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arranged with the greatest possible taste, and an evident and rare discernment of the fitness of things. To the right a fine ivy-covered aqueduct, with a double row of arches, spans the glen. The retrospect is grand in the extreme, and changes with every turn of the road. On one side the vast plain of the Metidja lies exposed almost in its full length, flat to the very mountain's feet as the palm of a man's hand; on the other are the wooded valleys and verdant slopes of the Sahel. Backward lies the sea, still and blue under its sunny canopy of sky; Cape Matifou standing well and clearly out to view, the curve of the bay dotted with glittering white houses; and, breaking the sky-line, in the far distance, the snow-capped peaks of the Djurdjura mountain range.

Where two ways meet, that to the right should be chosen, which, leading into the El-Biar road, will conduct the traveller to the Bivouac des Indigènes, and so by the Fort de l'Empereur homewards. This round makes a drive of about two hours and a half.

CHAPTER XVIII.

BIRMANDREIS.-THE VALLEY OF THE FEMME SAUVAGE. FROM BIRMANDREIS TO FONTAINE-BLEUE BY THE ARAB PATH.—BIRKHADEM AND TIXE RAÏN.-KOUBBA.-THE OSTRICH FARM.

"Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave."

Beattie.

To Birmandreis by the upper Mustapha road, returning by the valley of the Femme Sauvage and lower Mustapha road. A drive of about two hours.

FRO

most common.

ROM the Colonne Voirol (see page 300) the road to Birmandreis turns to the left, bordered on one side by picturesque rocks overgrown with shrubs and creepers, and having on the other, a valley well cultivated with vines and fruit-trees, among which the Japanese medlar is the A fantastical-looking house known as the Villa Langenstein will be noticed on the right. It was for some years inhabited by an Englishman named Hawke, who amused himself by executing various sculptures in the soft rock against which his house was built. Some of them are clever as well as curious, but the action of the weather will not permit them to be a very lasting monument of his artistic tastes. The road descends gradually into the valley until the village of Birmandreis is reached, the proper name of which is Bir Mourad Reis, the well of Mourad the captain, from

the name of a notorious Flemish renegade corsair of the seventeenth century, famous in Algerian legends, who is said to have lived, when on shore, in this spot, and when afloat, to have been the terror of the northern as well as of the southern seas, carrying his piratical excursions as far even as the coast of Ireland! Birmandreis is a pretty little village with houses built round a green, on which stands the church in a grove of plane-trees. It has, altogether, something of the air of an English village. On the green is a fountain well supplied with water. To the left opens out the wild gorge of the Femme Sauvage—a reft in the mountain, worn by the stream which flows through it to the sea. It takes its somewhat odd name from a certain beautiful "wild woman," who, in the first days of the French occupation, took up her abode in a flower-embosomed cottage in the secluded dell. Various rumours are extant as to this mysterious personage. Some assert that a romantic and disappointed passion led her thus to seek solitude and peace in the untrodden paths of the African glen. From other accounts it would seem that, whatever her sorrows or wrongs, the lady was not such a hater of her kind as her sobriquet implies; that, on the other hand, her presence in the glen was so dangerous to the peace of mind and morals of the neighbouring camp, that one of the governorsgeneral of Algiers bribed her with a considerable sum of money to return to her native Paris. It is even asserted that she more than once accepted the bribe, but re-appeared on the scene just when it was believed that she was safely landed in the old country. However this may But the name which

be, she has now long since departed.

records her eccentricities or fascinations still clings to the

spot. The ravine, which winds for a mile and a half through the rocky hills, is charmingly wooded and very picturesque. The following is a description given of the rich vegetation of this valley by a French writer, M. Desprez, and it is scarcely overcoloured :

"At the bottom of the ravine, in serried phalanx, wave bananas, whose long leaves of vivid green contrast well with the dark hues of the orange-trees which bend over the stream. On the rocky slopes mingle in luxuriant confusion, the shades of the pomegranate, borne down by its weight of mahogany-coloured fruit, the jujubier, with its mass of shining green berries, and the lemon-tree, half hidden under golden fruit. In the midst, tower up grand cypresses, with lustrous grey stems, clustered about the parent trunk like the pipes of an organ, while rising to the sky, a wood of dark green pines crowns the whole.”

M. Desprez has said nothing either of the masses of wild fennel and asparagus which clothe the steeper rocks, nor of the many-coloured carpet of wild flowers which covers the ground, nor of the almond and other fruit trees, which in spring make this dell a mass of delicate blossom. From the number of fruit-trees, now run wild, which are to be seen on the precipitous sides of the valley, it seems probable that, at some time or other, it formed part of a cultivated gardendoubtless one of those "twenty thousand" of which the old writers speak as existing in the neighbourhood of Algiers. These ruinous gardens, with perhaps a fragment of an old house in their midst, are by no means uncommon in this country. Change of fortune has possibly something to do with it, but Mahomedans are excessively superstitious as to evil spirits, and the suspicion of a place being haunted, has in numberless cases led to the abandonment of these deserted mansions.

In the valley of the Femme Sauvage are still to be seen

VALLEY OF THE FEMME SAUVAGE.

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a few habitations peeping here and there, like nests from the trees; but for the most part, the glen is left to blossom and flourish in its own sweet wildness. Even the watermills, which formerly turned in the stream, are now disused, their great wheels mossed and fern-grown; and the silk-worm farm, which was at one time established in the glen, proved, from some cause or other, a failure. A quarry of freestone is being worked at the entrance of the valley just above the Ruisseau, a little village in the lower Mustapha road, which is active with tan and brick-yards. The tramway cars from the Place du Gouvernement run as far as the Ruisseau, and afford an excellent opportunity for those who wish to explore the valley of the Femme Sauvage on foot.

The following will be found a delightful walk of about three miles-Through the valley from the Ruisseau to Birmandreis, and back by a picturesque "chemin arabe," which, passing up a series of rough steps or blocks of stone which give it almost the appearance of a water-course, starts beside the little café on the green of Birmandreis, and leads over the crest of the hill and down again by a most charmingly unconventional path, which the "génie militaire" has fortunately overlooked, to Fontaine-Bleue and the Champ de Manoeuvres, where the tramway is again available. This is one of the most characteristic walks in the neighbourhood of Algiers, and should be taken if possible in the afternoon, as the sunset lights greatly add to its attractions.

It is a serious drawback to Algiers that sunsets are not visible from it. To compensate for the loss, it can, indeed, boast the most brilliant sun-risings, but these after all scarcely fill the place of that which is not; and the loss