MY JOURNAL 



THE ALGERIAN SAHARA, 



Monday, 2^th of January, 1870. 



A SWARM of low-class Arabs and swarthy negroes pounced 

 upon me as I stepped on to the quay at Oran, and bade 

 me yield my luggage to their care. Pestered with their 

 importunities I fled to the custom house, and while my 

 cases were undergoing a nominal examination, the official 

 in charge drove back the exasperated crowd of mendicant 

 porters, until I could select two less frantic than the rest, 

 to carry my baggage up to the hotel. It was a lovely day. 

 Oran, the westernmost town in Algeria, a French seaport 

 and chief place of the province, lay spread before me. It is 

 no inconsiderable place, having a population half as large 

 as that of Algiers, two hotels, a theatre, z. place, a market, 

 and sundry large bureaus ; but it is not much visited by 

 tourists. In this instance it appeared that there were some 

 English there already, for a party of sportsmen who, I 

 heard belonged to our nationality, had been out shooting, 

 and had just brought back three wild boars : stretched upon 

 the pavement they lay with bullet holes in their rugged 

 sides. There is no lack of them in the brushwood on the 



