Correspondence
A Lurrms FROM ALGIEss. [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Algiers is now so well established as a winter resort (rivalling in this respect the most favoured towns of the French Riviera), that any account of it may seem superfluous. Possibly, however, a few notes, written from the point of view of the traveller as against that of the mere health or pleasure-seeking visitor, may still be of interest. The old prints of the town, as it was in its disreputable days before the advent of the French in 1880, show a triangle of flat- roofed houses climbing a steep hill, with the sea for its base and the citadel at its apex. These views of the stronghold of the Barbary Corsairs were taken naturally from the sea and at a discreet distance from the guns of its small, but strongly fortified, harbour. This Moorish Algiers is still there ; only it is engulfed by a great French commercial town, which, not content with surrounding the Barbary triangle, has flung up suburbs on the wooded heights above it, and lined the bay beneath and beyond it with miles of boulevards, docks and factories. Hence the Algiers of to-day is a com- pound of three clearly distinguishable elements ; the Moorish original, the French administrative and commercial capital of Algeria, and the residential quarters on the hills above them. Each of thethree has its own atmosphere, physical and mental, and its special qualities.
The Native town is almost untouched, but its steep and narrow streets are so foul and evil-smelling that most visitors are content with what they can see of it in a single hasty expedition. Happily, however, there are many beautiful and historically interesting Moorish buildings outside this densely populated central area which can be studied in comfort. Apart from the Mosques and fountains and private houses, there are the Moorish administrative buildings which were taken over by the French Government, and have been maintained as much as possible in their original condition. Thus the Governor-General of Algeria is housed in the two delightful (town and country) palaces of the Dey of Algiers, and the Admiral is installed in the picturesque headquarters of the Barbary Corsairs in the old port, now the French naval harbour. Another beautiful Moorish house is the palace of the Archbishop—a successor of the great Cardinal Lavigerie- while a fifth, built by the Dey in 1798 and formerly the home of Mustapha Pasha, contains the old printed books and Arabic MSS. of the Bibliotheque Nationale. To most of these visitors are admitted under easy conditions.
The most striking feature of the French town is the sueces• sion of fine colonnaded boulevards which line the wide roadway of the embanked sea-front. Except for this, Algiers, as a whole, is like any other large French commercial town. Its handsome, although somewhat narrow, streets are edged with trees, and its places decorated with trees, palms, and statues. Unfortunately, these streets, laid out three-quarters of a century ago, are much too narrow for the traffic of to-day. and their tall houses make them singularly resonant. As tramways have been laid in all the main thoroughfares, and both these thoroughfares and the lesser streets which lead out of them are traversed by an incessant stream of motors travelling at high speeds, it is surprising that collisions are not much more frequent than they are. But for this com- parative immunity a heavy price is exacted. To lessen the danger of collision, the drivers of the tram cars—often with two other cars attached—and motors continuously sound their warning bells or horns. Add to this that the Algerian trams and motors, even on the rare occasions when then bells or horns were at rest, seemed to run more noisily than any other similar machines known to the writer, and it be possible to imagine the discordant and disconcerting sounds with which these narrow and resonant streets are filled during most of the day. That a people with such keen aesthetic perceptions as the French can tolerate—they can hardly be insensible to—this unpleasing discord is certainly somewhat surprising.
Apart from the inadequacy of its nineteenth-century streets to carry conveniently the traffic which is now poured into them Algiers is not unworthy of its position as the capital of a great and rapidly developing Province of France. - It has dignified nineteenth-century buildings, both municipal and private. and in recent years a new and pleasing element has been introduced into its street architecture by the construction of new Government buildings in the Moorish style. A good example is the General Post Office, just opened, where one may buy stamps and send off telegrams in a domed and pillared Moorish hall of quite surprising spaciousness and beauty. And the practice is being followed by enterpriging commercial and financial undertakings.
The third Algiers, the winter resort, is high above both
these towns, and the visitor who seeks it will have little to de, probably, with either of them. This Algiers, with its garda and villas, its Bois, its golf course, and its luxurious hotels, is to be found on the richly wooded heights which overlo°1 the town and bay. In purely natural beauty it can bold Jt own with any rival Mediterranean site. Playfair, the BMW! Consul-General, when, nearly half a century ago, he wrote Murray's Guide-book, claimed that the view from his windoo at El-Biar was second only to Taormina's spectacle of FAA To this exception, perhaps, one other might be added —thg almost unearthly beauties of the mountains of Moab wh seen at sundown from the Mount of Olives. Even so, till views from El-Biar, or better still, from Bouzareah, wheg one sees the headlands of the western coast line as well as tb: circle of the bay, are very satisfying. And here, by the wa- a delightful old Moorish house has been turned into a g and not expensive, hote1.—I am, Sir, &c.,
A TRAVELLER IN .‘1.GIERS.
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