ALGIERS. the animals which it destroys, and therefore commits greater ravages than if its appetite were appeased by feeding upon the flesh of the animals it killed. In a state of captivity it does not lose much of its natural character. M. Lescot states that he was obliged to confine in a cage the two specimens which he brought over, and which had displayed their savage character at so early a period. He supplied them on the voyage with fresh meat, of which they ate seven or eight pounds a day. The ocelot, like the jaguar, panther, leopard, tiger, and lion, only produces two of its kind at a birth. RULES FOR JUDGING OF THE 219 though a fair day in such a case is rare. The general tenor of the weather at such times is short, heavy and sudden showers, with squalls of wind from the southwest or northwest. In summer, after a long continuance of fair weather, with the barometer high, it generally falls gradually, and for one, two, or more days, before there is much appearance of rain. If the fall be sudden and great for the season, it will, probably, be followed by thunder. When the appearances of the sky are very promising for fair, and the barometer at the same time low, it may be depended upon, the appearances will not continue so long. The face of the sky changes very suddenly on such occasions. Very dark and dense clouds pass over without rain, when the barometer is high; whereas, when the barometer is low, it sometimes rains, almost without any appearance of clouds. T is agreeable and useful to have a barometer in the house. It is a pleasing companion and friend. Those who notice it daily will soon find that they are not to expect rain when the pointer is at rain, nor fair weather when such is the monitory indication. That which is to be observed is the course of the barometer: If yesterday it was at "set fair," and to-day it is down at " fair," rain may fall at any moment; and on the contrary, if it has been at "much rain," and has gradually risen to "rain," fair weather clear up, expect severe cold. er may be calculated upon. The barom All appearance being the same, the higher the barometer is, the greater probability of fair weather. Thunder is almost always preceded by hot weather, and followed by cold and showery weather. eter, with observation, is a weather guide; without it, unless in extreme cases, it can not give the information wanted. Perhaps the most infallible indication of the instrument is that of a sudden and extensive fall, when a storm is sure to arise. Attention to this fact has probably more than once saved us from shipwreck or other disasters We give below the late Dr. Dalton's rules for judging of the weather by the barometer : at sea. "When the barometer is near the high extreme for the season of the year, there is very little probability of immediate rain. When the barometer is low for the sea A sudden and extreme change of the temperature of the atmosphere, either from heat to cold or cold to heat, is generally followed by rain within twenty-four hours. In winter, during a frost, if it begins to snow, the temperature of the air generally rises to 320, and continues there while the snow falls, after which, if the weath ALGIERS. LGIERS is situated in 36° 49' north latitude, 30 25' east longitude, on the southern shore of the Mediterranean sea, the waves of which wash its walls. It is built son, there is seldom a great weight of rain, in the form of an irregular triangle, the 14 base of which is formed by the seacoast. The streets of the town are remarkably narrow, filthy, and uneven; very few of them cross others at right angles, and very few are straight. The town of Algiers contained thirteen large mosques, with minarets, and about seventy small ones, or chapels, as we should call them, belonging to private individuals. There were also a synagogue for the Jews, and a chapel and hospital for the Christians, the last of which was supported at the expense of the Spanish government. The palace of the deys was in the lower part of the town; but the late dey had his residence within the citadel, at the highest point of the city. The town derives from the country a tolerable supply of water, which is brought to it by an aqueduct, and then distributed by conduits to the different parts of the city. Algiers contains the usual proportion of baths and coffeehouses, but there are none that appear to claim particular notice. Previously to the French invasion the state of Algiers was nominally subject to the Turkish sultan, but was, in point of fact, perfectly independent. The Turkish dominion at Algiers, originated with the famous Turkish corsair, whom we call Barbarossa, but whose real name was Horush, or Baba (father) Horush, as his men were accustomed to call him. This person was called in by the Algerine Moors in 1516 to assist them against the Spaniards, and availed himself of the opportunity to make himself master of the place; but he ruled so tyrannically, as to provoke the Moors to revolt, and he was killed in 1518, fighting at the head of his Turks. He, however, left a brother to succeed him, who in order to secure his authority, placed himself under the protection of the then mighty Turkish empire the ruler of which, Selim I., appointed him pacha and Regent of Algiers, and sent him a body of Janissaries. From that time the sultan used to appoint the pacha of Algiers, who was at the same time commander of the forces, and to send men and money for the service of the garrison. But in the seventeenth century the Turkish militia obtained the right of choosing their own commander, and of paying themselves out of the revenue of the regency: the sultan, however, continued to send a pacha, as civil governor, until the beginning of the last century, when Baba Ali Dey, a chief of the militia, seized the then pacha, put him on board a ship, and sent him back to Constantinople. The rebel did not omit to send by the same vessel envoys with rich presents to the vizier and other principal officers of the porte, intimating to them that the rejected pacha had treacherous designs, and that it would be well that the chief of the militia should in future perform the duties of the civil governor also, subject, of course, to the approbation of the sultan. The porte was obliged to wink at this transaction; and from that time, the Janissaries, with their chosen chief, have been absolute masters at Algiers. The dignity of dey was one which the lowest soldier might hope one day to fill; but it was held by a most precarious tenure, as the lives of comparatively few of these military governors have been allowed to reach their natural termination. MUSIC. HE musical faculty is not peculiar to man. It abounds in the cries and carollings of many of the inferior tribes. There is music of the most melting and plaintive sort in the notes where with the bird whose "little household hath been stolen, fills and saddens all the grove with melodies of deepest pathos." There is a higher and harsher harmony in the scream of the cloud-cleaving eagle, who goes up, singing his own wild song, through the blue ether, and over the arch of the rainbow. There is cheerful and elevating music in the note of the lark, rising aloft in the dewy dawn, and screwing the fresh morning air, which the poet thus apostrophizes: "Hail to thee, blithe spirit!- In profuse strains of unpremeditated art! "Higher still, and higher, The blue deep thou wingest; higher and holier spirits; and that thus, literally, do the morning stars sing together. We now know this to be but a fancy, though a fancy of the finest and most poetical kind. We now say rather with Addison, in his beautiful hymn : 'What though in solemn silence all Move round the dark terrestrial ball? And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest." There is music, who needs to be told, in the note of the nightingale, called by Milton" most musical, most melancholy bird," which trills her soft and tender lays as if to soothe the evening for her grief at the departure of the sun. There is music of the boldest and most masculine kind in the roar of the lion, coming up, vast and hollow, upon the wind of the wilderness, and affrighting the far-off caravan on its solitary way. What a harmony there is in the varied voices of inanimate creation-what a fine pause in the hush of the evening-what a sweet tenor in the lapse of a stream, which, to the " sleeping woods, all night, singeth a quiet tune" what a shrill treble in the higher notes of the gale singing through the shroudsand what a tremendous base in the voice of the thunder, speaking from his black orchestra to the echoing heavens! Mrs. Hemans asked Sir Walter Scott if he had not observed that every tree gives out its peculiar sound to the wind? He said he had, and suggested that something might be done, by the union of music and poetry, to imitate those voices of trees, giving a different measure and style to the oak, the pine, the willow. Diversities in this respect may be noticed among the trees of the wood and the garden. From the willow comes a kind of dry, hissing sound-from the oak, a strong, sturdy rustle, as if the old king of the forest, over whom centuries had passed, yielded his head reluctantly to the force of a blast, born and dying that very moment-from the sycamore, with its large leaves, a calm, full murmur, as if the tree were one vast hive of bees (and indeed, so often it is) from the yew-tree, a funereal wail, as if each leaf were a sigh-and from the pine, a deep, lingering, and most musical sound, well called by a poet, an "old and solemn harmony." So much for the mu-an-has something in it sweeter, more sic of nature. We will only allude to the beautiful fancy of the ancients, that from the motions of the heavenly orbs there issued the soft floating of an ethereal and immortal melody which the gross ear of man hears not, but which is audible to 'The Hand that made us is divine.'" Artificial music is divided into two kinds-instrumental and vocal. We are all acquainted with the common kind of instruments from which, by cunning fingers, the soul of music is extracted the sweet-toned flute, which sounds so finely across a lake or river, in the still evenings of summer-the spirit-stirring, and earpiercing fife-the deep, reverberating drum-the trumpet, with its long and swelling blast-the piano, with its soft, mellow, and trembling vibrations-the violin, with its cheerful and awakening notes-the lute, with its tender and amorous descant-the harp, consecrated as that instrument which once vibrated to the hands of David, as he sang on the plains of Bethlehem, or poured out his eloquent plaint from the roof of his palace, in the city of the Great King-the guitar, with its light and airy music, transporting our thoughts to the groves of Italy, or to the cork-tree forests of Spain, to the evening lattices of Madrid, or the moonlit waters of Venice—and last, not least, the majestic organ, with its awful volume of sound. But far above these, or all other instruments of music, is that glorious instrument first invented and tuned by Deity himself. We mean the human voice, with its melting cadences, its guttural sounds, its high, clear melody, which, whether it swells or sinks, awakens to rapture or lulls to repose-whether it be grave or gaywhether it issue from the deep pipe of man, or from the softer breast of wom noble, natural, and various, than all the music of the grove, than all the melodies of birds and bees, and murmuring of summer waters; or than all the sounds which art has extracted from cold and lifeless instruments. |