actual - DSpace@GIPE

JrlOROOOO TO .d.UJERlA.. 57
There is considerable trade in these, and in wheat and marble,
with England. This AUa fibre is said to be almost the sale vegetable
produce of the vast high plateaux of the interior. It is used
in the manufacture of paper, and for making mats, baskets, etc.
As to the wine, of which there are both red and white varieties,
the quality is said to be as good as the quantity is considerable.
It is universally used in Algeria, where at the hotels you may purchase
it for two francs a bottle. It is also very largely exported to
Bordeaux, where it is" manipulated" and afterwards exported as
the celebrated vintage of that country. The wine which is sold in
Paris as Algerian wine is too often only that largely mixed with a
wine manufactured from dry raisins. So that it was without wonder
I learned that the most promising culture in which the Algerian
colonist generally engaged was that of the vine. But I must
speak of the general appearance of Oran as viewed from the harbor.
The city was close at hand rising on a steep slope of mountain
in a sort of triangular form. On the summit of a high and
precipitous hill to the right was the Fort of Santa Cruz, below
which was a little chapel with a tower surmounted by a colossal
statue of the Virgin, said to have been erected to commemorate
the cholera year of 1849. The fort contains several 85-ton guns,
which were mounted only with the greatest difficulty, the hill
being above a thousand feet in height. To the eastward of the
city are other cliffs quite as high. On every knoll and advantageous
point are French forts. The fortifications were fonnerly
confined to the wall of the city, which still stands, but they are
now mostly at a distance. It was in the immediate neighhorhood
of- Oran that the French had so long a continued war with the
fierce hill tribes commanded by the famons Abd-el-Kader. Seen
from the harhor there scarcely seems a level &qnare foot of land in
Oran. The city is entirely French in character. You observe to
the right a great hospital, which is capable of accommodating four
hundred soldiers. Beyond this is the Kasbah, the old Citadel, tlie
lower part of which is used as a barrack. Further to the left on
a prominent knoll stands the ChAteau Neuf, a part of which is
used by the gener8J. commanding the division, and the remainder
as a barrack. Then again, still further around to the left, you
bave the large Civil Hospital, holding some six hundred patients.
But to see the old portions of the city, built in the ravines and
under the hills, you must leave the steamer. You will find these,
many of them, connected with the nearer quarters on the hreesy
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