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Charles V., Doria, Napoleon, Kleber, Philippe d'Orléans, and other sovereigns and generals. After these come the historians Sallust and Marmol, the geographers Ptolemy and Bruce, and the poet Cervantes, who was himself a slave in Algiers."—L'Itinéraire de l'Algérie. Piesse.

"Will posterity," asks M. Piesse, "imagine that these worthies were the builders and founders of the Arab streets and lanes, or will they find insoluble enigmas and found wild theories on these curious complications?"

Not only does history furnish its contingent of names for the Arab labyrinths, but geography and natural history are equally called upon for contributions, and the celebrated cities of the modern and ancient world cross angles with "the cat," "the lion," "the gazelle," "the panther," "the lizard," "the eagle," "the swan," and "the bear."

One street, as curious as its name, is the Rue du Diable, which leads out of the Rue de la Casbah, and with its vaulted roofing and deep shadows is a favourite "bit" for artists.

The last-named street, Rue de la Casbah, which goes through the Arab town from the Rue Bab-el-Oued to the citadel, is the most direct, though by no means the most interesting road to the Kasba. It climbs the hill in a tolerably straight line of four hundred and ninety-seven steps, and was at one time the chief thoroughfare of Algiers. Several glaringly French houses have been built in it, and it is interesting rather from the charming costumes, and groups of figures which may be seen clustered here and there, at the cafés or before the fountains, than for any special beauty of its own.

A word must be said about the fountains, which form so many centres of Arab street scenes.

In the early days of the Moorish city the water was supplied only by great cisterns attached to each house, where the rain-water was stored, and which are mentioned by nearly all old travellers as curiosities; but Pierre Dan, writing in 1640, says

"There are more than a hundred fountains in the city, all made during the last twenty-five years, and supplied with water by means of an aqueduct. It may well be believed that these works have caused much sweat and suffering to the poor captive Christians, who through all the violent heat have been compelled to labour at them, as well as at the mole of the port, as they still do."

These aqueducts, four in number, at which the Christian slaves toiled, are still in use, and supply the numerous fountains at which the people congregate with their classical copper jugs.

There used to be an old law in Algiers that every one who came to the fountain must take his turn, except the Jew, and he was compelled to wait until all present--Turks, Moors, or Christians-were served, so that it sometimes happens, we are told, "that the Jew has to wait a full halfhour before he can dare to fill his vessel."

At length, after many turnings, twistings, and strayings, we, who are taking our first walk through old Algiers, emerge from the network of silent white-walled lanes on to the open space -the space which French devastation has made open and very ruinous-looking-in front of the ancient Kasba. Just outside the gateway is a pretty little mosque, now converted into a Roman Catholic church-the Church of la Sainte Croix. The Kasba itself-the historic citadel of Algiersis now used only as a barrack, and has suffered considerably at the hands of the French, a road having been made

FOUNTAINS.

THE KASBA.

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through the centre of it, and its fortifications demolished, while numerous ungainly-looking official and military erections, cover the garden once sacred to the ladies of the Dey's household.

This fortress, situated on the highest

point of the city, dates back to the time of Barbarossa, who, in 1516, began the works on this spot on the site of a still older building. Haedo, giving a description of it in 1612, mentions its defences as not being very formidable, the fort

being at that time furnished only with eight guns of small calibre, and guarded by sixty janissaries, who, most of them married, had separate establishments for their women within the precincts. At this time the chief residence of the Dey was in the lower part of the town, in the palace of Djenina, destroyed since the French occupation. But gradually the fortifications of the Kasba were strengthened, its buildings extended, and finally it was separated from the town by a solid rampart, which exists to the present day. In fact it became a formidable stronghold, and in 1818 Ali-benAhmed, then Dey, was thankful to retire within it, from the intrigues and rebellions of his troublesome corps de garde -the janissaries-who were in the habit of assassinating one day the unhappy ruler whom they had set up the preceding. It is said that the treasure transported by Ali to the Kasba amounted to upwards of twelve millions sterling.

From this time till 1830 the Kasba continued to be the royal residence of the Deys, and almost their prison, since Ali's successor, Hussein, the last of the Algerian potentates, never ventured more than on two occasions during his twelve years' reign, to leave the sheltering walls of the citadel. Here the Dey would sit for several hours every day cross-legged on a scarlet-covered bench, with an umbrella held over him by way of insignia, and surrounded by his Divan, to administer the affairs of the State. Here he would hear causes, decide quarrels, and deal out justice, or injustice, as the case might be, in patriarchal style. Any one in the land might make an appeal to the supreme ruler from the tribunal of the Cadi or Muphti; the form of which appeal was to seize the great chain which still hangs over the ancient iron-plated door of the Kasba. Any

criminal or worsted suitor who laid hold of the chain obtained an audience of the Dey, but if unable to establish his right or innocence, the bastinado was added to his other pains and penalties.

High above the old doorway is a carved wooden Moorish gallery, where, in the time of the Regency, the banner by day and the beacon by night were displayed, and where the Dey would occasionally show himself to his loving subjects. In the place of the modern gateway was a great aviary of pigeons. The walls to the right of the old door, which enclosed the private apartments of the Dey, still preserve their double rows of small prison-like windows.

Indeed, the palace altogether must have been a terribly gloomy place, if we may judge by the description given of it in 1830 by a French officer (Baron Denniée) who was with the troops when they entered :

"The citadel of the Casaubah, residence of the Dey, and the place where he stored away his treasure, is at the summit of the triangle formed by the town which the fortress dominates. It seems as if the spirit of the Algerine Government was imprinted on the very walls of its stronghold. The Casaubah menaced Algiers more than it protected her, and formed a fortress within a fortress in the form of a triangle, like the city itself.

"Outside, the Casaubah presented to the astonished gaze of our soldiers, an irregular enclosure formed by walls of astonishing height and of excessive whiteness, without doors or windows, with battlements of the Moorish fashion, from which protruded, from deep irregular embrasures, long cannons pointed in every direction and painted red. The entrance is by a dark archway, in the centre of which is a marble fountain. This porch, roughly decorated with red and blue lines, was the advanced post where the negroes who latterly formed the body-guard of the Dey were posted.

"The door passed, a narrow lane conducted on one side to the powder-magazine, and on the other to the inner court where the Dey resided. This court, paved with marble, was square, and had on three sides of it galleries supported by spiral marble columns. Under one of

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