Through Algeria. By the author of "Life in Tuscany." (Bentley.)—
This book is the work of a lady, who has thought it necessary to prefix to it an earnest protest against the prejudice which she believes to exist against unprotected female travellers, and the severe treatment which they generally meet with at the hands of the critics. This protest appears to us to be somewhat superfluous. We do not believe that there is any general feeling against lady travellers, as a class. Whatever unfavoirable criticism any particular voyageuse may have met with, she has no one but herself to thank for. Nobody objects to a lady travel- ling alone, provided only that she conducts herself, while on her travels, in a decent and lady-like manner, and does not place herself in positions which common womanly delicacy would teach her to avoid. But there have been women who, intoxicated by the enjoyment of what they have been accustomed to regard as an exclusively mescaline privilege, have thought fit to celebrate the occasion by the assumption of other mas- culine habits; and who, proud of their achievements, have subsequently paraded their cigars and their red breeches before the eyes of an un- sympathizing public. Such "lady travellers" as these deserve all the censure they meet with. Our authoress, however, does not appear to have been guilty of any of these vagaries ; and we can assure her that we entertain no sort of prejudice against her on account of her sex.. But we are sorry that we cannot conscientiously praise her book. Neither the scene nor the incidents of her journey possess any peculiar interest ; nor is the dullness of her subject relieved to any material degree by the manner in which it is treated.
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