The long descent comes to an end at length, and at a point about twenty-three miles short of Bougie we reach the sea. The coast-lands here consist of a series of semicircular plains, divided by great spurs which run northward from the main range, and form capes. Across these flat and highly cultivated plains our road lies where it may with Algerian directness, but rises to dizzy heights by zigzags to surmount the precipitous headlands which once or twice bar its progress. The contour of this variable and rocky coast is eminently picturesque, the views of sea and mountain of infinite variety. And afar the dazzling whiteness of Bougie stretching upwards from its harbour among the olive groves invites us. The level lands appear to be of great fertility; amid great fields of corn and vine pleasant and prosperous-looking country houses stand, girt about with fruit trees,—figs, apricots and peaches. In some places the cultivation is carried almost to high-water mark, in others a sward of fine turf seems to meet the sand. Bougie, rising on the steep hill-side behind its protecting cape, looks almost southward, and its bay appears to it as a land-locked lake. On the southern shore stand the majestic mountains through which we have bored our way from Sétif, with plenty of snow on this, their northern face, crowning their copious forests of cedar and pine. Few seaports have such a romantic outlook. It cannot be doubted that this coast is destined some day to be a second and grander Riviera, and if another Lord Brougham sets to work to create another Cannes, it is perhaps in the neighbourhood of Bougie that he will place it. Apart from its own abounding attractions, it is surrounded east and south and west by incomparable scenery. Its charms are already beginning to be known. It is a meeting-place of excellent roads, and the motor-car has rendered it easy of access. Its comfortable hotel is always full, and is making haste to enlarge itself. Let Bougie start a casino and band, and it will begin to have a season. And in my mind’s eye I can see golf-links along the shore of the bay, _para thina thalasses_, where the sea-sand meets the verdure. There is something theatrical about Bougie’s scenery. Stand on the shore in front of the old Saracen gateway and look upwards at the background of the town rising tier on tier, a town of brilliant white houses gay with the dazzling purple of the _bougainvillea_, with the bastions of an apparently cardboard fort to the right, and a suggestion of ruined castles to the left, and you may fancy that you are in the stalls at the Opera, and that a chorus of fisher-girls will shortly appear and point to a pirate in the offing.