The Mediterranean by Grant Allen

"A Pearl set in Emeralds" -- Two distinct towns, one ancient, one modern -- The Great Mosque -- A Mohammedan religious festival -- Oriental life in perfection -- The road to Mustapha Superieur -- A true Moorish villa described -- Women praying to a sacred tree -- Excessive rainfall.

"Algiers," says the Arab poet, with genuine Oriental love of precious stones in literature, "is a pearl set in emeralds. " And even in these degenerate days of Frank supremacy in Islam, the old Moorish town still gleams white in the sun against a deep background of green hillside, a true pearl among emeralds. For it is a great mistake to imagine North Africa, as untravelled folk suppose, a dry and desert country of arid rocky mountains. The whole strip of laughing coast which has the Atlas for its backbone may rank, on the contrary, as about the dampest, greenest, and most luxuriant region of the Mediterranean system. The home of the Barbary corsairs is a land of high mountains, deep glens, great gorges; a land of vast pine forests and thick, verdant undergrowth. A thousand rills tumble headlong down its rich ravines; a thousand rivers flow fast through its fertile valleys.