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XXII.

AN INVALID'S WINTER IN ALGERIA.

AKING, as I supposed, from one of those short

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troubled sleeps which chequer the monotony of the less violent forms of sea-sickness, I heard, to my great delight, the bell at the wheel announce a far more advanced hour of the morning than I could have hoped. Already the cool light was penetrating the thick glass in the porthole of my cabin. I rose, and slowly crept on deck. It was as if the bitterness of death were past, and I had awaked in the new world. From the narrow grave of my berth, filled with a close atmosphere and haunted by unpleasant noises and motions, I came forth in the midst of the wide sea and sky. Through the crowds of French soldiers and other passengers, I elbowed my way to the wheel, and there finding an open space, I looked around me. Speedily sped the vessel southwards, away from the cold winds and frosts of a northern winter, whose advanced guard had overtaken us on our way, and kept us for days imprisoned. But now we had escaped. And the

sun would soon rise, and by the time he should have reached the zenith we hoped to be at anchor in the port of Algiers. This morning was a new vision to me. Over us hung, or rather stooped, the sky of the south, a deep violet, with much of the red in it; wherein the stars sparkled with a keen steely lustre, like spangles cut from sword-blades. Underneath flowed the sea, with great dashes of purple upon a slate-blue, that swept and rolled and floated away to the east, where the sky-sea, barred with orange and yellow, told that the sun was near. Two or three sea-birds were following close behind us; and suddenly through the waves came a troop of porpoises, rushing along with wondrous speed; shooting out of one wave, and plunging headlong into the next; gambolling, and coursing, and bounding, as if trying their wind against the steamer, and easily able to pass her if they chose. I thought what a delicious life they had of it in the waves, with their cool slippery sides, that were always wet; and how they felt as much at home in the water as we in the air, knowing it was their only element. And then I began to pity them that they had only the Mediterranean to swim in, and were so unlikely ever to find the way out into the great world-sea. But I knew that this was only the longing for freedom in me, which can never be stilled by limitless room, but must find the boundless in another region than that of space and time.

Ere long we

At length the hills arose and drew near. saw the white city built up the face of one of the low range the Sahel that guards the coast; from the summits of which the pirates used to search the face of the sea for the white-winged game, that so often fled in vain.

before the swift hunters of the waves. Soon we were in the midst of swarthy visages and glowing eyes, that might well belong to the descendants of those terrible men ; and ere long, we were guided by one of them to a hotel in the principal place of the town, where, by and by, we contrived to forget the horrors of the steamer in the less, but not less real, horrors which mingle with the comforts of a French hotel. It was the end of November; yet, invalid as I was, I dressed next morning with the window open. The day was so glowing, the air so clear, and the colours of sea and earth and sky were so intense, that the whole scene looked like one of those pictures one does not believe in.

Across the still blue

bay, we saw the purple hills which continue the range on which the city is built; and beyond them rose in the distance blue mountains, with snowy summits, around which we could see the tops of lower hills crouching like lions at their feet. Above all spread the cloudless blue. The square on which my window looked, and which, open on one side, revealed the scene of which I write, was crowded with a bewildering variety of the most brilliant costumes. The splendid dresses of Moors and Jews mingled with the numberless varieties of the uniforms of French soldiers; while the rainbow mass was relieved by the graceful simplicity of the Arab bernouse, and the mournful white of the shrouded Moorish women, who seemed already half-buried from life and clothed in the garments of the grave-where, even if the spirit lingered by the mouldering form, they could scarce feel less lonely and hopeless than they at least appear to the eyes of the English stranger. The whole was filled with

military noises, in which the kettledrum, with its terrierlike alarum, took a foremost part, and soon wearied us with its regularly-recurring noisy monotony. Indeed, we were very soon sick of the tumult, indoors and out, and longed for the seclusion of the country.

From the sea, the outline of the city, lying on the slope of the hill, somewhat resembles in form one of the Moorish horseshoe arches, but bent outwards considerably at the heel-expanding, that is, when it reaches the more level ground at the base of the hill. The whole mass is of a dazzling whiteness, resembling the escarpment of a chalk hill; for twice a year they whitewash the whole of their houses outside and inside, to protect themselves from the heat, though thereby they expose themselves the more to the injurious effects of the light. Some of the principal streets, where the mortifying hand of the conquerors has been at work, are entirely French in their appearance; but as soon as you turn southwards, and commence to climb one of the streets which lead up the hill, you find yourself in an entirely novel environment; wandering in the labyrinth of an apparently endless accumulation of narrow streets, and stairs, and passages, and archways, shooting off in all directions; some ascending towards the sunlight as you hope, others appearing to dive into the earth; all narrow, many so narrow that a little person could easily touch both sides at once; many arched over, and many roofed in by the contact of the projecting upper stories of the houses on opposite sides. The design is to exclude the sun in all ways. The rubbish can only be removed on the backs of donkeys, of which you may often meet a troop

in your way emerging from what seems the entrance to a splendid mansion, or jolting along a squalid lane three or four feet wide. But, although the streets are so narrow, it must not be supposed that the town is therefore as ill-aired as, with such appearances, an English one would be justly supposed to be: for inside every housewhose heavy door looks like that of a prison-in these narrow passages is a square court open to the heavens, so that "each has its own patch of sky and little lot of stars." Along these streets I much enjoyed wandering. Some of them are full of workshops (little rooms, or scarcely more than closets) open to the street, above which they are sometimes raised a few feet. In these the various trades go on-tailoring, shoemaking, turning, tobacco-cutting, and others. Conversations might easily be carried on across the streets between the different artisans. I used sometimes to stand and watch them at their work, and generally saw something to interest me. One time it was the extraordinary development and use of the great toe, supplying the place of a thumb on the turning-lathe one hand being employed to turn the lathe with a bow, while the operator sat on the floor on a level with his machine. Another time it was the covering of a button with a network of silk, or a stitch new to me in shoemaking; or the moulding of red claypipes; or the scraping of the shell of a clumsy musical instrument, which looked like a dropsical guitar. But I had not much opportunity for making acquaintance with these streets; for, after many failures, we at length succeeded in finding an appartement in a large Moorish house, belonging to a French officer, at the distance of

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