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A PEEP M THE DARK CONTINENT
HAT impressed you most at Algiers?”
was asked at breakfast the morning
after we had visited that most interest
ing city. “The indiscriminate mixing
up of things,” said one. There seems
to be no prevailing type of anything in
Algiers. Ancient, mediaeval, and mod
ern; French, Arab, English, and Moor
W
I —all seem hopelessly mixed. French is
the official language, but if you speak English or
any of the languages of southern Europe, you can
make yourself sufficiently understood to trade and
get cheated at their shops. Abraham would feel
at home in Algiers, so would the President of Chi
cago University, or an Ogeechee negro from Geor
gia. If they have any definite moral standards we
did not discover them during our short stay. While
you are looking with wonder at some old patriarch
of the desert, and dreaming of the ancients, all at
once the honk, honk of an automobile makes you
jump and brings you back to your senses. On the
most modern electric cars you ride past queer little
wheels with buckets on them for lifting the water
for irrigation. These are turned by donkeys, and
are such as were used in Egypt in the time of the
Pharaohs —and today. A modern soda water foun
tain sizzles and fumes over against an ancient
mosque where the worshippers spread their prayer
shawls and remove their shoes instead of their
hats.
“The Arab section,” says one, “was what im
pressed me most.” No wonder. Thirty thousand
natives are crowded together in an incredibly small
space. If you will take East Side, New York, and
narrow the streets till neighbors on opposite sides
of the street, sitting on their stoops touch knees,
bend and twist the streets around till you overtake
your own party in making the tour, then stand
these same streets on end at an angle of about 45
degrees so that they are impassable for vehicles and
turn around every corner, add an indescribable
appearance of age and squalor, perfume it with
onions, kerosene oil, sour goat’s milk, limberger
cheese and frying fish, crowd into it hobbling
unwashed old Arabs with beards, children,
dirty children, half naked children, blind child
ren —children everywhere, always with a hand out
stretched —women with a white bed sheet around
each lower limb gathered into the suggestion of
bloomers, another around the body, a bath towel
over the head with just a little peep hole for the
eyes; young men loafing, smoking, gambling —and
you have a suggestion, not a description, of what
Arab Algiers is.
Another of our party was impressed by the child
ren and well he might be. Out among the villas
and in the suburbs the children were strikingly
beautiful and intelligent looking. In the Arab quar
ter their condition beggars description, and is the
loudest call I ever heard to missionary endeavor.
Many are partly or wholly blind, all are poorly clad
and all are beggars. They are entire strangers to
modesty of purse or person.
Were there any surprises in such a town? Plen
ty of them. The cows are all goats and the milk
wagons are tiny little donkeys with a tin can slung
on each side. The native women never uncover their
heads or faces in the streets, yet many of them go
barefoot. The Mohammedan worshipper on enter
ing his mosque removes, not his hat, but his shoes.
The drayman harnesses his horses, sometimes three
abreast, again three, four or even more, tandem, and
again three abreast and then three tandem, while
all their collars are surmounted by great horns like
the snout of a rhinoceros. The natives are not
negroes. The men dress in loose, flowing garments,
with trousers quite as wide as they are long, reach
ing just below the knees. The shoes are large and
loose and the legs are left bare. The head dress
includes the hat, the fez, the hood and the turban.
Oranges and lemons are seen growing on every
hand. Fig trees grow as large as apple trees, while
roses and other flowers clamber over fence and
wall and make a landscape of surpassing beauty.
The bay of Algiers is rivalled only by that of
Naples and as one drops anchor in the harbor be-
Sy A. S. Caldlvell, Delegate to the World’s Sunday School Contention, Rome, Italy.
hind the immense mole built centuries ago by Chris
tian slaves, and looks out upon the city, all white
and buff and blue, as it ranges above him terrace
on terrace on the hillside in the shape of a great
amphitheatre, there is no suggestion of the squalor
within.
The lower part of the city is French and has
splendid shops, hotels and office buildings, all quite
modern, but we were in an atmosphere that was
strange and found new interest in everything about
us, whether it were bamboos as tall as trees or a
son of the desert sleeping on the sidewalk or a na
tive woman peeking from behind her veil.
On inquiry we found the city to contain 138,000
souls. For centuries its inhabitants were pirates
who levied tribute on Mediterranean commerce till
1815. Uncle Sam broke the spell when our own
Commodore Decatur defied the Dey and brought to
an end a most iniquitous practice. The country of
which Algiers is the capital is a French colony and
is ruled by French bayonets. Two-thirds of the pop
ulation of Algiers is European. The French predom
inate, although there are not a few Englishmen and
Americans who have left their country for their
countries’ good. Many of the Bedouins are fine
specimens of physical manhood. There are some
Turks but no Chinese.
Not a few Jews are to be found in the shops where
these long bearded sons of Abraham lie in wait
for “Americanos.” One of our party who had
paid three prices for some trifle remarked that they
had fulfilled the Scripture injunction in his case.
He was a stranger and they “took him in.”
The religion is Mohammedan and missionary work
among them is peculiarly hard.
Naples and Pompeii.
For centuries writers and speakers have exhaust
ed superlatives in their efforts to describe the bay
of Naples. No other body of water in the world
has such a setting. It is shaped like a horseshoe
with the open end toward the west and the city of
Naples at the toe. Every inch of these shores is his
toric ground and intimately associated in song and
story with great events. On our left as we enter
the bay is the island of Ischia, which is of volcanic
origin. Its principal town is on the side next to
Naples and has a mediaeval looking old tower on a
high, isolated rock. Between Ischia and the main
land is the small island of Procida, whose white,
flat-roofed houses and towering castle give it a very
foreign appearance. In the distance to the left and
on the mainland is Pozzuoil, where Paul landed
when being carried a prisoner to Rome. It was
then a more important port than Naples and the hills
above it were crowned with the palaces of wealthy
Romans. It seems to have been to Rome what New
port is to New York.
On the right we pass the island of Capri with its
marvelous Blue Grotto and a little further east
on the mainland Sorrento, while hard ahead looms
Vesuvius, quite innocent looking. No one would
ever accuse it of having destroyed whole cities. I
like tne bay best when bathed in the afternoon sun,
and have never seen elsewhere such a beautiful blue
landscape as was presented by the surrounding hills,
while the new 7 lava of Vesuvius was purple and the
towns and hamlets ranged around the shores of the
bay were white.
If Vesuvius is less innocent than it looks, what
shall be said of Naples? Someone said, “Naples is
a paradise inhabited by devils.” He was approxi
mating the truth, for a more guerulous, unreliable,
thieving, begging half million of folks are not to be
found. The old Latin sentence, “See Naples and
die,” may be interpreted according to one’s hurtior.
Here, as elsewhere, he who is looking for the beau
tiful will find it in sea and sky and land, while the
pessimist or the dyspeptic (frequently the same)
will find filth and poverty, squalor and vice. No
sooner had we dropped anchor in the harbor than
our vessel W’as surrounded by a swarm of small boats
whose occupants were ready for a franc to dance,
dive to the bottom of the sea, sell you post cards,
cheap jewelry or fruits and flowers; and if the
franc were not forthcoming the same things might
The Golden Age for June 13, 1007.
be had for half the price and so on down to pennies.
Once ashore, we were besieged by street vendors,
clamoring cabmen, guides and beggars who seem
willing to do anything for a penny —but work. A
blind man guided by a boy and with face upturned
will run by your carriage fifty yards pleading for
help; children in every stage of real or assumed
helplessness are held up by appealing mothers or
little sisters whose only business is begging. Al
leged orphans are led about by nuns while the
street gamin will follow a prospective victim for
squares. Our first impression was that Naples was
terribly behind with its washing and that the sani
tary department had gone fishing. The people have
little regard for even the commonest decencies of
civilized life.
But once w 7 e were inside her matchless museum,
old churches, pretty shops or wonderful aquarium,
we forgot that Naples was dirty and ragged and
spent our time in a fascinating glance at her build
ings, art industries, and people with their habits
and customs, for they are as jolly and good hu
mored a set of scoundrels as you will find anywhere.
True they will lie, cheat, beg or steal, but will
readily forgive you if you catch them at it. They
are very different from the Arabs of Algiers. These
people of South Italy and especially of Naples are
also very different from those of northern Italy.
Their dialect is scarcely understood in Genoa or
Florence and any comparison with them is espe
cially odious to the latter.
The aquarium of Naples pleased us very much.
It is the most interesting establishment of marine
biology in the world drawing most of its specimens
from the Mediterranean, whose waters are very
prolific of the various forms of marine life. Here
may be seen the lowest forms of animal life, such
as the jellyfish. Close by are the beautiful sea
anemones, so much like vegetable growths as to de
ceive the “land lubber.” The octopus —le of bad
repute —seizes everything coming his way and is
constantly reaching out for more.
The National Museum at Naples is one of the
finest in Europe. In addition to the collection of
antiquities and pictures belonging to the crown, it
includes many other valuable collections, especially
the priceless treasures excavated at Pompeii and
Herculaneum. We found our time there all too
short.
Our visit to Pompeii was full of interest. Vesu
vius has evidently joined the volcanic union as it
was not working; but Pompeii bore evidence that it
had not always been so sullen. The city was never
large, the circumference of the city walls being
less than two miles. The public baths, theatres, for
ums and temples are pointed out and easily recog
nizable even in their ruins. Some of the homes
bear the marks of wealth and debauchery. Exca
vations are still being made under the direction of
the Italian government, but at the present rate it
will require twenty years more to uncover the whole
city.
* H
While Hopu, a young Sandwich islander was
in this country, he spent an evening in company,
where an infidel lawyer tried to puzzle him with
difficult questions. At length Hopu said: “I am
a. poor heathen boy. It is not strange that my
blunders in English should amuse you; but soon
there will be a larger meeting than this. We
shall all be there. Only one question will be asked
of us all; namely, ‘Do you love the Lord Jesus
Christ?’ Now, sir, I think I can say, ‘Yes.’ What
will you say, sir?” When he had stopped, all
present were silent. At length the lawyer said
that as the evening was far gone, they had better
conclude it with prayer, and proposed that the
native should pray. He did so; and as he poured
out his heart to God, the lawyer could not conceal
his feelings. Tears started from his eyes, and he
sobbed aloud. All present wept, too, and when
they had separated, the words, “What will you
say, sir?” followed the lawyer home, and did not
leave him till they brought him to the Savior.—
Word of Life.
