Fergusson, James: A history of architecture in all countries, from the earliest times to the present day: in five volumes (Band 2) (London, 1893)

Bk. I. Ch. TI.

BARBABY.

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some extent in modern times. Unfortunately neither its age nor
height is correctly known. It is probably three or four centuries
old, and with its contemporary the Hassanee mosque at Cairo, proves
that the Saracenic architects were capable of expressing simple
grandeur as well as elaborate beauty when it suited them to
do so.

Algeria possesses no buildings of any importance belonging to any
good age of Moorish art. Those of Constantine are the only ones
which have yet been illustrated in an intelligible manner, and they
scarcely deserve mention after the great buildings in Egypt and the
farther East. I cannot help suspecting that some remains of a better
age may still be brought to light ; but the French archæologists seem
to be wholly taken up with the vestiges of the Romans, and not to
have turned théir attention seriously to the more modern style, which
it is to be hoped they soon will do. In an artistic point of view, at
least, it is far more important than the few fragments of Roman
buildings still left in that remote proviace.