, Turkish, or
Spanish, and cannot be induced to make an attempt at Arabic to a
European unless the latter absolutely refuses to reply to his jargon.
Then comes a hideous corruption of his mother tongue, in which the
foreign expressions are adorned with native inflexions in the most
comical way. His dress is barbarous, an ancient and badly fitting pair
of trousers, and stockingless feet in untidy boots, on the heels of
which he stamps along the streets with a most unpleasant noise. The
collection of garments which complete his attire are mostly European,
though the "Fez" cap remains the distinctive feature of the Muslim's
dress, and a selham--that cloak of cloaks, there called a "burnus"--is
slung across his shoulder. Some few countrymen are to be seen who
still retain the more graceful native costume, with the typical
camel-hair or cotton cord bound round the head-dress, but the old
inhabitants are being steadily driven out of town.

[Illustration: TENT OF AN ALGERIAN SHEIKH.]

The characteristic feature of Algerian costumes is the head-cord
referred to, which pervades a great part of Arabdom, in Syria and
Arabia being composed of two twists of black camel hair perhaps an
inch thick. In Algeria it is about an eighth of an inch thick, and
brown. The slippers are also characteristic, but ugly, being of black
leather, excellently made, and cut very far open, till it becomes an
art to keep them on, and the heels have to be worn up. The use of the
white selham is almost universal, unhemmed at the edges, as in Tunis
also; and over it is loosely tied a short haik fastened on the head by
the cord.

There is, however, even in Algiers itself, one class of men who remain
unaffected by their European surroundings, passive amid much change,
a model for their neighbours. These are the Beni M'zab, a tribe of
Mohammedan Protestants from southern Algeria, where they settled long
ago, as the Puritans did in New England, that they might there worship
God in freedom. They were the Abadiya, gathered from many districts,
who have taken their modern name from the tribe whose country they now
inhabit. They speak a dialect of Berber, and dress in a manner which
is as distinctive as their short stature, small, dark, oily features,
jet-black twinkling eyes, and scanty beard. They come to the towns to
make money, and return home to spend it, after a few years of busy
shop-keeping. A butcher whom I met said that he and a friend had the
business