Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-03-09
MONUMENTS Of PAST
Former SpIendors of the Delhi
of North Africa.
AMONG THE RUINED CITIES
Land of Many Queer Costumes and
Curious Customs.
PEDDLER BECOMES A SAINT
Mansoura, With It's Mighty Walls,
and How It Was Built in
a Single Night.
Copyright, 1907, by Frank G. Carpenter. }

Copyright, 1907, by Frank G. Carpenter)
TLEMCEN, Africa.
Come with me and my Mohammedan
dragoman, Mustapha, and take walk this
bright Sunday morning through the Delhi
Of North Africa. We are in a city which
was famous when Agra was at the height
Of it's glory, and one which has mosques
and tombs containing Moorish decorations
which will compare in their beauty with
those of the famed cities of India. There
are doors of bronze in the Mosque of Sidi
BouMedin as beautiful as those at the
entrance to the Capitol at Washington
and equal In their fine workmanship to
those Of Ghiberti at Florence. There are
temples Of Mohammedan worship hundreds
Of years old, which have a beauty greater
than the mosques of Cairo and CONSTANT
nople, and all were constructed when Eu-
rope was still semi-civilized and a hun
dred years or so before the new world of
America began to be- Not far from these
mosques are the remains Of ruined city.
which surpassed Pompeii in extent and
glory, and in another direction is the tomb
Of the man who built that city, with the
Arabs praying in and about it today.
The Ruins Of Tlemcen.
All this is not in Italy, Greece or India,
the countries to which we look for the
monuments Of the past. 1t is in this black
continent of Africa on the edge of savage,
turbulent and warning Morocco, thirty
miles south of the Mediterranean and about
100 miles from Oran, the chief seaport of
western Algeria. 1t is so far out of the
line Of travel that strangers seldom come
here, but it Is one of the most interesting
places on the continent.
The Tlemcen Of tooay"is city Of, perhaps,
$4,000, situated in a beautiful valley at an
elevation about as high above the sea as
the average height of the Alleghenies It
has behind 1t great bare, rugged mountains,
which are capped with huge rocks, making
them look like Notifications thrown up by
the gods. and their strength as Notifications
was probably one of the reasons for the
site of these ancient cities.
Another reason was the valley and plains
lying below. They are among the richest
in Algeria. Standing upon the walls here,
as far as the eye can reach there is moth
ing but vineyards and orchards and rich
thousands of olive trees loaded with fruit
There are rich gardens and fields of po-
tatoes making patchwork of green of diff
ferent shades which extends out on all
sides below the city u.-til it meets the hills
on the horizon. White roads cut here and
there through this ex. anse Of green all
lead up to the walls of Tlemcen.
A Fortified City.
The city is entered by gates. 1t was a
fortified town in the past and the French
have fortified 1t today. The high walls
have port holes at every few feet, through
which rifles and other guns can be thrust
companies of soldiers are always moving
to and fro through the streets, and the
citadel, where the sultans of the past had
their gorgeous residences many centuries
ago. is now barracks, prison and hos
pital for the Algerian troops. Its old walls
and gate ways still stand, and the minaret
of its mosque. ninety feet high. overlooks
the rest of the city. About 500 years ago
this citadel contained some of the wonders
Of the world. 1t had a clock which was
celebrated two centuries before that on
the Strasburg Cathedral was made, and in
one Of the galleries, which was paved with
marble and onyx, stood a solid silver tree
upon which were many species Of singing
birds made Of gold and silver.
The Grand Mosque.
Within a stones throw of the citadel,