The following pages are a record of impressions received from a visit Algeria in the early months of 1911. In a former volume I dared to ridicule the pretensions of those who, on the strength of a short stay in a foreign country to enlighten the public. My chickens have come home to roost. If I must seek an excuse for hasty conclusions I may find it in the motor-car. It has revolutionized the relations of time and space, and abolished the barren interludes of travel. It has increased fourfold the traveller’s opportunities of observation. Algeria, a land of great distances and admirable roads, is especially suited to its use. And it is a country brimful of interest, historical and actual. The scholar may dig The reproduction here of some of Mr. Thoroton’s admirable drawings of Arab doorways may serve to lead the attention of travellers—and perhaps of the authorities—to these interesting features of the old town of Algiers. The destroyer is busy, but here, as elsewhere, his ruinous energy makes what he has spared more precious. There are signs that his days are numbered, of the rise of a more enlightened public opinion concerning It is too much to expect that a trading and agricultural community should wax enthusiastic over such matters for their own sake. The point we have to emphasise is that there is money in them; that they have a very distinct and rising commercial value, easily destroyed, and, once lost, irrecoverable. The guide-books to Algeria, in the English language at all events, are, in view of modern conditions of travel, hopelessly out of date. The motorist will, of course, provide himself with Messrs. Michelins’ admirable road-book. There he is furnished with precise and condensed C. T. S. Brighton, July, 1911. |