Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-03-16
IN MODERN ALG|ERS
The City Now Has a Forty-MlI-
Iion-DOIIar Boulevard.
CAR FARES ONLY ONE CENT
An Important Center of Trade With
All Countries.
THE OLD TOWN OF THE DEY
How His Soldiers Played Foot Ball
With the Heads of Christians
Education of the Arabs
THE OLD TOWN OF THE DEY
Copyright, 1907, by Frank G. Carpenter)

Copyright 1907, by Frank G. Carpenter)
ALGIERS, Algeria.
am In the blazing white many-terraced
city of Algiers, the capital of African
France. My hotel is the de la Regence, on
the Place du Government, next the mosque
OF Diana ell Djedid, within a stones throw
OF the great palace which holds the govern
ment offices, and Just off the Boulevard de
la Republique in the very heart of the city
The Bay of Algiers.
From my window | can look out over the
Bay of Algiers and the wide Mediterranean
with its ships going out and coming in
The foothills of the Atlas mountains line
the opposite side of the harbor and the
queer African capital rises up from 1t. in
terrace above terrace, until 1t reaches the
great white citadel, which formed the resi-
dence and chief fertilization of the piratical
deys of the past.
Down at the wharves, where the city be-
gins, are mighty breakwaters which extend
out like arms at each end, embracing
steamers and sailing vessels from all parts
of the world. More than four thousand big
vessels, and twelve thousand coasters ag
gregating over three million tons, pass in
and out OF those arms every year. There
are great Atlantic liners, which call here
on their way from New York to Naples
and Genoa, big steamers from China and
Japan, and also fast ships from Marseille,
which bring the mails on their fve-hundred-
mile voyage across the Mediterranean in
less than twenty-four hours. These boats
give Algiers a daily communication with
its mother country, and they are always
loaded with passengers and freight. Their
rates are so low that French laborers and
mechanics cross over by hundreds. steer
age passenger pays only two dollars and
twenty cents and the third-class travellers
pay less than five dollars.
A Rich Country.
Come with me down to the wharves and
see something of the enormous trade that
Algeria does with all parts of the world.
Its commerce is worth having, for it
amounts to more than one hundred and
twenty-five million dollars a year Four
ffths of this is with France. Algeria buys
from fifty to sixty million dollars worth
of goods of her mother country every year.
and her sales to France are only about ten
million dollars less. So far the balance of
trade is with France but .ne resources of
the colony are being rapidly developed and
in time Algeria will be in the lead.
Running back from the harbor for a dis
lance of perhaps five hundred feet is a level
space covered with acres of warehouses.
We reach this by stone steps and make our
way in and out through mountains of cargo.
Enormous wagons, hauled by from three to
six horses, are moving about directed by
drivers In turbans and gowns; the railroad
engines are shunting cars this way and
that and army of bare-calved, big
trousered Biskris are loading and unloading
all kinds of goods Cork bark, which Is one
of the chief exports is stacked up like cord
wood hogsheads Of wine numbering thou
sands are piled one on the top of the other,
and there great mounds of bags of
wheat and other grain ready for shipment.
There are boxes of dates packed for Paris.
and there are also enormous quantities of
goods coming In.
Both on the wharves and out in the har-
Dor are immense loads of coal. -Algiers is
one OF the chief coaling stations of the Med
iterranean and nearly all the ships which
call here take fuel. The shipping ar
engagements are of the best The harbor has
steam cranes and the trains from the inte-
rior come right down to the sea so that