I am aware that to describe a true Moorish villa is like describing the flavor of a strawberry; the one must be tasted, the other seen. But still, as the difficulty of a task gives zest to the attempt at surmounting it, I will try my hand at a dangerous word-picture. Most of the Mustapha houses have an outer entrance-court, to which you obtain admission from the road by a plain, and often rather heavy, archway. But, once you have reached the first atrium, or uncovered central court, you have no reason to complain of heaviness or want of decoration. The court-yard is generally paved with parti-colored marble, and contains in its center a Pompeian-looking fountain, whose cool water bubbles over into a shallow tank beneath it. Here reeds and tall arums lift their stately green foliage, and bright pond-blossoms rear on high their crimson heads of bloom. Round the quadrangle runs a covered arcade (one might almost say a cloister) of horse-shoe arches, supported by marble columns, sometimes Græco-Roman antiques, sometimes a little later in date, but admirably imitated from the originals. This outer court is often the most charming feature of the whole house. Here, on sultry days, the ladies of the family sit with their books or their fancy-work; here the lord of the estate smokes his afternoon cigar; here the children play in the shade during the hottest African noon-day. It is the place for the siesta, for the afternoon tea, for the lounge in the cool of the evening, for the joyous sense of the delight of mere living. From the court-yard a second corridor leads into the house itself, whose center is always occupied by a large square court, like the first in ground-plan, but two-storied and glass-covered. This is the hall, or first reception room, often the principal apartment of the whole house, from which the other rooms open out in every direction. Usually the ground-floor of the hall has an open arcade, supporting a sort of balcony or gallery above, which runs right round the first floor on top of it. This balcony is itself arcaded; but instead of the arches being left open the whole way up, they are filled in for the first few feet from the floor with a charming balustrade of carved Cairene woodwork. Imagine such a court, ringed round with string-courses of old Oriental tiles, and decorated with a profusion of fine pottery and native brasswork, and you may form to yourself some faint mental picture of the common remodeled Algerian villa. It makes one envious again to remember how many happy days one has spent in some such charming retreats, homes where all the culture and artistic taste of the West have been added to all the exquisite decorative instinct and insight of the Oriental architect.