Such, mingled with Frenchmen, Italians, Spaniards, Maltese, and a sprinkling of almost every European race, are the numerous types of diverse humanity which the streets of Algiers everywhere present. In so rich a scene the artist will find fruitful sources of inspiration, both of form and colour; the ethnologist will have scope for studying the features and carriage of different races, and for tracing the effects of their not infrequent intermixture; to the politician it will all give furiously to think. During the last century or two a large portion of the Mohammedan world has fallen under Western dominion. France, like England, has acted on the Roman principle, _parcere subjectis et debellare superbos_, but neither has succeeded in infusing the conquered races with the ambition of citizenship, as Rome did. Their attitude at best seems to be one of sullen acquiescence in the inevitable, at worst that of a hunted beast who waits his opportunity to spring. And the most incurious tourist will not escape a certain wonder at the strange and varied inhabitants of a city so near his home that he may read his Monday’s “Times” on Wednesday afternoon. To outward appearance Algiers is a busy French town. But when we come to probe below the surface we find that the Golden East, with its leisurely and slipshod methods, holds us in fee. The mere sending of a common telegram is no light matter. I desired to telegraph five words to an inhabitant of the city of Funchal in the island of Madeira. I took the despatch to a branch office at Mustapha, officered by female clerks. It caused some commotion. The young women laid their heads together, pored over several tattered volumes, and finally informed me, with a certain touch of commiseration, that the charge was four francs and fifteen centimes a word. Now as the charge from London is one shilling a word, this was obviously too much. What visions of Madagascar or Macao they had conjured up I know not; they are, I believe, both islands, both, like Macedon, Monmouth and Madeira, have M’s in them, and both are distant enough to justify some such charge. I tried to point out that Madeira does not ride in such remote seas, but to no purpose; and wearily I betook myself to the chief post office. This is a magnificent building in the finest style of neo-Arab art, glorious within and without. It is agreeable to find that the French authorities are now erecting great buildings in the local style, instead of reproducing the monotonous ugliness of the Third Empire. If only the Boulevard facing the harbour could be so transformed, the view of the port would indeed be worth looking at. In this resplendent Temple of Mercury one youthful clerk is considered sufficient to receive the telegrams of Algiers. He took my paper, counted the words backwards and forwards, and said airily, “Un franc.” I inquired whether he meant for each word, or for the whole. He replied for the whole. Now he was evidently erring on the