The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-26
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By Frank G. Carpenter
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I shall eat them no more. This cook shop reminds me of a dog-and-rat restaurant 1 of Canton in South China, and of a 1 horse-meat restaurant which I visited in Berlin Both of them were cleanly in com parison with this.
 Palace of the Bey. 1 l have spent some time this afternoon in the palace of the Bey. It is now the headquarters Of the French army officers l but for a long time it was the residence ! of the Turkish rulers of Constantine 1 From the outside 1t looks like an ordinary l two-story building but it's interior is wonderfully decorated and rich in mar ] bles, mosaics and carving. The palace consists of an acre or so of buildings | with galleries above and below run l ming around beautiful gardens. The walls of the galleries are of porcelain tiles and their roofs are upheld by marble pillars, beautifully cut
 The old Bey who built the palace is said to have gotten much of the material from Carthage. The porcelains came from Genoa, and the carvings from the houses of the wealthy residents of Constantine If a man was noted as having an espe- cially fine door or window the Bey ordered him to send 1t to his new palace and If there was any furniture that he espe- cially desired he got it in the same way. One of the oldest features of the ar
 
 series of paintings of Mohammedan cities These are spread upon the walls without regard to harmony or art. The colors fair ly swear at each other, and the drawing is faulty and the perspective everywhere lacking. As it is contrary to the Koran to make pictures of men, there is no sign of human life in the paintings. This work was done by a French shoemaker who was in prison in Constantine when the palace was building The Bey said he wanted some pictures on the walls, and that the dog of a Christian" might do the work. The shoemaker objected. saying he was not a painter. but the Bey's of- flcials replied:
 Every Frenchman is an artist, and you must paint. If you do not, you will DC hogsed with twenty-five lashes for every day you are idle"
 The result was a series of remarkable representations of Algiers. Cairo, Jeru- salem and Constantinople When the Bey saw them he was delighted. He paid the man well and sent him back to Paris loaded with presents.
 It was this same Bey, Fl Hadj Ahmed, who punished one of his wives for pluck ing the forbidden fruit of the palace gar den l. was his custom to sit every after noon in a little kiosoue in the center of a court which was filled with fruit trees and flowers. Here the bands played and here betimes the women of his harem
 
 selves while his highness looked on. He had four wives and 300 concubnes and they all were dressed in their finest clothing as they walked along in single file around the court with their arms crossed upon their bosoms, not daring to look at their lord. They were allowed no liberties whatever, and one regulation was that they were not to touch the flow CTS or the fruit overhead. One day a new houri fair, red-headed Georgian girl just in from the wilds of the Caucasus, who had not yet fully learned the dan gers or her situation reached up and snatcned off an orange. She was reported by one of the eunuchs, and about three hours therafter was brought to the tree she had plucked and fastened there by two nails driven through the backs of her hands.
 This old Bey and others who succeeded him had quick methods of divorce Such of their wives as were faithless or such as they wished to get rid of for other req sons were sewed up in sacks. They were then carried to the edge of the gorge and heaved over into the River of Sands. which rushes foaming along 1000 feet be- low