fellow, and was very much interested with his stories of his travels by foot.
Accompanied by his French interpreter, we started through the vessel, I explaining everything of interest to their apparent satisfaction, after which we returned to the quarter-deck, and, after exchanging cards, Mr. O’Mally and his guide departed for the city, stating that he would probably meet me in Algiers the following day, where I would be on shore leave.
The next day, accompanied by five other marines, with that almost uncontrollable desire for pleasure and excitement known only by the men who undergo the rigid discipline of the navy, I boarded a sampan and was sculled ashore, where numerous guides, always in evidence in foreign ports, offered to conduct us through the labyrinths of gayety. Waving aside these pests, we ascended the stone steps leading to the plaza overlooking the bay and a grand boulevard. This plaza was thronged with pedestrians and equipages of the civic and military, French and Moorish officers, gendarmes, tourists, fakirs, fortune-tellers, Bedouins,
and beggars, commingled, forming a most cosmopolitan scene. Seeking an exchange, we converted some money into centimes, sous, francs, and napoleons, and, after purchasing some relics from the bazaars, engaged landaus and proceeded to see the sights of this quaint African city.
Arabs, Moors, Spaniards, Jews, French, Germans, Maltese, and Italians—in fact, every nationality extant—seem to be represented here.
The City of Algiers was built about 935 A.D., was poorly governed by a long succession of Turkish deys, and fell under the yoke of French rule in 1830, obliterating the despotism which had long existed.
The Boulevards, beautifully adorned with arcades and lined on either side with orange and lime trees, are the scenes of magnificent equipages drawn by blooded Arabian horses.
The heat, though at times intense, is mitigated by a delightful cool sea-breeze.
The principal places of interest are the French bazaars, the Catholic cathedral, the hot baths of Hammam Phira, the marketplace, casino, public bath, coffee-houses,
theatres, bank, quarters of the soldiers of the foreign legion, the Moulin Rouge, identical with the famous “Red Mill” of Paris, where “birds of a feather flock together,” and where L’amour et la fumee ne peuvent se cacher.