Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-12-31
THE ALGIERs OF TO-DAY,
And P1pplc Who Ask Only to he Let
- Alone.

The A1aers of to-day presents an ox-
traordinat and most comforting CON
trast, sa-s h writer in the Century tor
August The French rule may not be
all that English and American lockers
on could wish, but it has, at all events,
swept out of existence the horrors OF
that time, with the bagnios and the
slave prisons and the old city gates, the
Bah Azoun and the Babel Oued, on
which were exposed sometimes the
heads, and sometimes the headless
dey. The Kasbah, the ancient citadel
of the Janis saries, is now full OF French
zouaves, who in Algiers somehow i'm
press one as imitation soldiers, and
therefore harmless. The old palace Of
the dey has become the residence of the
French Governor General, and military
bands play dancing music for the gay
European world in the very room to
which in the old days the consols of the
great powers were arrogantly sum
moned to bring their yearly tribute, and
be dismissed again with insult for their
pains. Broad, modern boulevards and
streets gay with cafes and anogosi1as de
aaouueaa1tes are doing their best to sur
round and crowd out Of sight the old
Moorish town. Lines of tramways skirt
the sea and mount the billy suburbs;
cabs and g:lily painted omnibuses jostle
each other along the quays and in the
modern part of the town, and Of the
moving throng always TO be found in
the Place da1 Goureyrenc, 1t, under the
very shadow of the great mosque, and
occupying, it is said, the site of the
former slave prisons, by far the larger
part are Europeans, there for business
or for pleasure.
The old order is, indeed, changed.
The degrading tyranny, the Infamous
selfshness, the brutal cruelty Of the old
rule are gone, never to return. But,
on the other hand, happily, much of the
old picturesqueness remains, and forms,
in fact, the great attraction of Algiers
The Moors, although outnumbered by
their conquerors in the public places
and modern thoroughfares, are still the
people Of the place, and the old town,
elbowed back, crowded to the wall, as
it were, by the parvenu neighbor who
stations herself in front, is still essen
TALLY the same city as the Ell Bahadja,
tiger la Blanche, OF the old days.
Once turn ones back ON the monde
script quarter at the foot of the hill
where the two towns, the two races.
meet without mingling, and old Algiers,
the inaccessible, the impregnablc
stronghold of the pirates, rises before
one, its intricate, narrow streets, "like
mysterious staircases leading to silence, y
painfully climbing the steep hillside
step by step. Here silence still reigns,
and mystery. The houses are high and
windowless, the walls for the most part
blank spaces, the streets mere little de
files. so narrow that in many places the
bracketed roofs touch overhead, and sc
dark in spots that the stranger has tc
feel his way: and up and down these
grave, bearded, and tusbaned Arabs and
yelled women with anklets and henna
stained fingers pass continually as i'll q
dream. Their city, their white city,
wraps them round and protects then
from outside interference and inquisitive
gaze, very much, says Fromentin, as
does their national garment, the bourn-
Gus. "They ask but little" he adds
in his charming book, "U1ae A117aet
dams la iSahel;" unfortunately tina
little we cannot grant. They ask to be
let alone, not to be interfered with OF
iostled against, OF watched, to live il
their own way, to follow their own Gus
toms, to do in all things as their father
did, toahold property without recordin!
it, tts build without uniformity o
streets) to travel without being noticed
to be ly,rn without being registered, t,
grow p without vaccination, to di
when and how they please"