182 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 



tremities ? Send me to the Levant; I promise yon never to rctnrn. What 

 have you to reproach me with ?" "With nothirig," 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 uian 

 perished by the rope. 



The communication by sea between Bougie and Algiers was not so 

 diflicnlt, even with the " sandalas,''^ as the Caid of the former town wished 

 to assnre me. Captain S[)iro had the cases landed which belonged to 

 me. The Caid sought to discover what they contained; and having 

 l^erceived through a chink something yellowish, he hastened to send the 

 news to the Bey, that the Frenchmen who had come to Algiers by land 

 Lad among their baggage cases fdled with zechins, destined to revolu- 

 tionize the Kabylie. They immediately had these cases forwarded to 

 Algiers, and at their opening before the minister of naval atlaiis, all the 

 phantasmagoria of zechins, of treasure, of revolution, disappeared at 

 the sight of the stands and the limbs of several repeating circles in 

 copi)er. 



We are now going to sojourn several months in Algiers. I will take 

 advantage of this to put together some details of manne:>; 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 

 Btruck 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. W^henever some news unfavorable to Fiance 

 •was announced in the cafes, he came to the consulate to iiilbrm himself 

 as to the reality of the fact; and when we told him that the other janis- 

 saries had propagated false news, he returned to them, and there, yata 

 gan 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 (tor they had no sui)port beyond 

 his mere animal courage) we had wished to render him expert in tlic 

 handling of arms by giving him some lessons in fencing ; but he could 



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