Although apparently enjoying so many advantages, yet the town cannot be said to be very beautiful, when once we are within its walls. The quarters of the natives are hideous. Often they are scarcely more than ruins. In fact, it is no uncommon thing to find the most wretched buildings constructed out of the remnants of larger ones.
The interior of nearly all the native houses is squalid and destitute of all comfort. Usually a mat serves the purpose of a bed. A painted wooden chest, containing a few garments of wearing apparel and a scanty supply of linen, serves the double purpose of a closet and a table or seat, as may be needed. A few articles for the kitchen, a chafing dish of earthenware, and some wooden plates made from the poplar tree, complete the articles of household furniture.
The Jews, though much more crowded in their quarters than we should think admitted of comfort for their families of numerous boys and girls, furnish their homes much more comfortably than the natives do.
The natives are divided into two distinct classes very hostile to each other. On account of this hostile spirit the French have been able to maintain a strong hold upon the country.
Many of the people have Turkish fathers and Arab mothers, and constitute an oppressed and despised class. The French have protected them from direct persecution, and this has made them not only very grateful but very loyal to these foreigners, whom they even aid by joining their military forces in time of need.
They are generally tall in stature and vigorous in body, and are more cleanly and careful in their dress than their rivals, and more industrious. Through their labor the fine gardens of the town are kept green. They keep the provision and butcher shops, and as they speak both French and Spanish they easily compete with the foreign tradesmen.
Their rivals, the Haddans, are of pure Arab blood, and in their poverty and indolence are far inferior to their ancestors, who were rather an energetic race. Their bronze complexions and black hair offer a strong contrast to the white complexions and usually fair hair of the despised half-breeds.
The Israelites are very numerous in Tlemcen. During the persecution of the Jews in the fifteenth century, many of them fled into Algeria and took refuge mainly in the province of Oran.
About the middle of the present century the Kabyles, a sturdy race of mountaineers descended from the ancient Numidians, broke out into decided hostilities against the French. Although they displayed much of the fierce, dauntless spirit of their ancestors, they were speedily quelled.
The work of conquering, colonizing, and, in a measure, civilizing Algeria, went on; while the French troops, penetrating into the remote south, almost to the borders of the Sahara, soon subdued the desert tribes, in spite of their bold resistance.