Jewel Mysteries by Max Pemberton

The city of Algiers, the beautiful El Djzair, as the guide-book maker calls it, has long ceased to charm the true son of the East, _blase_ with the nomadic fulness of the ultimate Levant, or charged with those imaginary Oriental splendors which are nowhere writ so large as in the catalogues and advertisements of the later day upholsterer. This is not the fault of the new Icosium, as any student of the Moorish town knows well; nor is it to be laid to the account of the French usurpation, and that strange juncture of Frank and Fatma, which has brought the boulevard to the city of the Corsairs and banished Mohammed to the shadow of the Kasbah. Rather, it is the outcome of coupons and of co-operative enthusiasm, which sends the roamer to many lands, of which he learns the names, and amongst many people with whose customs he claims familiarity.

To know Algiers, something more than a three days' _pension_ in the Hotel de la Regence is necessary; though that is the temporal limit for many who return to Kensington or Mayfair to protest that "it is so French, you know. " I can recollect well the monitions and advice which I received two years gone when I ventured a voyage to Burmah -- in the matter of the ruby interest -- and determined to see Cairo, Tunis, and the City of Mosques on my return westward. Many told me that I would do better to reach Jaffa and Jerusalem, others advised the seven churches of Asia; many spoke well of Rhodes; all agreed, whether they had been there or whether they had not, that Algiers was eaten up with Chauvinism, and scarce worthy a passing call. Barisbroke at the club, who is always vigorous in persuading other people not to do things, summed it up in one of his characteristically inane jokes. "It's had its Dey," said he, and buried himself in his paper as though the project ended then and there upon his own _ipse dixit_. This marked and decided consensus of opinion could have had but one result -- it sent me to the town of Hercules at the first opportunity.