, and with hoarse cries appeared to express their anger at
the intrusion of man into these wilds sacred to them. Altogether, the
scene is full of strange, awe-inspiring beauty. In the Alps and
elsewhere we have, perhaps, beheld grander scenery, but never more
impressive.

The town of Constantine has not much to commend it as a place of
residence. It is neither clean nor well built, while sights and smells
the reverse of agreeable are constantly distressing the optic and
olfactory nerves. And yet there are perhaps few places where an artist
could find more charming subjects for his pencil--curious bits of
architecture mingling with Nature in its most beautiful and grandest
aspects, fine touches of brilliant color, and quaint winding streets and
bazaars,--everywhere the picturesque. Filth and confusion, indeed, but
still it is the very confusion that an artist loves.

The people are a mixture of French, Arabs and Jews. Of the first nothing
need be said: they are the same everywhere. The second are similar in
type to the Arabs and Moors of the capital; but the last, the Jews, do
not at all resemble the specimens of the favored race we have been
accustomed to meet with in Europe. They are mostly handsome, many of
them fair, the women being particularly gay and picturesque in costume,
wearing, when in gala-dress, bright-colored, gold-bespangled scarfs
hanging over their heads and shoulders. Altogether, we thought it the
brightest and most graceful female attire we had ever seen. But the most
charming of all are the children. We saw groups of a perfectly ideal
beauty playing upon the doorsteps and dust-heaps--little rosy-cheeked,
fair or auburn-haired things, a striking contrast to the sallow Arab
races. In thus seeing that fair and auburn hair is not at all uncommon
among the Jews of the East, we for the first time understood why the old
masters gave to Christ the complexion generally found in their
paintings. Certainly, the Jewish children of Constantine would make most
lovely studies for the genre painter, and we all regretted that we could
not carry away with us some enduring souvenir of that which had charmed
us so much.

But, however picturesque the country, and however interesting the town
and people, we cannot always linger here. Our destination is the desert.
Thus, therefore, after a few days spent in alternate wonder and
admiration, we once again set out on our southward course, resolved to
indemnify ourselves on