houses on the terraces of Mustapha Superieur are peopled with the nicest
of French and English families, who spend the winter in this charming
place.

Still, if one enters the native quarter, ascending the narrow streets
where no vehicle can ever come, where the tall, white houses, with their
slits for windows, almost meet above, shutting out the cheery sunlight,
where one meets the Moor, the Arab, the gipsy, the negro porter, the
native woman with her face concealed almost wholly from view, it would
be easy to believe the city to be entirely foreign and shut off from
European intercourse.

Within a stone's throw how different the scene--the wide streets, the
fine houses, the people of Paris and London mixing with the picturesque
costumes of the natives, the bazaars, music in the air coming from the
Kasbah, once the stronghold of the merciless Janizaries, now the
barracks for French zouaves, the bric-a-brac merchant with his
extraordinary wares spread out, while he calmly smokes a cigarette and
plays upon the mandolin.

No wonder the pilgrim in Algiers is charmed, and lingers long beyond his
time.

John has glimpses of these things on his way to the hotel, and although
his mind is hardly in a condition to take much notice of such matters,
they nevertheless impress him to a certain degree.

Dull, indeed, must be the man who cannot grasp the wonderful beauty of
such a scene. At another time John would have been charmed.