The steamer that leaves Marseilles in the afternoon of one day, and on the evening of the next lands its passengers in the harbor of Algiers, is probably the easiest and most popular of the agencies that transport the traveler from the hackneyed shores of Europe to the unfamiliar lands of Africa. The northernmost provinces of the Dark Continent have, under the civilizing influence of French dominion, become one of the most attractive of the world's playgrounds. From the winter fogs of the British capital a journey of twelve hundred miles by the swiftest of French express trains and steamers as comfortable as any save the Atlantic liners transports the tourist to a land of sunshine, of orange blossoms and palm trees, of dusky Arabs and white-walled Moorish houses.

Algiers was one of the last strongholds of militant barbarism. Up to the time of our grandfathers it was a very thorn in the side of civilization. A pirate fastness posted on one of the great routes of marine traffic, in this nineteenth century scores of French, English and American merchantmen have been seized and sacked by its roving corsairs, and hundreds of Christian prisoners have toiled in its slave gangs. A notable incident in our naval annals was the expedition of Decatur, whose squadron captured the port and forced the Dey to release all the Americans among his bondsmen. This was in June, 1815—the year and month of Waterloo. A year later a British fleet burned the city to ashes, but not until 1830 was its piracy forever ended by the French invasion and annexation. Even after that, it took forty years of fighting to conquer what now forms the province of Algeria.

The harbor of Algiers is an artificial one, inclosed by two moles that jut out at the western extremity of a Mediterranean inlet whose noble sweep has been compared to the Bay