The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-11-14 00:00:00

ABD-EL-FADER.

The Tribune of the Gironde gives the following inte-
resting particulars of Abd-el-Kader and his family
" Thanks to the friendly interference of the officer who
has wholly devoted himself to the noble mission of alle-
viating the exile of this great fallen one, we obtained the
favour of a private audience. We found the Emir seated
on his bed ; on our entrance he immediately rose and
squeezed our hand with warmth and dignity. His stature
is above the average ; his white woollen clothes exhibit in
fine relief his superb face, which is adorned with a long
black beard ; his white hands are perfectly shaped, and his
feet seem surprised to feel the softness of carpets, after
having been so long accustomed to tread the sand.
Since I have confided myself to the honour of the
French,' remarked the Emir, I have not had occasion
to repent it a single moment, and I can well understand
that weighty reasons at present prevent the realisation of
my dearest wish—to live and die at Mecca. I will wait.'
Here his fine black eyes, the expression of which is at
once melancholy and proud, became suddenly animated.
and darted lightning—one word had electrified him, and
that word was uttered by a female voice. Abd-el-Kader
really looked sublime. He soon, however, recovered his
habitual expression of gravity, and only spoke to us of the
fatigues of his journey and the uncertainty of his present
position. The women forming the family of the Emir are
lodged in a suite of three rooms joining his own apart-
ment. His mother inhabits the most distant ; she is a
woman of 70 years of age, with a sad and dejected mien,
but her eyes sparkle occasionally like those of her son.
She was indisposed when we visited her, and was reclin-
ing on a mattress, before an immense brazier, surrounded
by young black and white female attendants, who ap-
peared to serve her with great zeal and attachment. In
the second room were the three coloured wives of Abd-eh
Kader on their mattrasses, with their children in their
arms ; the faces of the latter are very pretty ; their hands
are entirely shaved ; they say bonjour ! and shake hands
very willingly. The women are all habited in white stuffs,
a sort of long gown, and double tunics of muslin or cloth,
fastened at the breast by chains of silver ; on their naked
feet they wear rings of the same metal. Their head-dress
conceals their hair entirely • their ears are pierced for im-
mense earrings which reach as low as their shoulders.
Some of the women in this room were tatooed on the face
and arms, in the most curious manner ; they appeared
resigned to their fate, but much astonished at the scenes
of the surrounding world. The third room is the most
curious of all. It is a large saloon, darkened by the par-
tial closing of the shutters, the faint light that obtains
ingress being increased by that of an enormous fire. Here
we found the white wife of the Emir, on a sofa, watching
over her children at play. She is about forty years old,
and her face is handsome, and though the expression be
somewhat severe, it is by no means bad. Her white gar-
ments are finer and neater than those of the black con-
cubines. Her sad glance seemed to ask Heaven what
would be the future fate of her unhappy family. Of the
two daughters of the Emir one is a superb beauty. Her
face is one of those ideal ones that haunt the imaginations
of painters, and her eyes are such as when once seen can
never be forgotten. Her bare arms, perfectly shaped, are
encircled with very simple bracelets ; her hair is adorned
with very simple bracelets; her hair is adorned with a
large riband, and some flowers, which announce that the
women of the desert are as vain and fond of borrowing the
foreign aid of ornament' as their more civilised, and
therefore less excusable sisters of Europe."

YOUNG GERMANY.—TheGermans used to shave, at
least they kept their chins reasonably clean, and if they
cultivated any extra capillary growth, reserved their care
for their moustache. Now every one of them has a
beard like a Rabbi, and to use razors is considered a sure
and infallible sign of a loyalist and an aristocrat. At
Juliers I had the pleasure of encountering the first speci-
men of Young Germany that crossed my path, and a
precious object be was. I had been sitting for some time
vis-a-vis with a little punchy fellow from Vienna, with a
beard as red as that which the old masters have assigned
toßarabbas ; and as he spoke little, but smoked a great
deal, I was inclined to think him rather a companionable
sort of individual than otherwise. But, at the station, in
stepped a youth apparelled precisely after the fashion of an
assassin in a melo-drama. His broad beaver hat, with a
conical crown, was looped up on one side, garnished with
an immense cockade of red, black, and gold, and sur-
mounted by a couple of dingy ostrich feathers. I lament
for the sake of our home manufacturers, to state that he
exhibited no symptoms of shirt collar, nor, so far as I
could observe, had he invested any portion of his capital
in the purchase of interior linen. Over his bare neck
there descended a Maximilian beard. A green blouse,
curiously puckered and slashed in the sleeves, was secured
round his person by a glazed black belt and buckle, and
his legs were cased in a pair of rusty hessians. In short,
he needed but a dagger and a pair of pistols to render
him theatrically complete, and had Fitzball been in the
carriage, the heart of that amiable dramatist would
have yearned within him, at the sight of this living per-
sonification of his own most romantic conceptions. I
had forgotten to state that the patriot had slung by his
side a wallet, of the sort which is familiar to the students
of Retzsch, in which he carried his tobacco. To my
amazement, nobody, not even the Bens-d'armes on the
platform, appeared to be the least surprised at this formid-
able apparition, who commenced filling his pipe with the
calmness of an ordinary Christian. For my own part, I
could not take my eyes off him, but sat speechlessly
staring at this splendid specimen of the. empire.—Black.
wood.