AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 183 



not endure tlio idea that Christians should tou( !i liim 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 1 mention 

 that, having one day heard a pistol-shot, the sound of which i)roceeded 

 from his room, people ran and found him bathed in his blood ; he had 

 just shot oft" a ball into his arm to cure himself of a rheumatic i)ain. 



Seeing with what facility the Deys disai)peared, I said one day to our 

 janissary, "With this prospect before your eyes, would you conseut to 

 become Dey f" " 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 con- 

 sular 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 misti'.ke; 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 a halt a century. This man, of exemplary virtue, had devoted him- 

 self with admirable self-denial to the service of the slaves of the regeuc3', 

 and had divested himself of all considerations of nationality; the Portu- 

 guese, ]S'eai>olitans, Sicilians, all were equally his brethren. 



In the tin.es of plague he was seen day and night carrying eager help 

 to the MusS'ilmaiis; thus his virtue had conquered even religious 

 hatreds; and vherever he i)assed he and the persons who might accom- 

 pany him received from multitudes of the people, from the janissaries, 

 and even from ;he ofticials of the mosques, the most respectful saluta- 

 tions. 



During our ! org hours of sailing on board the Algerine vessel, and 

 oureonipulsoi\v st;y in the prisons at Eosas, and on the hulk at Palamos, 

 I gathered sonu," idiasas to the interior life of the j\[oors or the Coulougous, 

 %vhich,even now wlen Algiers has fallen under the dominion of France, 

 ^oahl, perhaps, be yet worth preserving. I shall, however, confine 

 myself to i-ecounting nearly word for word, a conversation which 1 had 

 with liais Braham, wiose father was a " Turc Jin,''^ that is to say, a Turk 

 born in the Levant. 



" How is it that youconsent," 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 wthout having obtained information from the 

 women who serve in thccapacity of servants at the public baths. The 

 Jewesses are, moreover, u these cases very useful go-betweens." 

 "How many legitinmtewives have you*?" 



" I have four — that is h say, the nuuiber authorized by the Koran." 

 " Do they live together m a good understanding ?" 



