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, and with hoarse cries appeared to express their anger at the intrusion of man into these wilds sacred to them. Altogether, the scene is full of strange, awe-inspiring beauty. In the Alps and elsewhere we have, perhaps, beheld grander scenery, but never more impressive. The town of Constantine has not much to commend it as a place of residence. It is neither clean nor well built, while sights and smells the reverse of agreeable are constantly distressing the optic and olfactory nerves. And yet there are perhaps few places where an artist could find more charming subjects for his pencil--curious bits of architecture mingling with Nature in its most beautiful and grandest aspects, fine touches of brilliant color, and quaint winding streets and bazaars,--everywhere the picturesque. Filth and confusion, indeed, but still it is the very confusion that an artist loves. The people are a mixture of French, Arabs and Jews. Of the first nothing need be said: they are the same everywhere. The second are similar in type to the Arabs and Moors of the capital; but the last, the Jews, do not at all resemble the specimens of the favored race we have been accustomed to meet with in Europe. They are mostly handsome, many of them fair, the women being particularly gay and picturesque in costume, wearing, when in gala-dress, bright-colored, gold-bespangled scarfs hanging over their heads and shoulders. Altogether, we thought it the brightest and most graceful female attire we had ever seen. But the most charming of all are the children. We saw groups of a perfectly ideal beauty playing upon the doorsteps and dust-heaps--little rosy-cheeked, fair or auburn-haired things, a striking contrast to the sallow Arab races. In thus seeing that fair and auburn hair is not at all uncommon among the Jews of the East, we for the first time understood why the old masters gave to Christ the complexion generally found in their paintings. Certainly, the Jewish children of Constantine would make most lovely studies for the genre painter, and we all regretted that we could not carry away with us some enduring souvenir of that which had charmed us so much. But, however picturesque the country, and however interesting the town and people, we cannot always linger here. Our destination is the desert. Thus, therefore, after a few days spent in alternate wonder and admiration, we once again set out on our southward course, resolved to indemnify ourselves on
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