Bad news greeted us at Algiers. We were to change cars and drivers, so the officials of the company which had charge of our transportation informed us. Harvey, the young New Englander and veteran of the A. E. F., for whom we had formed a sincere affection, was to return with the Cadillac to Tunis, and we were to continue our journey Morocco-ward in a huge black Renault under the guidance of a youthful French colonial named Tomine, whose home town was Casablanca. Tomine—whose name we soon corrupted to Ptomaine—was an easy-going, devil-may-care lad without the slightest sense of responsibility. A safe and skilful driver, he was utterly regardless of sign-posts, which were of no more significance to him than trees or telegraph-poles. And he had, moreover, an incurable aversion to making inquiries as to direction and road conditions. Upon leaving Tlemcen, for example, he took the wrong roads three times running, following each of them a dozen miles or more before he was willing to admit that he might possibly be mistaken. Had I not interfered we would have ended up in the desert instead of at Oujda, and as it was we arrived long after midnight, just as the military authorities were about to send out a searching expedition on the assumption that we had met with an accident or had been waylaid by bandits.

There used to be a current saying in the East that the first thing the British build upon occupying a country is a custom-house, the first thing that the Germans build is a fort, and the first thing the French build is a road. And nowhere have the French been more painstaking or successful in their road-building than in Algeria. When they occupied the country in 1830 the interior could not boast a single road. The splendid Roman highways had long since disappeared. Wheeled vehicles were unknown among the Arabs, whose rough and narrow trails permitted only the passage of horsemen. In the Tell transport was by mules, in the desert regions by camels.

The French were quick to realize, however, that in a savage and hostile country, utterly destitute of roads, the heavily accoutred European troops, accompanied by artillery and baggage trains, could not hope to approach the mobility of the Arab light-horsemen. No sooner had the army landed, therefore, than the military engineers set about the construction of a great strategic highway system, which at first only linked the more important coast cities but was gradually expanded until it now consists of a main east-and-west artery running right across the country from Tunisia to Morocco with numerous branches which stretch southward to the towns along the edge of the Sahara. These highways, which now have a total length of nearly thirty-five hundred miles, comprise the routes nationales, the great state trunk roads, built and maintained by the government primarily for strategic purposes. In recent years the government has lent its aid in the construction of a number of other roads, partly of a strategic nature but for the most part built with a view to opening up new regions to commerce and colonization. These, with the ordinary country roads, make up a total of something over ten thousand miles, so that to-day there is not a single town of importance in Algeria which cannot be reached by motor over hard-surfaced highways.

The routes nationales of Algeria are like those of France as the latter were before they were ruined by the heavy traffic of the war: the curves and gradients scientifically worked out, planted wherever possible with shade-trees, the distances plainly indicated by kilometer-stones, and maintained in admirable condition. The Algerian highways are not so well posted as they might be, though the motorist rarely has any difficulty in finding his way; but in Morocco the French have erected the finest road-signs I have ever seen—great walls of whitewashed concrete, ten feet in height, with the route-numbers, the names of the towns, and the distances painted on them in staring black characters which can be seen a quarter of a mile away. In this respect, Morocco is far ahead of America. As a result of the general excellence of the Algerian roads the shipping of goods by motor-truck has been highly developed, transportation by roads being in most cases fully as rapid as by railway and considerably less expensive.

Algeria has, however, an excellent railway system of twenty-five hundred miles, its well equipped trains provided with sleeping and dining cars, on which one can travel in comfort all the way from Tunisia to Morocco, or from the Algerian coast towns southward to the edges of the desert; but I should strongly advise the prospective visitor to North Africa to do most of his traveling by motor-car, for which the roads, by reason of their open character and long straight stretches, are admirably adapted, and which, particularly where the cost is shared among several persons, is considerably less expensive than the railway, to say nothing of being infinitely more enjoyable and interesting.

The surface of the main roads is usually excellent, though not comparable, of course, to the wonderful concrete boulevards which now cover with a network the United States. Garages and repair-shops are to be found in all the larger towns, and the French mechanics are the equal of any in the world. Gasoline—or pétrol, as the French call it—is available almost everywhere and is no more expensive than in France. Algeria is the speedster’s paradise. It is true that Article 14 of the Règlements contains the provision that en aucun cas, la vitesse n’excédera celle de 30 kilomètres à l’heure en rase campagne et celle de 20 kilomètres à l’heure dans les agglomérations, but I have never heard of this or any other speed-limit being enforced, and in Algeria such joy-killers as speed-traps and traffic-cops are as yet unknown. I should advise those who are fond of stepping on the gas to proceed with extreme caution through the native villages, however, for the passions of the Arabs are easily aroused, particularly against Europeans, and, were a native child to be killed or injured, it might go hard with those who were responsible for the accident.

Beautifully appointed cars of all the better known American and European makes, with European drivers, may be hired very reasonably at Tunis, Algiers, or Oran; while for those who wish to avoid the expense of a private car, I can recommend the luxurious motor-buses operated by the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. In these great vehicles every passenger is provided with an arm-chair as roomy and comfortable as those in Pullman parlor-cars, nor is he encumbered by luggage, which is carried in a trailer. While in North Africa I met several Americans who had brought their own cars from the United States and were driving them themselves—not so costly a matter as might be assumed, by the way, for a touring-car of medium size can be shipped from New York to Algiers and back again to New York for something under four hundred dollars. One of my compatriots, a former ambassador and a gentleman of enormous wealth, was so delighted with the car and chauffeur he had hired in Algiers that he insisted on taking both across the Mediterranean for the sole purpose of motoring the hundred miles from Marseilles to Monte Carlo! Another American motorist, whom I met in Fez, was from Kansas City—a real Middle-Western hustler. He arrived late in the evening, driving his own car, and departed the following day immediately after luncheon.

“But aren’t you cutting your stay here rather short?” I protested. “Fez is a very interesting city.”

“Hell, no!” he exclaimed, tossing his bags into the tonneau. “I’ve been here all night and half of a day, haven’t I? I reckon to see the rest of Morocco in about four days and then spend a fortnight doing western Europe.”

Two days later we heard that he had been arrested for speeding on the road to Marrákesh. And I was glad of it. But he certainly must have been burning up the road to have been arrested in Morocco!

A score of miles or so beyond Algiers, near the little village of Kolea, the west-bound traveler comes within sight of one of the most remarkable sepulchral monuments in North Africa—the Kubr-er-Rumia, “the grave of the Roman lady,” as the Arabs call it, though better known by its French name, Tombeau de la Chrétienne. A huge circular stone building, surmounted by a pyramid and supported by sixty Ionic columns, it stands on the summit of a hill, some little distance from the highway and seven hundred and fifty feet above the sea. To visit it one must do a little climbing, but, if you have any imagination in your soul, it is well worth the trouble, for it is the tomb of Juba II, who ruled in Mauretania during the latter part of the first century B.C., and—what is far more important to most of us—of his wife, the beautiful Selene, daughter of Mark Antony and of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. It is an interesting circumstance that in 1555, when Salah Reis, the pirate-pasha of Algiers, having use for the stones which form the mighty sepulcher, set men to tear it down, big black wasps came swarming from the burial-chambers within the tomb and stung the vandals to death. How that must have delighted the imperious and relentless spirit of Cleopatra!

The Princess Selene presented an embarrassing problem to the government at Rome, for in her veins flowed the blood of the Ptolemies, the Cæsars, and possibly of the Pharaohs, and there were those who would have claimed for her the succession to the thrones of two great empires. So, in order to get rid of this potentially troublesome young person, the Emperor Augustus married her off to Juba II, a descendant of that Masinissa, king of Numidia, mentioned in an earlier chapter, who had been a stanch ally of the Romans in their conflict with Carthage. Crossing to Africa, the royal pair set about the creation of a capital on the site of the ancient Punic town of Jol, which they renamed Julia Cæsarea and which is to-day called Cherchel, seventy-five miles west of Algiers. Here, where the wooded hills come down to meet the curving bay, they raised a noble city, a seat of art and learning and a center of the best culture of the time. A theater, a hippodrome, palaces, temples, baths, and villas rose in gleaming marble upon the hill-slopes above the Mediterranean; and here, surrounded by artists, scientists, and philosophers, the daughter of Cleopatra lived with her student husband to a ripe old age, the two of them being buried, as I have already remarked, in the Kubr-er-Rumia, the splendid mausoleum near Kolea. The Arab invaders, the Algerine pirates, the French army engineers and archæologists, and the earthquakes have between them left little of the ancient city standing; but the museum at Cherchel contains some of the finest statues found in Africa, including the lower half of an Egyptian god in black basalt, bearing the cartouche of Thotmes I, which, according to some authorities, is an indication that there was an Egyptian settlement here as early as 1500 B.C. Cherchel makes a good midday stopping-place for west-bound travelers, who may have their déjeuner on the terrace of the small local hotel, but let me warn you in advance that the banal modern town contains no architectural reminders of the great days when it was the seat of the court of Cleopatra’s daughter.

It is a matter of only about three hours by motor from Cherchel to Tenes, a charming little seaside community on the site of the Roman colony of Cartenna. Here the ubiquitous Compagnie Générale Transatlantique has built the most enchanting traveler’s rest that I have ever seen in any country. On the thickly wooded slopes which rise abruptly from the crescent bay, the company has erected a score or more of white-walled, red-roofed, deep-verandaed kiosks, most of them containing two rooms and a bath and charmingly decorated, inside and out, with vivid tiles and gaily tinted Arab plaster-work, so that they gleam like jewels amid the foliage. The rooms are as comfortably furnished as those of the finest American summer hotels, and meals are served in a central bungalow. There is sea-bathing on the sandy beach, a few yards away, and delightful excursions may be made into the wooded hills behind the town, or to some ruined Roman tombs in the neighborhood, but I preferred to lie at ease in a chaise longue beneath the whispering pines, idly watching the blue sea at my feet and the hibiscus-colored sails of the fishing-craft which dotted it. We remained at Tenes only over the week-end, but I could have spent a fortnight there most contentedly.

As it is a long day’s run from Tenes to Oran, with nothing of particular interest to be seen en route, let me suggest that I beguile the tedium of the journey by telling you something of this Algerian land across which we have been motoring for so many days.

To begin with, Algeria is not a colony, strictly speaking, being regarded, rather, as a part of France. Unlike the protectorates of Morocco and Tunisia, which are respectively under the control of the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and both of which have been permitted to retain their native rulers and at least a semblance of native government, Algerian affairs are controlled by the Ministry of the Interior through a governor-general, and in the administration of the country the natives have very little voice. For administrative purposes the country has been organized in two great divisions—Northern and Southern Algeria. The Northern Territory, which, loosely speaking, comprises the coastal plain and the fertile highland region known as the Tell, is divided into three departments, Algiers, Oran, and Constantine, each under a prefect and each sending one senator and two deputies to the national Parliament in Paris. The Southern Territory, which comprises the more thinly populated and less civilized Algerian Sahara, consists of four military territories, Ain Sefra, Ghardaia, Touggourt, and the Saharan Oases (Tuat, Gurara, and Tidikelt), each under a commandant militaire who is usually a general of brigade or a colonel. The total population of Algeria is now probably not far from six millions, of whom nearly ten per cent are Europeans. The franchise is confined to “citizens,” in which classification are included all Jews and those natives above the age of twenty-five and monogamous who served in the Great War, who are landed proprietors or farmers, who can read and write, or who hold a French decoration. The balance of the natives, who form nine tenths of the population, are not “citizens,” however, but “subjects,” and consequently do not possess the right to vote.

That this disproportionate system, which grants suffrage to ten per cent of the population and leaves ninety per cent of the inhabitants without a voice in governmental affairs, should be provocative of deep discontent among the natives is hardly surprising. Far from unifying the population, it has but served to encourage racial hatred and political prejudice, for the “citizens,” native and naturalized, consider themselves immensely superior to the unfranchised, who bitterly resent the subordinate position that has been allotted them in the land which their fathers ruled for twelve hundred years. Looking eastward, the Algerians see their fellow-Moslems in Tunisia enjoying a considerable measure of autonomy, somewhat vague and limited, it is true, but an autonomy of sorts nevertheless. On the west they see the Moroccans, with whom they are closely allied racially, religiously, and historically, under a French protectorate, but a protectorate so mild and beneficent as to be scarcely felt. The bey of Tunis still sits on the throne of his fathers in the Palace of the Bardo; the sultan of Morocco is still the titular head of the Shereefian Empire; but in Algeria all power is vested in the governor-general, an alien and a non-Moslem, and the flag which flies over the country from Lalla Maghnia to the Mjerda is the flag of France.

The cause of this discrimination must be sought in history. The French came into Algeria as avenging conquerors during an age when European nations recognized only three methods of dealing with native populations: extinction, expulsion, and repression. At the time of the conquest France was still swayed by Napoleonic ideals, her military men were in the saddle, and the numerous native uprisings, particularly that led by Abd-el-Kader, had convinced her that she was standing on the crust of a volcano. Hence, in formulating her Algerian policy, she decided on repression; she determined to use the mailed fist without the velvet glove. Everywhere, even on the plains, where resistance was slight and conquest was easy, the natives were dispossessed. The land was allotted to Frenchmen or to those natives, comparatively few in number, who were able to qualify as French “citizens” and consented to take the oath of allegiance to France. Those who had fought for their fatherland, who had resisted the invaders, were deprived of their property, the villages were depopulated, broad areas of the country were laid waste. In the cities the mosques were in many cases desecrated or handed over to the religious orders to be used for what the Moslems considered idolatrous worship. Some of them have never been restored to their owners. The country was administered—and still is to a large extent—primarily for the benefit of Frenchmen. Those Algerians only have prospered who have entered the French army or government service, and formed affiliations which all but cut them off from their fellow-countrymen. Though in the ninety-odd years of her occupation France has gradually modified her initial policy in Algeria, though she has done away with many of the injustices to which it inevitably gave rise, nevertheless there exists among the natives much lurking resentment, the more dangerous because it is skilfully concealed.

The cases of Tunisia and Morocco are totally different. France wore hobnailed boots when she invaded Algeria; she changed to street shoes, however, ere she set foot on the soil of Tunisia; but she tiptoed into Morocco in soft-soled slippers. Tunisia, remember, was not conquered by force of arms. It was occupied under the terms of a solemn treaty, without any determined resistance on the part of the natives; indeed, almost without a blow. Despite specious assurances to the contrary, however, the French proceeded to undermine and destroy the power of the beys, rehabilitating them in name only as their puppets, a procedure which met with scarcely more opposition than the British encountered when they dethroned the Burmese kings. The result is a nominally native administration upon which is shouldered the blame for failures, and a masked French direction which assumes the credit for success. In Tunisia all that was best in Algeria has been repeated; moreover, native rights and prejudices have been, on the whole, scrupulously respected, and their mosques and shrines left unmolested save only in the case of Kairouan. The immense superiority of the Tunisian policy over that employed in Algeria is readily apparent to any one who takes the trouble to examine and compare the two.

The lesson earned in Algeria, and emphasized in Tunisia, was not forgotten when the French decided to declare a protectorate over Morocco. Here was a vast empire, with a large, virile, fanatical, and highly warlike population, and the French realized from the outset that unless they trod very cautiously indeed they would find themselves with a first-class war on their hands. So, though the tribes which opposed the protectorate had to be subdued by force of arms, Morocco is subjected to a minimum of dictatorial control, the French policy in that country being the last word in “pacific penetration,” as I shall show further on. In short, France’s policy in North Africa might be summed up by saying that in Algeria she has employed repression, in Tunisia conciliation, and in Morocco persuasion.

The truth of the matter is that, had Algeria been occupied yesterday, instead of nearly a hundred years ago, the Algerians would unquestionably enjoy a far greater measure of liberty than is their present lot. But forms of government, once established, are not readily changed, particularly where subject races are involved; and that of Algeria, as it happens, is a somewhat unfortunate inheritance from a harsher and less enlightened past.

Most visitors seem to be under the impression that Algeria is mainly peopled by Arabs, whereas, as a matter of fact, they form only a small minority of the inhabitants, seventy-five per cent of whom are Berbers, descendants of that rugged warlike race who had lived in North Africa for untold centuries before the Arabs came. As to the remainder of the population, the so-called Moors, generally of mixed blood, inhabit the towns and villages along the sea-coast. Negroes, originally brought from the south and sold as slaves, are now found chiefly in the larger cities, where they are employed as laborers and domestic servants. The Kabyles of the eastern highlands, like the Touareg of the Sahara, are both branches of the old Berber stock. The Turks, though for a considerable period the dominant race, were never very numerous in Algeria, and most of them were repatriated by the French after the conquest. The Jews, of whom there are more than seventy thousand, are in the main descended from those who were expelled from Cyrenaica in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, who fled from the Spanish persecutions, or who were banished from Italy in 1342. The purely “African” Jew is now found only in the oases of the M’zab. Mohammedanism is the nominal religion of all the native races save, of course, the Jews, but the faith of the Prophet is strictly observed only by the Arabs.

Ever since the days when what is now Algeria was regarded as the granary of Rome it has been noted for the fertility of its soil, so that it is not surprising that more than two thirds of its inhabitants are engaged in agricultural pursuits. It should be understood, however, that the greater part of the country is of limited value for agricultural purposes, the really profitable farming regions being confined to a comparatively small area of highly fertile plains and valleys in the neighborhood of the coast, which is cultivated scientifically, mainly by Europeans, and yields good returns in grain-fields and vineyards. The mountainous northern portion is on the whole better adapted to grazing and forestry than to agriculture, particularly as, in spite of the numerous excellent roads built by the state, large areas of it are still without adequate means of communication and very difficult of access. Most of the native inhabitants are, moreover, miserably poor, eking out a scanty existence by cultivating small olive-groves and fields of barley or raising herds of sheep and goats. Under French rule, however, the productiveness of the country has been enormously increased by the sinking of artesian wells in districts which required only water to make them fertile, and by the introduction of scientific methods and modern machinery, though the employment of these is largely confined to European settlers, the natives regarding such innovations with a mixture of curiosity, skepticism, and sullen apathy.

I have no intention of going into agricultural statistics, but for the information of those visitors whose curiosity is not confined to the more exotic aspects of African life, I might mention that the chief cereal products of Algeria are wheat, barley, oats, and corn. Flax, silk, and tobacco are also grown, the cultivation of tobacco being highly remunerative, though it must be confessed that American smokers are not likely to find much pleasure in the Algerian weed. It has been asserted by some enthusiastic writers that Algeria was the Garden of the Hesperides; certainly it produces an amazing variety of fruits, including the pear, apple, peach, apricot, plum, nectarine, pomegranate, orange, lemon, mandarin, almond, fig, olive, banana, and date, the deglat-nour of the Algerian Sahara being admittedly the finest date in the world. The production of olive-oil is an important industry. A considerable amount of cotton was grown during the American Civil War, and small fields are still cultivated in the southern oases, but, in spite of government encouragement, the industry has not met with much success. The soil of Algeria is particularly adapted to the cultivation of the vine. The country, in the words of an expert sent to report on the subject by the French government, “can produce an infinite variety of wines suitable to every constitution and to every caprice of taste.” Doubtless because of a certain harshness, a barely perceptible resinous tang, native wines have never become popular abroad, practically their only foreign market being found in France. One of the best brands of Algerian wine is that produced by the Trappist monks on the battle-field of Staoueli, perhaps because the soil was enriched by the blood of those who fell there in 1830, as is declared to be the case with the famous Swiss wine, Schweitzerblut, which is grown on the battle-field of Morat.

In minerals Algeria is undoubtedly very rich, though they have not yet received the attention which they deserve. They are found chiefly in the Department of Constantine, where iron, lead and zinc, copper, antimony, and mercury mines are worked with profit. Immense phosphate beds have been found in several parts of the country, and petroleum is being produced in small quantities in the Department of Oran. Algeria has been famous for its onyx and marbles since the dawn of history, the old mines, which are found everywhere, having provided the materials for the beautiful buildings erected by the Romans. It is believed that the beautifully translucent onyx marble, delicately clouded with yellow and brown, a quarry of which was discovered some years ago near Oued Abdallah, is identical with the “lost” Numidian marble which was so highly prized by the architects of Carthage and Rome.

Agriculturally and mineralogically, Algeria, despite a century of French occupation, is still a land of promise rather than of fulfilment, but the promise is great and the achievement already remarkable when it is remembered that the history of the French occupation has been the history of a struggle against renascent barbarism.

But it is time that I brought this somewhat pedantic sketch of the country and its people to an end, for over there, topping yonder line of hills, are the forts which guard Oran.

Oran, the second city of Algeria, the capital of a department, the headquarters of an army division, an important naval station, and the center of a busy trade, is built on the steep slopes of the Djebel Murjojo, which rises to a height of nineteen hundred feet above the pearl-blue waters of the gulf. The town was originally cut in half by a deep ravine, or wahran, from which it takes its name, but this is now largely covered by ramps, boulevards, promenades, and modern buildings. Oran is frankly modern and European, the most Oriental building in the city being the railway-station. Though the city is picturesquely situated, with some beautiful parks and lovely views, it is wholly lacking in the color and quaintness which are the charms of Tunis and Algeria. Perhaps this is due to the preponderance of Europeans, who, unlike the natives, dwell in the bustling matter-of-fact present rather than in the sleepy romantic past. Be this as it may, Oran has the air of a very busy and highly prosperous boom town, and the people whom we saw in its restaurants and hotels were more suggestive of the oil regions of Texas than of a former pirate stronghold on the coast of Barbary.

In its European population Oran is more than half Spanish (Cartagena in Spain is only 130 miles away); in its history it is almost wholly Spanish. Though attempts have been made to identify it with the Quiza of the Romans, no Roman remains have been found here, and its foundation is more properly ascribed to the Andalusian Arabs who settled here at the beginning of the tenth century and gave the place its name. Rapidly rising into importance as a seaport, Oran was taken and retaken, pillaged, destroyed, and rebuilt by the various conquerors of northern Africa. In the course of a half-century it changed hands nine times, attaining its highest prosperity at about the time Columbus was setting out to discover the Western World, when it became subject to the sultans of Tlemcen. The extent of its trade, the magnificence of its mosques, and the number of its institutions of learning spread the city’s fame; but wealth and luxury began to sap the energy of the Oronais, though the rapid decline of the city was primarily due to the piratical activities of the Moors expelled from Spain, who from Mers-el-Kebir, a strongly protected harbor four miles to the west of Oran, waged a relentless sea-war for booty and revenge against the Dons.

For a number of years the Moors harried the commerce, ravaged the coasts, and carried off the subjects of King Ferdinand, but their activities were brought to an abrupt end by the daring and determination of a churchman, Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros, archbishop of Toledo and inquisitor-general of Spain, who at his own expense equipped an expedition which in 1505 captured Mers-el-Kebir, and who four years later himself led a second expedition which took Oran by storm. This zealous priest, soldier, and statesman, for he was all three combined, introduced Africa to the terrors of the Inquisition—its palace may still be seen in the Place de l’Hôpital of Oran—and also restored and extended the fortifications, building on the heights above the town the massive Castle of the Saints, now replaced by Fort St. Philippe. Oran became the penal settlement of Spain, but neither the convicts nor the noblemen in disgrace who were banished thither seem to have been very rigorously treated, if contemporary accounts are to be believed.

Meanwhile the Turks under the Barbarossas had made themselves masters of Algeria, having ousted the Spaniards from all their possessions in Barbary save Oran, which was now besieged by a formidable force under the powerful bey of Mascara. The terrible earthquake of 1760, which killed hundreds of citizens and all but destroyed the town, provided the Spaniards with an excuse for withdrawing from a position which had become untenable, and a few months later the regiments of his Most Catholic Majesty marched out and the squadrons of Mascara came riding in. Oran remained the capital of the beys of Mascara for 140 years; but upon the capture of Algiers by France the ruling bey sent in his submission, and in 1831 the ancient city was treated to another military triumph and witnessed another change of masters, as France’s red-trousered soldiery entered its gates to the blare of bugles and the roll of drums. That it has prospered mightily under French rule is shown by the fact that a census taken in 1832 showed that it had but 388 inhabitants, two thirds of whom were Jews, whereas its present population is not far from one hundred and fifty thousand.

Despite its hectic history, there is not much in Oran to detain the traveler long, for one can visit the kasbah, the Château Neuf, the Grand Mosque (built with money paid as ransom for Christian slaves), and such other sights as the city has to offer, quite easily in a single day. Toward nightfall I would suggest that you sit for an hour or so before one of the numerous cafés and over an apéritif watch the unfolding of the human panorama. Though few interesting native types are to be seen, the place is filled with troops—spahis, Turcos, zouaves, tirailleurs légionnaires, colonial infantry, chasseurs d’Afrique—whose brilliant uniforms lend pleasing notes of color to the drab and dusty streets. Though Oran is doubtless well policed, it has certain districts in which I should not care to linger after dark, for it struck me that there was an unusually large rough element in evidence: soldiers who, judging by the unsteadiness of their gait, had imbibed too freely in the numerous grog-shops; half-naked negro stevedores; coal-heavers from the tramp steamers in the harbor; Spanish speculators in wines and esparto grass; greasy Jewish traders who supply the wants, legitimate and otherwise, of the seafaring population; furtive Levantines with no visible means of support, who looked as though they would commit any crime for a few dollars; impudent and precocious Arab newsboys selling the “Echo d’Oran”; sullen, mysterious Moors in flowing garments; grimy oil-drillers; boisterous colonials in from their farms in the back-country for a periodic spree; hard-eyed, highly painted women of many nationalities but of one profession, their virtue as easy as an old shoe; some figures straight from the Bible, others straight from the boulevards.

The hotel, though not a Ritz, was comfortable enough, and the cuisine excellent, as is always the case when there is a Frenchman in the kitchen, but the noise which rose from the cobbled streets put sleep out of the question. I was glad when morning brought to our windows the sound of Tomine’s horn, and, after a breakfast of rock-hard rolls and the execrable mud-colored beverage which the French insist on calling coffee, we took to the road again.