Everything is neatly and quietly served, the menu is varied enough, with good French dishes and game in abundance; the hosts being especially liberal in providing those delicious little birds that might be larks or quails,—which in Algiers we see so often on the table and so seldom on the wing.
INGLIS
SPOKEN.
Half the people that are dining at the 'Hôtel d'Orient' to-day are residents or habitués; they come in and take their accustomed places as cosily, and are almost as particular and fastidious, as if they were at their club.
There is the colonel of a cavalry regiment dining alone, and within joking distance, five young officers, whose various grades of rank are almost as evident from their manner as from the number of stripes on their bright red kepis ranged on the wall of the salon. A French doctor and his wife dine vis-à-vis, at one table, a lady solitaire at another; some gentlemen, whose minds are tuned to commerce, chatter in a corner by themselves; whilst a group of newly-arrived English people in the middle of the room, are busily engaged in putting down the various questions with which they intend to bore the viceconsul on the morrow, as if he were some good-natured house-agent, valet-de-place, and interpreter in one, placed here by Providence for their especial behoof. But it is all very orderly, sociable, and comfortable, and by no means an unpleasant method of living for a time.
There is the cercle, the club, at which we may dine sometimes; there are those pretty little villas amongst the orange-trees at Mustapha Supérieure, where we may spend the most delightful evenings of all; and there are also the Governor's weekly balls, soirées at the consulate, and other pleasant devices for turning night into day, in Algiers as everywhere else—which we shall be wise if we join in but sparingly. And there are public amusements, concerts, balls, and the theatre—the latter with a company of operatic singers with weak lungs, but voices as sweet as any heard in Italy; and there are the moonlight walks by the sea, to many the greatest delight of all.
The ordinary daily occupations are decidedly social and domestic; and it may be truly said that for a stranger, until he becomes accustomed to the place, there is very little going on.
You must not bathe, for instance, on this beautiful shelving shore. 'Nobody bathes, it gives fever,' was the invariable answer to enquiries on this subject, and though it is not absolutely forbidden by the faculty, there are so many restrictions imposed upon bathers that few attempt it; moreover, an Englishman is not likely to have brought an acrobatic suit with him, nor will he easily find a 'costume de bain' in Algiers.
There is very little to do besides wander about the town, or make excursions in the environs or into the interior (in which latter case it is as well to take a fowling-piece, as there is plenty of game to be met with); and altogether we may answer a question often asked about Algiers as to its attractions for visitors, that it has not many (so called), for the mere holiday lounger.
But for those who have resources of their own, for those who have work to do which they wish to do quietly, and who breathe more freely under a bright blue sky, Algiers seems to us to be the place to come to.
The 'bird of passage,' who has unfortunately missed an earthquake, often reports that Algiers is a little dull; but even he should not find it so, for beyond the 'distractions' we have hinted at, there is plenty to amuse him if he care little for what is picturesque. There are (or were when we were there), a troop of performing Arabs of the tribe of 'Beni Zouzoug,' who performed nightly the most hideous atrocities in the name of religious rites: wounding their wretched limbs with knives, eating glass, holding burning coals in their mouths, standing on hot iron until the feet frizzled and gave forth sickening odours, and doing other things in an ecstacy of religious frenzy which we could not print, and which would scarcely be believed in if we did. *