LITMIR.BIZ

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that the Emperor, with his pettish spirit, might take this much amiss, and consider you, according to the contents of the two letters, as the promoter of an intrigue in favour of the exiled family of the Bourbons." Thus the paternal advice of the French Consul taught me that in all that regards politics, however nearly or remotely, one cannot give himself up without danger to the dictates of the heart and the reason.

      I enclosed my two letters in an envelope bearing the address of a trustworthy person, and gave them into the hands of a corsair, who, after touching at Algiers, would proceed to France. I have never known whether they reached their destination.

The reigning Dey, successor to the beheaded Dey, had formerly filled the humble office of "épileur"[5] of dead bodies in the mosques. He governed the Regency with much gentleness, occupying himself with little but his harem. This disgusted those who had raised him to this eminent post, and they resolved upon getting rid of him. We became aware of the danger which menaced him, by seeing the courts and vestibules of the consular house full, according to the custom under such circumstances, of Jews, carrying with them whatever they had of most value. It was a rule at Algiers, that all that happened in the interval comprised between the death of a Dey and the installation of his successor, could not be followed up by justice, and must remain unpunished. One can imagine, then, why the children of Moses should seek safety in the consular houses, the European inhabitants of which had the courage to arm themselves for self-defence as soon as the danger was apparent, and who, moreover, had a janissary to guard them.

      Whilst the unfortunate Dey "épileur" was being conducted towards the place where he was to be strangled, he heard the cannon which announced his death and the installation of his successor. "They are in great haste," said he; "what will you gain by carrying matters to extremities? Send me to the Levant; I promise you never to return. What have you to reproach me with?" "With nothing," answered his escort, "but your insignificance. However, a man cannot live as a mere private man, after having been Dey of Algiers." And the unfortunate man perished by the rope.

      The communication by sea between Bougie and Algiers was not so difficult, even with the "sandalas," as the Caïd of the former town wished to assure me. Captain Spiro had the cases landed, which belonged to me. The Caïd sought to discover what they contained; and, having perceived through a chink something yellowish, he hastened to send the news to the Dey, that the Frenchmen who had come to Algiers by land had among their baggage cases filled with zechins, destined to revolutionize the Kabylie. They immediately had these cases forwarded to Algiers, and at their opening, before the Minister of Naval Affairs, all the phantasmagoria of zechins, of treasure, of revolution, disappeared at the sight of the stands and the limbs of several repeating circles in copper.

      We are now going to sojourn several months in Algiers. I will take advantage of this to put together some details of manners which may be interesting as the picture of a state of things anterior to that of the occupation of the Regency by the French. This occupation, it must be remarked, has already fundamentally altered the manners and the habits of the Algerine population.

      I am about to report a curious fact, and one which shows that politics, which insinuate themselves and bring discord into the bosom of the most united families, had succeeded, strange to say, in penetrating as far as the galley-slaves' prison at Algiers. The slaves belonged to three nations: there were in 1809 in this prison, Portuguese, Neapolitans, and Sicilians; among these two latter classes were counted partisans of Murat and those of Ferdinand of Naples. One day, at the beginning of the year, a dragoman came in the name of the Dey to beg M. Dubois Thainville to go without delay to the prison, where the friends of the French and their adversaries had involved themselves in a furious combat; and already several had fallen. The weapon with which they struck each other was the heavy long chain attached to their legs.

      Each Consul, as I said above, had a janissary placed with him as his guard; the one belonging to the French Consul was a Candiote; he had been surnamed the Terror. Whenever some news unfavourable to France was announced in the cafés, he came to the Consulate to inform himself as to the reality of the fact; and when we told him that the other janissaries had propagated false news, he returned to them, and there, yatagan in hand, he declared himself ready to enter the lists in combat against those who should still maintain the truth of the news. As these continual threats might endanger him, (for they had no support beyond his mere animal courage,) we had wished to render him expert in the handling of arms by giving him some lessons in fencing; but he could not endure the idea that Christians should touch him at every turn with foils; he therefore proposed to substitute for the simulated duel a real combat with the yatagan.

      One may gain an exact idea of this savage nature when I mention that, having one day heard a pistol-shot, the sound of which proceeded from his room, people ran, and found him bathed in his blood; he had just shot off a ball into his arm to cure himself of a rheumatic pain.

      Seeing with what facility the Deys disappeared, I said one day to our janissary, "With this prospect before your eyes, would you consent to become Dey?" "Yes, doubtless," answered he. "You seem to count as nothing the pleasure of doing all that one likes, if only even for a single day!"

      When we wished to take a turn in the town of Algiers, we generally took care to be escorted by the janissary attached to the consular house; it was the only means of escaping insults, affronts, and even acts of violence. I have just said it was the only means. I made a mistake; there was one other; that was, to go in the company of a French "lazarist" of seventy years of age, and whose name, if my memory serves me, was Father Joshua; he had lived in this country for half a century. This man, of exemplary virtue, had devoted himself with admirable self-denial to the service of the slaves of the Regency, and had divested himself of all considerations of nationality;—the Portuguese, Neapolitans, Sicilians, all were equally his brethren.

      In the times of plague he was seen day and night carrying eager help to the Mussulmans; thus, his virtue had conquered even religious hatreds; and wherever he passed, he and the persons who might accompany him received from multitudes of the people, from the janissaries, and even from the officials of the mosques, the most respectful salutations.

      During our long hours of sailing on board the Algerine vessel, and our compulsory stay in the prisons at Rosas, and on the hulk at Palamos, I gathered some ideas as to the interior life of the Moors or the Coulouglous, which, even now when Algiers has fallen under the dominion of France, would perhaps be yet worth preserving. I shall, however, confine myself to recounting, nearly word for word, a conversation which I had with Raïs Braham, whose father was a "Turc fin," that is to say, a Turk born in the Levant.

      "How is it that you consent," said I to him, "to marry a young girl whom you have never seen, and find in her, perhaps, an excessively ugly woman, instead of the beauty whom you had fancied to yourself?"

      "We never marry without having obtained information from the women who serve in the capacity of servants at the public baths. The Jewesses are moreover, in these cases, very useful go-betweens."

      "How many legitimate wives have you?"

      "I have four, that is to say, the number authorized by the Koran."

      "Do they live together on a good understanding?"

      "Ah, sir, my house is a hell. I never enter it without finding them at the step of the door, or at the bottom of the stairs; then, each wants to be the first to make me listen to the complaints which she has to bring against her companions. I am about to utter blasphemy, but I think that our holy religion ought to prohibit a plurality of wives to those who are not rich enough to give to each a separate habitation."

      "But since the Koran allows you to repudiate even legitimate wives, why do you not send back three of them to their parents?"

      "Why? because that would ruin me. On the day of the marriage the father of the young woman to be married stipulates for a dowry, and the half of it is paid. The other half may be exacted the day that the woman is repudiated. It would then be three half dowries that I should have to pay if I sent back three of my wives. I ought, however, to rectify one inaccuracy in what I said just now, that my four wives had never agreed together. Once, they were agreed among

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