File:Outing (1885) (14579844987).jpg

Identifier: outing55newy (find matches)
Title: Outing
Year: 1885 (1880s)
Authors:
Subjects: Leisure Sports Travel
Publisher: (New York : Outing Pub. Co.)
Contributing Library: Tisch Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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re byand by, and meantime we were goingthrough the very heart, the very heartof hearts, of Algiers. That is to say the Arab quarter—theinner circle of circles where, so far asdiscoverable, French domination has notyet laid its hand. We left the carriagesat a point somewhere below the Kasba,passed through an arch in a dead wall—an opening so low that the tallest of ushad to stoop (it was a needles eye, nodoubt) and there we wrere. Atone stepwe had come from a mingling of Eastand West to that which was eternallyEast with no hint or suggestion of con-tact with any outside world. I should say the streets would averagesix to eight feet wide, all leading downhill. They were winding streets, someof them dim, and each a succession ofstone steps and grades that meanderdown and down into a stranger laby-rinth of life than I had ever dreamed of. How weak any attempt to tell of thatlife seems! The plastered, blind-eyedhouses with their mysterious entrancesand narrow dusky stairways leading to
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THE PROPHETS LOOKED AND DRESSED JUST AS THESE PEOPLE LOOK AND DRESS. what dark and sinister occupancy; thenarrow streets bending off here andthere that one might follow, who couldsay whither; the silent, drowsing,strangely garbed humanity that regardedus with only a vague scornful interestand did not even offer to beg; the low,dim coffee-houses before which men satdrinking and contemplating—so inat-tentive to the moments event that onemight believe they had sat always thus,sipping and contemplating, and would sosit through time—how can I convey tothe reader even a faint reflection of thatunreal, half-awake world, or conjureagain the spell which, on first beholdingit, one is bound to feel? Everywhere was humanity which be-longed only to the East—had always be-longed there—had remained unchangedin feature and dress and mode of lifesince the beginning. The prophetslooked and dressed just as these peoplelook and dress, and their cities were asthis city, built into steep hillsides,

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