Abd-’el-Kader used often to be seen at his devotions at the rising and setting of the sun. He is accustomed to prostrate himself in an angle of that very iron balcony from whence, in the days of the Medici, the conspirators of Amboise were hung as a public example to traitors. Leaning against the stone wall, he remains absorbed in his orisons, and tells his beads with the fervor of a prisoner and an exile.
The numerous portraits of him to be seen in Paris, particularly popular since Lord Londonderry’s letters have made his fine, melancholy, majestic face familiar to the world. He is little more than forty-five, and has a countenance which, but that Eastern countenances deceive, one would feel inclined not only to admire, but to trust. It is hard to say whether the French would do right to confide in it, but certain it is that he is the object of deep admiration. His large, mournful, gazelle eyes, his calm, beautiful mouth, and his rich, jet-black beard, have gained many a heart, both male and female; but his misfortunes are too interesting, too romantic, too _piquants_ to be lightly parted with, and the French will probably keep the lion still caged as an object on which to exercise their sensibilities, unless indeed, the dispossessed owners of Amboise should take his place.
Sometimes the Emir would appear on his balcony accompanied by the ladies of his suite. One of them is said to be still young and very handsome. This is the report of a young Frenchman, whose patient curiosity was rewarded on a happy occasion, when the veiled fair one withdrew the envious screen of her beauties one day, imagining that she was unobserved, that she might the better gaze upon the fine river, and feel the soft breeze of an evening in June upon her cheek. Occasionally some of the children of the captives may be seen playing round their parents, as they stand motionless, looking from their high position. These little captives are of all shades, from white to ebony hue, and are by no means so silent or so still as their elders, for they clamor and climb and twist about upon the parapets in a manner quite startling to those who are watching them from below.
Some time ago the Bishop of Algiers, passing through Amboise, stopped to pay a visit to the Emir; he exhorted him to resignation—alas! what else could he preach?—and received the same answer as the illustrious prisoner always gives to those who seek to console him.