon Bugeaud’s great victory at Isly in August, 1844, however, the Moroccan monarch lost no time in signing a treaty of peace at Tangier.

But the struggle was not yet at an end. Islam made a supreme effort in Algeria. The warlike tribes of the hinterland rose at the voice of a fanatic called Bu-Maza, “the goat man.” Abd-el-Kader reappeared in Algeria, which he overran with a rapidity which paralyzed resistance and baffled pursuit. He smashed the French at Sidi-Brahim, punished the tribes of the Tell Oranais which had deserted him, pushed as far eastward as the borders of the Metija, and even penetrated the Djurjura, where he sought to arouse the Kabyles. It was the refusal of these Berber mountaineers to make common cause with the Arabs against the French which led to his downfall. His eloquence offended rather than stirred these little democratic communities; his appeals fell on ears deaf to the sentiment of the common good. From that time Abd-el-Kader played a losing game. He again retired into Morocco, but the sultan, jealous of his popularity with the people and having no desire to again embroil himself with the French, drove him out. This was the end. Two days before the Christmas of 1847, the great Arab leader surrendered to General Lamoricière on the plains of Sidi-Brahim. His capitulation marked the end of the period of the conquest. It is true that the Grand Kabylia had to be subdued only ten years later, and that terrible insurrections still had to be quelled. But at the end of the reign of Louis Philippe the work of laying the foundations of France’s African empire had been accomplished. All that was needed was to complete and secure it.

In violation of the solemn pledge that he would be permitted to take up his residence in Syria or Egypt, on the strength of which he laid down his arms, Abd-el-Kader and his family were detained in France for five years, but in 1852 he was released by Napoleon III on taking an oath never again to disturb Algeria. For a time he made his home in Brusa, the quaint old town which was once the capital of Turkey, but later he removed to Damascus. In July, 1860, when the Moslems of that city, taking advantage of the Druse revolt, attacked the Christian quarter and slaughtered more than three thousand Christians, Abd-el-Kader helped to suppress the outbreak and saved hundreds of Christian lives. For this the French government, which had granted the emir a pension of twenty thousand dollars a year, bestowed on him the grand cross of the Legion of Honor—the highest distinction in the gift of France. He visited Paris and London and attended the Paris Exposition of 1867, where he was acclaimed as a national hero; when, in 1871, the Algerians again rose in revolt, he wrote them urging them to accept the rule of France. In the spring of 1883 he passed from Damascus to the Moslem Paradise—a gallant soldier, a chivalrous enemy, and a great gentleman.

Having shown in this rather lengthy historical interlude how Algiers came to be French, let us return to the city itself, or rather, to its environs. It is with a distinct sense of relief that one leaves la ville européene, with its crowded streets, its garish shops, the clatter and bustle of traffic over stone-paved thoroughfares, the honking of motors and the clang of tram-cars, and takes the road which ascends in long, steep zigzags to the lovely heights of Mustapha Supérieur and El Biar, where are situated the great tourist hotels and the enchanting, flower-smothered villas of the European residents.

It has been said that no one can know how beautiful a sunset can be unless he has lived in a villa at El Biar with a terrace facing toward the west. That the view is superb there can be no denying; it is one of the grandest in the world, I should say. Rising above the exquisite curve of the crescent-shaped bay is a long line of mountains, their peaks usually dim in a mulberry haze or purple and sullen when shadowed by storm-clouds, but in clear weather standing out against the soft cerulean sky like cameos. But the scene, enchanting as it is, attains true majesty only on those rare occasions when the clouds lift sufficiently to reveal, behind and beyond the shore range, the mighty snow-peaks of the Grand Kabylia towering thousands of feet into the African blue.

The walled gardens of Mustapha Supérieur are places of sheer delight, heavy with fragrance and aglow with color. They are crowded with plants and trees of every variety and clime—palms from the South Seas and Malaysia; Japanese bamboos, eucalyptus and blue-gums from Australia; Spanish oranges and lemons; dragon-trees from China; stately rows of dark Italian cypress; fruit-trees from the south of France. Splashes of vivid color are provided by great masses of crimson or magenta bougainvillea, by clusters of arum-lily, iris, and narcissus. As for roses, they are everywhere, clambering over the walls, festooning arbors and summer-houses, forming hedges of pink, yellow, red, or white. And the ground is covered with a purple carpet of long-stemmed Algerian violets whose perfume fills the air.

The suburb of Mustapha takes its name from one of the deys, who erected the palace now used as the official residence of the governor-general of Algeria. Few if any of the world’s rulers can boast such a residence, for it is built in the colorful Moorish style, rich in marbles, faiences, and mosaics, and stands amid gardens of fairy-like loveliness which look down upon the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean. It did not prove a good investment for its luxury-loving builder, however, for the vast sums he squandered on it so angered the Janizaries, whose pay was perpetually in arrears, as to bring about his disgrace and death. The ideal time to see the gardens of the palace is during an evening fête—one of those scented, languorous African nights when the moon throws a white beam athwart the darkened waters of the Mediterranean, when the fragrance of flowers intoxicates the senses, and the air is as soft as the cheek of a lovely woman. The trees are festooned with myriads of little colored lights, red, blue, and white; across the velvet lawns or along the marble terraces stroll men in brilliant uniforms, and bare-shouldered, bejeweled women; beneath a clump of palms the red-jacketed spahi band is softly playing....

If you are interested in seeing what the soil and climate of Algeria are capable of producing in the way of vernal loveliness, you should not fail to visit the Jardin d’Essai, an extremely successful attempt at acclimatization on a large scale, which was established by the government nearly a century ago on the flats of Mustapha Inférieur. If you expect something unusual in landscape gardening, however, you will be disappointed, for there is nothing here to compare with the superb effects which have been achieved at Peradeniya in Ceylon or in those most wonderful of all tropical gardens at Buitenzorg in Java. But the Jardin d’Essai has one feature which in itself well repays the trouble of a visit: a magnificent avenue of India-rubber trees which have attained gigantic size, in some cases twenty feet around and three times that in height.

When you have concluded your visit to the Jardin d’Essai, I hope that you will cross the road to one of the little open-air native cafés which are set amid groves of trees above the Mediterranean. You can have tea, or an ice, or the thick, sweet Arab coffee, but the chief thing is the view, particularly toward sunset, when from the tables, as from nowhere else, you can obtain a glimpse of the old Algiers, the city of the corsairs, the white terraces of the town glowing like ivory in the soft afternoon light, the masts of the shipping in the harbor mirrored in the calm opalescent waters.

On the slopes of Mustapha Supérieur, a few minutes’ walk from the Jardin d’Essai, is the Algerian Museum, which contains an admirably arranged collection of objects illustrative of the country’s varied history, including the flint instruments of primitive man, an assortment of Punic earthenware from Gouraya, Roman mosaics and sculptures, and numerous examples of Berber and Arab handicraft. It is laudably confined, as Mr. Thomas-Stanford remarks, to Algerian antiquities and native art; unlike so many American museums, it contains no irrelevant South Sea Island curios; it has not been used as a receptacle for the rubbish of the local collector, a dumping-ground for the perplexed widow and the embarrassed executor.

By far the most interesting object in the museum, though a very gruesome one, is the plaster cast of a young man, lying face downward, his hands and feet bound with cords, his torso arched, his muscles strained in agony. It is not a cheap replica of some celebrated statue, as most casual visitors assume, but a life-mask which depicts with ghastly veracity the agonizing death-struggles of a man who was buried alive! Were it that and nothing more it would merely be revolting, but it is in some measure redeemed from the horrible by its amazing history.

The cast is of the body of San Gerónimo, the discovery of whose remains in 1853 afforded striking confirmation of an incident recorded by a Spanish Benedictine monk named Haedo in an account of Algiers which he had written nearly two and a half centuries before. According to the priestly chronicler, a young Arab who had been captured by the Spaniards about the middle of the sixteenth century, had embraced Christianity, and had been baptized with the name of Gerónimo, was recaptured in 1569 by Algerine pirates and taken to Algiers. That one of their breed and creed should have become an apostate was an unforgivable offense in Arab eyes. When threats and pleadings failed to move him from his adopted faith, Gerónimo was condemned to death. Bound hand and foot he was thrown alive into a mold in which a block of concrete was about to be made and the liquid concrete poured in upon him. The block containing his body was built into an angle of the Fort of the Twenty-four Hours, then in process of construction. Nearly three centuries later, in 1853 to be exact, the fort was demolished by French military engineers, and in the angle specified by Haedo the block containing the skeleton of Gerónimo was found. Into the mold left by the saint’s body liquid plaster of Paris was run, and a perfect model obtained, showing the agonized features of the youth, the cords which bound him, and even the texture of his single garment. This model is now in the museum. But the block itself, that “noble sepulcher,” as the old chronicler calls it, has found a fitting shrine in the cathedral of St. Philippe, where the bones of the Arab youth who died a Christian martyr and was canonized a saint rest beneath a marble sarcophagus which bears the inscription, “Ossa venerabilis servi Dei Geronimo.”

High on the slopes behind Algiers, set on a shoulder of the Bou Zarea Hills, above a sea of almond-blossoms, is the church of Notre Dame d’Afrique, to which you should not fail to make a little pilgrimage, if from no more pious motive than to enjoy the sublime view. At our feet the white houses of Algiers run down steeply, like the seats in the gallery of a theater, to meet the blue waters of the bay; turning inland we look down upon the beautiful Valley of the Consuls, the favorite place of residence of the European representatives at the corsair court and but little changed since the time of the deys. Perhaps the most interesting time to visit Notre Dame d’Afrique is on a Sunday afternoon, when thousands of the pious and the curious make their way up the steep hill to witness the poetic ceremony of the blessing of the sea. Amid a reverent hush a procession of priests and choristers moves slowly across the terrace to the edge of the cliff, where, overlooking the Mediterranean, a cross has been raised to the memory of all those who have been buried in deep waters. Boyish voices rise in a sweet, shrill chant, and, after a brief prayer for those who go down to the sea in ships, the officiating priest sprinkles holy water out toward the Mediterranean, whose sun-kissed surface sparkles as though strewn with diamonds.

Within the church, above the high altar, is a statue of a black Virgin, and over it is the unusual inscription: “Notre Dame d’Afrique, priez pour nous et pour les Musulmans.”

It gratified me, that inscription; it bespeaks a tolerance, a freedom from bigotry, which one likes to associate with the faith founded by the gentle Man of Nazareth. Why, the words might have been spoken by Jesus himself!

“Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Mohammedans.”