The first view of the streets is something of a shock and a disappointment. We have heard of the ancient Arab city, we have seen photographs of narrow lanes with quaint Moorish houses almost meeting over the wayfarer’s head; and yet we find ourselves driving at a hand gallop through wide, modern streets, with their normal garniture of tramways and motor-cars. An occasional snow-white mosque, a public building or two of Arabesque style, suggest the Orient; in other respects the streets are those of a very prosperous and busy modern French town. It is easy to see that Algiers enjoys a municipality anxious to be in the forefront of civic progress; that M. le Maire is determined that his city shall not be ashamed to look Marseilles and Nice in the face; and that as the native and the stranger wander incuriously through the streets, earnest committees—sanitary committees, waterworks committees, lighting committees, tramway committees, committees for the regulation of everything that can be regulated—are seated in upper chambers eagerly concerting measures for their welfare. And it may even be that civilization is sufficiently advanced for a Ratepayers’ Association to be keeping a bilious eye on the proceedings of its chosen representatives, and endeavouring to solve the eternal problem—_Quis custodiet custodes?_ It will be recalled that the immortal Tartarin suffered a similar disenchantment. He had figured to himself an Oriental town of fairy mythology, holding a middle place between Constantinople and Zanzibar— "_il tombait en plein Tarascon_." But that soaring and romantic spirit refused to be bound in the chains of the commonplace, and, following humbly in his wake, let us strive to see an Arab beauty beneath the veil of our neighbour in the tram-car, and to hear in the rumble of a distant train at night the roar of ravening lions. [Illustration: ALGIERS: DOORWAY IN THE RUE DE LA KASBAH]