Those who are fortunate enough to have access to some of these villas will find their original features of house and garden carefully preserved; the gardens improved and extended in accordance with more intelligent views of horticulture. Others may see in the spacious and well-ordered gardens of the Hôtel St. George, the largest of the hotels frequented by English visitors, what in the way of vernal loveliness the soil and climate of Algiers are capable of producing. In the grounds of the Hôtel Continental, another large house with a sunny situation and a magnificent view, are some curious and interesting trees, a dragon tree which is considered to be six hundred years old. [Illustration: DRAGON TREE IN THE GARDEN OF THE HOTEL CONTINENTAL] There is an excellent Algerian museum at Mustapha Supérieur in a pleasant garden, close to the Governor’s Summer Palace, built with a court-yard, in the Moorish manner, an admirable form for a museum. It is laudably confined to Algerian antiquities and Arab art; there are no irrelevant South Sea Island curios; it has not been used as a receptacle for the rubbish of the local collector, a dumping-ground of the perplexed widow and the embarrassed executor. Algerian history is thoroughly represented; there are the flint implements of primitive man, a collection of Punic pottery from Gouraya, Roman antiquities of every kind, and numerous examples of Arab and Berber handicrafts. These treasures are exhibited with the taste which distinguishes the French in such matters, as is evidenced in their dressing of shop-windows. Of the Roman antiquities perhaps the gem is a bronze figure of a boy with an eagle, two feet high, and of fine style. It was found at Lambessa. From Lambessa come numerous other exhibits, including some gold coins of the period of Septimius Severus, an emperor of African origin, of Julia his wife (with filigree mounting), and Caracalla and his son, of Macrinus and Severus Alexander. These are in mint condition. And there is a very fine gold medallion of Postumus. There are numerous mosaics,—in Roman Africa mosaic pavements were very popular and well executed,—marbles of all kinds from Cherchel, and a very interesting stone tablet recording the rules for the distribution of water from an aqueduct to Roman colonists. The Arab portion includes arms, jewellery, the elaborately embroidered saddlery of Arab cavaliers, pottery, carpets, woven stuffs,— a fine assortment of Arab and Berber handiwork. Altogether a most creditable museum,—a very model of what a local museum should be. In a neighbouring building is a “Forestry” collection;—stuffed examples of Algerian wild animals, and fine specimens of Algerian woods, and so on. Some magnificent examples of slabs of the native _Thuja_ are worth notice.