To open this paper with a confession:-I went to

Algeria for a stepping-stone to Spain, to trace the progress of Arab civilization, or rather the progression of that flood of Arabians that overflowed Egypt and North Africa and thence all Spain, to and beyond the Pyrenees a thousand years ago.

In the following sequence, somewhat we may trace it: Damascus, Cairo, Carthage, Algeria, Tangier, Andaluz. And in Andaluz in Southern Spain, do we not find Granada, Seville, Cordova, Cadiz, Palos? Cadiz and Palos, whence Columbus sailed to America.

Africa and Spain, then, do they not furnish us with the prefatory pages of America's history?

No, I do not deny the Norsemen anything; I say merely, it is a feeble glimmer the North Star gives us, as compared with the steady ray from the Star of the East.

I woke one morning in Algiers. It was a bright cool and windy morning, that of the twentieth of March.

Though early, a large proportion of the population seemed to be astir, and I had company everywhere, yet not an obtrusive company. The population of Algiers, Arab, Moor, Nubian, French, etc., is thoroughly cosmopolitan; it manifests no surprise at anything, and this, I take it, is owing to its own heterogeneity, for there never was, certainly, anything more unique than itself. In one word: as to situation, as to composition, as to surroundings, Algiers is most beautiful. Its beauty is of the Oriental type, with an intrusion from France. The French structures, which are mainly along the quays and in the lower part of the town, are of themselves fine and even grand, but they spoil the picture of Algiers from the sea by breaking the continuity of the converging lines that lead up the hill-side from the water edge. In general outline this city is an isosceles triangle resting against a background of red and verdure-clad hills. Not inaptly, the ancient Arabs compared it to a diamond with an emerald setting. A milky opal it seemed to me, with its iridescence clouded over, for the walls and roof are creamy hued, and from a little distance blend most beautifully with the surroundings. The general slope of the Sahel or chain of hills behind and extending beyond the city, is toward the south and east. From the blue waters of the deep bay, the city mounts the hill in a succession of terraces line above line, the modern French houses near the water line, the true Arab city higher up, and the apex of the pyramid crowned by the Kasba or ancient citadel of the Beys, some 400 feet above the quays. Since the French occupation, now some fifty years past, the modern buildings above the entire waterfront have been erected. The most magnificent work