ARE STILL BELIEVED IN.

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magical nature of the proceeding still continues firm. At Maskara I passed by the door of a hut, where an exorcism by some Aïssaoua was being carried on inside. Mingling with some Arabs that were standing and looking in, I saw a performer in the state of ecstatic. excitement; but in two or three minutes my European dress caught his eye, and he suddenly stopped, put his hand to his head as if stunned, and staggering to a bench fainted, or affected to faint, away. By the manner of the Arabs, both within and without the cottage, I saw plainly that my presence was felt to have broken the spell in which the exorcist had been held, and consequently to have marred the success of the incantation. The whole proceeding was suspended; and observing the sullen side looks, with one eye halfclosed-a sure sign of Arab malice-which were directed upon me, I judged it prudent to walk slowly off, the more so as some of the party were Morocco Arabs, the most savage and unscrupulous of all the race. On passing near the house about an hour afterwards, I was glad to find, by the sounds which proceeded from it, that the operation had been resumed, and I took care not to endanger its success by a second intrusion.

62

ASCENT OF THE SAHEL.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM Pointe Pescade a track ascends the hill, by which the pedestrian may get up to the plateau on the top of the Sahel, and after a few miles of walking, reach the village of Bouzarich; and he may also do the same by ascending just beyond the village of St. Eugène; but the extremely broken character of the ground and the overgrowth of brushwood renders it very easy for him to miss his way, and he must remember that the chances are ten to one against his meeting with any one to put him right should he do so. A pocket-compass and a map,-of which last the best to be had are extremely bad,—are an absolute necessity; but even with these, and with a habit of finding his way about a strange country, the traveller must lay his account for a good deal of fatigue and some deviation from the nearest path. He will, however, be sure to find objects to interest him, although they all tell the same tale,-one of former prosperity that has vanished. Between St. Eugène and Bouzarieh I passed several ruins of old Moorish villas, and in two

RUINED MOORISH VILLAS.

63

places came upon portions of the old Roman road, which probably conducted from Icosium to the settlement near Rous-el-Knathar. One of the ruined villas

was so large that, at a distance, I thought it might be still occupied. Its scale corresponded with that of the country-house of an English gentleman with a fortune of £7,000 or £8,000 a-year. When I reached it, however, I found the roof gone, and the glazed tiles which had ornamented the interior torn up, except in one room most admirably placed for an exquisite sea-view, which appeared to have been used as an oratory. Very near there was a small wood, and as my course led me round this, I happened to observe a narrow path conducting into it, frayed through trees which grew so thick as almost to conceal it. I followed it, and presently found myself in an open space containing a number of Moorish graves, and just by, overgrown with brushwood, a handsome tomb. The occupant of this was probably some former owner of the ruined mansion, in repute as a marabout. Even at the present time some persons remain who pay respect to his memory, possibly pauperized members of his own family, for ragged strips of clothing were hanging about the tomb, and hard by I found concealed a coarse kind of candlestick with remnants of wax sticking to it, which had obviously been employed very recently. About half-a-mile off I met a Moor who happened to speak French, and he told me

that there was a burial-place, no longer used, in the direction from which I had come.

Bouzarieh may, however, be reached in a two hours' drive from Algiers by two different roads, both of which afford a succession of exquisitely beautiful views, only to be surpassed by the one which presents itself on arriving at the Vigie, or Telegraph Station, about half-a-mile from the village itself. From this point, which is not less than 1400 or 1500 feet above the sea, the spectator may study the country as he would a map; while in whatever direction he turns his eye, he will behold a picture to charm the artist. If he looks to the east, he surveys the sweep of the sea-coast which forms the bay of Algiers, with Cape Matifou, as it appears to the eye, almost within range of cannon shot. Beyond this rise gradually the mountains of Kabylie, and high above the rest the rugged ridge of Djerjera (the Mons Ferratus of the ancients), with the snow on its peaks shining in the sun. Turning round to the south, his view is closed by the blue wall of the Atlas, at the foot of which appears a part of the rich plain of the Metidja, not cut up by fences, but dotted here and there with minute white specks, which indicate that an European has been tempted by the fertility of the soil to brave the fever which rises out of the neighbouring marsh. More common than these are patches of dark green, the site of Arab orange-groves, or masses of a lighter hue, out

PENINSULA OF SIDI FERUDJE.

65

of which spring two or three palm trees. These mark the villages of agricultural Arabs, fenced in and intersected in every direction by the prickly pear. In the south-west direction, the elevated plateau upon which the spectator is standing, runs out as far as the eye can see in a kind of spur, separating the Metidja on its south-east side from another plain on the north-west. This latter comprises the whole circle of the operations that gave the French possession of Algiers in 1830. Carrying the eye from the Rous-el-Knathar, of which I have already spoken, along the line of the coast westwards, one's attention is arrested by an elevated promontory about nine miles to the west-south-west. A flat neck of land connects it with the shore, which on both sides of the isthmus is very low, and sweeps into bays affording some slight protection from the north-east and east winds. For four or five miles from the sea, the land rises very gradually. The soil is soft friable sandy clay, thickly covered with the ordinary brushwood of North Africa, the lentisque, the oleander, and the myrtle, very gently undulating, and here and there seamed with ravines, made by the streams. which take their rise in the plateau on which I suppose the spectator to stand.

On the top of the promontory is a small round tower, called by the Spaniards Torre Chica, which gives its name to the peninsula in most charts; but the natives

F