[Illustration: ALGIERS: MARBLE DOORWAY, RUE BRUCE] The Mohammedan townsfolk, chiefly engaged in commercial pursuits, are called Moors, a name which has no connection with Morocco. Chiefly Arab or Berber in ultimate descent, there is among them much admixture of Turkish and European blood. Their somewhat effeminate appearance exhibits the influence of generations of town life. They affect brightly coloured clothing, embroidered waistcoats and voluminous trousers fastened at the ankle. They deal largely in embroidery, perfumes, and fancy articles, and may commonly be seen lolling in their little shops in attitudes of exaggerated indolence and unconcern. The Moorish women, like those of the Arabs, are veiled; a white linen handkerchief is tied closely across the nose, leaving the eyes visible, and perhaps somewhat heightening their effect. A white shawl, called a _haik_, is thrown over the head and extends to the knees or lower; the legs are encased in very voluminous trousers tied at the ankles, and setting in a way which gives them the appearance of being stuffed full. Altogether a very ungainly costume. But even so they are less wanting in dignity than the middle-class European women decked in a travesty of a mode which is itself absurd. The veiling of all Mohammedan women for the last twelve hundred years is due to the jealousy of the prophet of his young and beautiful wife Ayesha. Since the decree of 1870, which constituted them French citizens, the Jews have gradually ceased to wear a distinctive dress, and have become, as far as outward semblance goes, merged in the European population; but their physiognomy bewrayeth them. It is, however, as far at least as the men are concerned, of a less marked type than that of the German and Russian Jews, with whom we are more familiar; and, possibly from some admixture of Arab and Spanish blood, has an air suggestive of better breeding. The Jews have existed in Algeria from early times; according to tradition since the fall of Jerusalem. It is certain that the first Arab invaders found many Jewish colonies which had made numerous proselytes among the indigenous population. But the modern Algerian Jews are probably derived in the main from the Jews who were expelled from Italy in 1342, and from the emigrants from Spain in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These Spanish Jews, better instructed and more cultivated than their African brethren, have exercised a dominating influence, exhibited to-day in their names, their customs and their language. The Jew of the South is scarcely to be distinguished from the nomads among whom he lives.