Algiers

Algiers (Fr. Alger; Arabic Al-jezair, 'the islands'), the capital of Algeria, was built about 935 A.D. by an Arab chief. It rises from the sea-shore up the sides of a precipitous hill in the form of an equilateral triangle. The apex is formed by the Kasbah, the ancient fortress of the deys, which is 500 feet above the sea-level, and commands the whole town. The base is a mile in length. The present city is divided into two parts—the old, or high town; and the new, or low town. With the exception of some mosques, the latter consists of wharfs, warehouses, government houses, squares, and streets, principally built and inhabited by the French; while the former is almost wholly Moorish both in its edifices and inhabitants. The city is intersected by two large parallel streets, Bab-el-Ouad and Bab-azoun, running north and south for more than half a mile; but the new town of Algiers might deceive the traveller into the belief that he is still in Europe, were it not for the throng of swarthy faces he meets. The streets are regular, spacious, and elegant; some of them as handsome as the Parisian Boulevards, and adorned with arcades. The great glory of the city is the Boulevard de la République, with its magnificent terrace, built in 1860-66 by Sir Morton Peto, at a cost of eight million francs. Here may be found as motley a crowd as anywhere in the world, denizens of all nations—Arabs, Moors, and Jews; French, Spaniards, Maltese, English, Germans, and Italians. The shops, too, are occasionally very good. The houses are in some instances five stories high. But perhaps greater interest attaches to the Old Moorish town, which is connected with the new by a steep, narrow, jagged-looking street called the Kasbah, leading down from the fortress of the deys. The houses are square, substantial, flat-roofed; rise irregularly one over the other; and have no windows to the streets, but only peep-holes, fortified with iron gratings instead of glass, so that the houses have a very prison-like appearance. There are numerous mosques and tombs of saints. The French have at great expense improved the port, which is safe and spacious and has a lighthouse. It is strongly fortified, and can contain 40 warships and 300 trading vessels. The original harbour was made in 1525 by connecting with the shore four little islands (hence the name of the city). Near the great quays is the railway station, connecting Algiers with Constantine and Oran. The town has supreme courts of justice, the military and civil headquarters for the province, a chamber and tribunal of commerce, a college and schools, a Catholic cathedral and several churches, a French Protestant church, an English church, a synagogue, a library, museum, hospitals, theatres, and banks. There is a great trade, Algiers being the chief commercial place in Algeria; the produce of the interior is exported, the imports being mainly French goods, with British coal, iron, and cottons. Recently, Algiers has become famous as a winter residence for Europeans suffering from chest disease; the village of Mustafa, near the city, is the resort in summer of the governor and wealthier citizens. The city, which had been wretchedly misgoverned by a long succession of Turkish deys, fell into the hands of the French in 1830 (see ALGERIA). Of the 82,585 inhabitants in 1891, only 38,041 were French; while 18,000 were of other European nations, 12,000 Moslem natives, mainly Moors, and 7000 Jews.