wind, was rendered one of the safest
and finest on this coast. The town became a Roman colony, and was
conquered by the Arabs in the 7th century. The place thereafter was
subject either to the rulers of Tunis or of Constantine, but the
citizens were noted for their frequent revolts. They threw in their lot
(c. 1530) with the pirate Khair-ed-Din, and subsequently received a
Turkish garrison. Bizerta was captured by the Spaniards in 1535, but not
long afterwards came under the Tunisian government. Centuries of neglect
followed, and the ancient port was almost choked up, though the value of
the fisheries saved the town from utter decay. Its strategical
importance was one of the causes which led to the occupation of Tunisia
by the French in 1881. In 1890 a concession for a new canal and harbour
was granted to a company, and five years later the new port was formally
opened. Since then the canal has been widened and deepened, and the
naval port at Sidi Abdallah created.

BIZET [ALEXANDRE CESAR LEOPOLD] GEORGES (1838-1875), French musical
composer, was born at Bougival, near Paris, on the 25th of October 1838,
the son of a singing-master. He displayed musical ability at an early
age, and was sent to the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied under
Halevy and speedily distinguished himself, carrying off prizes for organ
and fugue, and finally in 1857, after an ineffectual attempt in the
previous year, the Grand Prix de Rome for a cantata called _Cloris et
Clotilde_. A success of a different kind also befell him at this time.
Offenbach, then manager of the Theatre des Bouffes-Parisiens, had
organized a competition for an operetta, in which young Bizet was
awarded the first prize in conjunction with Charles Lecocq, each of them
writing an operetta called _Docteur Miracle_. After the three years
spent in Rome, an obligation imposed by the French government on the
winners of the first prize at the Conservatoire, Bizet returned to
Paris, where he achieved a reputation as a pianist and accompanist. On
the 23rd of September 1863 his first opera, _Les Pecheurs de perles_,
was brought out at the Theatre Lyrique, but owing possibly to the
somewhat uninteresting nature of the story, the opera did not enjoy a
very long run. The qualities displayed by the composer, however, were
amply recognized, although the music was stated, by some critics, to
exhibit traces of Wagnerian influence. Wagnerism at that period was a
sort of spectre tha