[Illustration: MOSQUE OF SIDI ABDER RAHMAN, ALGIERS]
For the rest, there is a sad feeling that most of the Oriental life is dying slowly out, that the quaintness is disappearing, and that the tendency is greater here than elsewhere to cover over and hide the old life and manners with a sort of cloak of modern civilisation. It is even said that all the better-class Arabs have already emigrated to Tunis, Egypt, or Constantinople. The walls have gone, the gates also. Nothing now is left but the great fortress itself upon the highest point of the city, now used for barracks, a few fragments of the walls, and most beautiful of all, the old harbour. It is almost impossible to believe that such a small harbour ever sheltered so strong a pirate fleet that it could ravage the coasts of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, the ports of Italy and Spain, and even penetrate as far as England. Although Mr. Eaton, an American Consul who was sent with arrears of tribute (four vessels) due from the United States in 1798, did say, “Can any man believe that this elevated brute has seven kings of Europe, two Republics, and a Continent tributary to him, when his whole naval force is not equal to two line of battleships?” Yet these Barbary pirates literally spread terror around from their earliest beginnings in 1390 down to the time when Lord Exmouth brought the Dey to reason by bombarding Algiers in 1816 and freeing the slaves. But that was only a temporary improvement, and the bad state of affairs only came to an end with the French occupation in 1830. The whole history of the Barbary State is very sad and humiliating reading, with its accounts of the bargaining of the various Powers for the release of the Christian slaves, of whom there were often as many as twenty thousand to thirty thousand in Algiers itself. Now the harbour is full of innocent-looking coasting craft with lateen sails, many pleasure-boats and yachts, and a few torpedo boats. The serious business of shipping goes on in the outer harbour, which is full of steamers and merchantmen, whose dark hulls and smoking funnels form another striking but not attractive contrast.
[Illustration: THE LEOPARD DOOR, ALGIERS]
The beautiful Moorish tower called the Penon, and now used as a lighthouse, was built in 1544 on the site of the old Spanish fort, and rises from the midst of a group of old buildings, with here and there a fine bit of Moorish work amongst them, though, as they are used by the Admiralty, there is much that is modern and business-like as well. In the wall is a characteristic fountain; a flat surface decorated with inscriptions in Arabic and carvings in marble in very slight relief, with a simple spout for the water. Farther on, rather hidden up in a corner under an arch, is the famous Tiger or Leopard gateway—a very curious bit of work, the chief peculiarity of which is that these two odd heraldic animals guarding a shield are supposed to be of Arab workmanship. Now, as it is strictly forbidden by their religion to make images of living moving things, a legend has been invented to the effect that the decoration was done by a Persian slave, and that his masters found it so surpassingly beautiful that they had not the heart to destroy it. However, it really looks much more like Spanish work done during their occupation of the place, and though quaint, decorative, and rather unusual, is not really beautiful at all. These and many more are the old-world nooks and corners in the city which the modern builder has not yet overthrown, and where it is quite easy for a few moments to dream oneself back into the old life, though the dreams generally end in a sudden shock—the noise of an electric tram, the hooting of a motor, a cyclist’s bell, or the appearance of some thoroughly Western figure who could never have had any sympathy with the Arabian Nights.