I should say the streets would average six to eight feet wide, all leading down hill. They were winding streets, some of them dim, and each a succession of stone steps and grades that meander down and down into a stranger labyrinth of life than I had ever dreamed of. How weak any attempt to tell of that life seems! The plastered, blind-eyed houses with their mysterious entrances and narrow dusky stairways leading to what dark and sinister occupancy; the narrow streets bending off here and there that one might follow, who could say whither; the silent, drowsing, strangely garbed humanity that regarded us only with a vague scornful interest and did not even offer to beg; the low dim coffee-houses before which men sat drinking and contemplating--so inattentive to the moment's event that one might believe they had sat always thus, sipping and contemplating, and would so sit through time--how can I convey to the reader even a faint reflection of that unreal, half-awake world or conjure again the spell which, beholding it for the first time, one is bound to feel? Everywhere was humanity which belonged only to the East--had always belonged there--had remained unchanged in feature and dress and mode of life since the beginning. The prophets looked and dressed just as these people look and dress, and their cities were as this city, built into steep hillsides, with streets a few feet wide, shops six feet square or less, the dreaming shopkeeper in easy reach of every article of his paltry trade. I do not think it is a very clean place. Of course the matter of being clean is more or less a comparative condition, and what one nation or one family considers clean another nation or family might not be satisfied with at all. But judged by any standards I have happened to meet heretofore I should say the Arab quarter of Algiers was not overclean. But it was picturesque. In whatever direction you looked was a picture. It was like nature untouched by civilization--it could not be unpicturesque if it tried. It was, in fact, just that--nature unspoiled by what we choose to call civilization because it means bustle, responsibility, office hours, and, now and then, clean clothes. And being nature, even the dirt was not unbeautiful. Somebody has defined dirt as matter out of place. It was not out of place here. Nor rags. Some of these creatures were literally a mass of rags--rag upon rag--sewed on, tacked on, tied on, hung on--but they were fascinating. What is the use trying to convey all the marvel of it in words? One must see for himself to realize, and even then he will believe he has been dreaming as soon as he turns away.