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    ALGIERS FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 29

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    columnsdomed maraboutsand beautiful colored tiles ornamenting the arches , ; all the columns , and decorated ceilings were stolen at the

    time of conquest , or soon after , from the owner , a Frenchman , who had bought the house from a Moorand transported by the soldiers

    , to the house of General , and may now be seen at the wellknown ' s chateau in France . Our friends' house is not well

    furnished , but has all the necessaries of life , and some of the luxuries , including sofas , divans , arm-chairs , a piano , and fireplaces in

    most of the rooms ; luxuries which are not to be found in Moorish houses , for be it remarked , _soiithern nations bear cold indoors better

    than do northern nations . The colder the climate , the greater the amount of heat the inhabitants find comfortable in their

    sittingrooms . In North America the stoves heat the rooms to a temperature in -winter far above that of the sitting-rooms in Algiers .

    We in England are not satisfied with a room heated to less than 60 ° in Algiersthe MoorsFrenchItaliansand Spanish are quite

    ; , , , , satisfied with 50 ° or 55 ° . English people often suffer much more from the cold in a southern climate than in their own , from the

    want of home comforts—fire , curtains , close windows , & c . ; but the possibility of living out of doors in the sunshine counterbalances

    the suffering , and is the real benefit enjoyed by delicate people . It is a curious fact , that the Neapolitans who were in the Russian

    campaign with Napoleon , suffered less than the Germans , French , or Russians ; probably they would not have withstood a long

    exposure , but certainly for a short campaign they were well fitted to bear the cold by their habit of living out of doors exposed to all the

    chances of climate . Our friends' house looks towards the north and the east ; from the

    windows in front of the house and from the terrace there is an extensive view of the blue Mediterranean , painted with lilac shadows ;

    a little to the east , capes and mountains make the far-distance ; the bay of Algiers comes into the fiat land like a lip of water kissing

    the shore ; nearer , the wavy hills , one crowned by the new Catholic Cathedral of Kuba , and others clothed with pine-woods ; nearer

    still , villas , domes , ruins of old Moorish houses , olive-trees , orange and lemon gardens , and some tracts of brown , uncultivated , rough

    land , beautifully rounded and modelled , with every now and then a little landslip , newly made by the rains , showing the rich red color

    of the earth , and bits of bright yellow sandstone . Over this rough groundwhich in three months will be a vast field of asphodelnow

    , , browse herds of long-haired goats , and brown sheep with long ears , who look like cousins of the goats , guarded by stately figures all in

    white , or a little boy in a goat-skin , who amuses himself with playing on a reed ipe as he sits under the great aloeor with giving

    his dogs lessons p in guarding the fiock . At the back , of the house , to the southis a large fieldfallow now and covered with white

    candy tuft , which , smells like honey , , surrounded by a hedge of olive ,

    cactus , and aloe , above whose pointed leaves and candelabra flower-

    Algiers First Impressions. 29

    ALGIERS FIRST IMPRESSIONS . 29

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1860, page 29, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091860/page/29/