One of the finest views of Constantine is to be had from the terrace of the Hôtel Transatlantique, a new and charmingly designed hostelry standing amid lawns and rose-gardens on a plateau to the northeast of the city, from which it is separated by the gorge of the Rummel. To sit at déjeuner in a perfectly appointed dining-room, surrounded by all the comforts and luxuries of the Ritz, looking out across the tremendous abyss to the white city perched upon its mighty rock, is to enjoy an experience which even the most blasé traveler does not soon forget. There are other hotels, it is true, whose windows command views of entrancing beauty—Bertolini’s in Naples, or the Villa Serbelloni above Bellagio, come to mind—but whereas from them one is gazing upon scenery only, he who peers across the gorge at Constantine is viewing history—he is looking across the yawning gulf of Time. * * * * * A two hours’ run by motor to the north of Constantine, along the _route nationale_, which leads to the coast and Philippeville, brings us to one of the wonders of North Africa, the hot springs of Hammam Meskoutine. They rise amid clouds of smoke and steam from a rocky plateau set in a region of soft outlines, a land of wooded hills and leafy glens and lush green pastures, suggestive of ancient Greece in its peaceful loveliness and sylvan charm. The water, which has a temperature of more than 200 degrees Fahrenheit, comes bubbling up through the gray crust to fall into numerous natural basins, in which it deposits thick layers of carbonate of lime, so that they look like enormous wash-bowls of creamy white porcelain. These pools the Arabs of the neighborhood use as open-air kitchens, boiling their eggs in them and cooking their vegetables; while strangers come from afar to drink and bathe in the healing waters, whose medicinal properties have been celebrated since Roman times.