The advantage of winter studios abroad, and the value of sketching in the open air; especially in Algeria. 'The best thing the author of a book can do, is to tell the reader, on a piece of paper an inch square, what he means by it.'—Athenaeum....

Y the middle of the month of July, the Art season in London was on the wane, and by the end of August the great body of English artists had dispersed, some, the soundest workers perhaps, to the neighbourhood of Welsh mountains and English homesteads, to—'The silence of thatched cottages and the voices of blossoming fields.' From the Tweed to the Shetland Isles, they were thick upon the hills; in every nook and corner of England, amongst the cornfields and upon the lakes; in the valleys and torre

'Ah oui, c'est qu'elle est belle avec ces châteaux forts, Couchés dans les près verts, comme les géants morts! C'est qu'elle est noble, Alger la fille du corsaire! Un réseau de murs blancs la protège et l'enserre.' HE first view of the town of Algiers, with its pretty clusters of white houses set in bright green hills, or as the French express it, 'like a diamond set in emeralds,' the range of the lesser Atlas forming a background of purple waves rising one above the other until they are lost in

E said, in the last chapter, that in Algiers there was very little going on for the visitor or idler; but if the traveller have anything of the artist in him, he will be delighted with the old town. If he is wise he will spend the first week in wandering about, and losing himself in the winding streets, going here, there, and everywhere on a picturesque tour of inspection. His artistic tendencies will probably lead him to spend much time in the Moorish cafés, where he may sit down unmolested (if

ROM the roof-tops of our own and the neighbouring houses we have altogether many opportunities of sketching, and making studies from life. * By degrees, by fits and starts, and by most uncertain means (such as attracting curiosity, making little presents, &c.) we manage to scrape up a distant talking acquaintance with some of the mysterious wayward creatures we have spoken of, and in short, to become almost 'neighbourly.' But we never get much nearer than talking distance, conversing fro

F the various studies to be made in Algiers, there are none at the same time so quaint and characteristic, as the Moors in their own homes, seated at their own doors or benches at work, or at the numerous cafés and bazaars; and nothing seems to harmonize so well in these Moorish streets as the groups of natives (both Moors and negroes) with their bright costumes, and 'wares for sale. Colour and contrast of colour, seem to be considered, or felt , everywhere. Thus for instance, no two Orientals w

T would be passing over the most-enjoyable part of our life abroad, if we omitted all mention of those delightful days, spent on the hill-sides of Mustapha, on the heights of the Bouzareah, and indeed everywhere in the neighbourhood of Algiers, sketching in winter time in the open air. Odours of orange-groves, the aromatic scent of cedars, the sweet breath of wild flowers, roses, honeysuckles and violets, should pervade this page; something should be done, which no words can accomplish, to give

HE Atlas Mountains, of which we have spoken so often, are almost separated from the hills of the Sahel on which the town of Algiers is built, by the broad plain of the Mitidja, averaging between twenty and thirty miles across; and at the inland extremity of this plain, nestling close under the shadow of the lesser Atlas, is situated the town of Blidah, half Arab, half French, with its little population of European colonists and traders; its orange-groves and its orange-merchants, who here pass t

T was almost impossible to take up a newspaper in Algiers, or to converse for five minutes in a café, or at the club, without the 'question Kabyle' cropping up in some paragraph or conversation. Every day there came contradictory news about the war, that it would really be over to-morrow or the next day, or the next week. It had lasted with more or less activity for thirty years, but now at last the smouldering embers seemed to be dying out. The Djurjura mountains stretching eastward into Kabyli

' Oh que l'hirondelle est bien la type de la vraie sagesse, elle qui a su effacer de son existence, ces longs hivers qui glacent et engourdissent! Dès que le soleil commence à décroître, sitôt que les plantes jaunissent et qu'aux chaudes haleines du Zéphyr succèdent les froides rafales de l'aquilon, elle s'envole prudemment à tire d'ailes, vers les douces régions embaumées du Midi. ' E come down the hills and back to Algiers, to find the winter in full bloom, and the 'winter swallows' in great f

F the foregoing sketches have seemed to some of our readers, a thought too slight and discursive, and to be wanting in detail; it is because, perhaps, they have reflected a little too naturally, the habit of a painter's mind, and have followed out the principle of outdoor sketching, which is to 'hit off' as accurately as possible, the various points of interest that come under observation, and, in doing so, to give colour rather than detail, and to aim principally at the rendering of atmosphere

We have been requested by several readers to state, in a New Edition, the readiest and cheapest method of reaching Algeria from England. There is no quicker or cheaper way than to go through France to Marseilles, and thence by steamer direct to Algiers. The cost of the journey from London to Algiers varies from to £10, according to 'class.' The steamers from Marseilles leave on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, at mid-day: the cheapest boats leave on Thursdays, their first-class fare, includin