IV 



My Log 395 



to the men at the grating, — ' We commit this our 

 brother to the deep' — a slight rattle, a lighter 

 splash, and down went a man who tried to cure 

 the effects of his wife's infidelity by ship's rum. 



It is a wondrous sight to see Jack forming 

 square to resist cavalry on the quarter-deck in 

 heavy weather ; the whole square slides across the 

 deck as one man, to the immense delight of its 

 constituent party. 



Algiers, 2gth November 1863. — Although Jack 

 Frenchman has transmogrified the lower part of 

 Algiers into a French town, the upper part is still 

 utterly and totally Algerine. The town generally 

 looks as if it had been poured over the edge of 

 the hill, and had thinned and expanded a little at 

 the bottom. The effect of the new part is utterly 

 spoiled by a long row of gaping arches which are 

 being built for the Government by Peto, and are 

 intended to hold enormous quantities of the produce 

 of the country, when there is any. The place is 

 clean and smart and pretty, as most French towns 

 are, but there seems but little real traffic or business 

 going on. I cared not for the new, but busied 

 myself entirely in the old, occasionally descending 

 to get a whiff of fresh air, for the smells were really 

 appalling. The town is crowned by the Casba or 

 citadel, the palace and fortress of the Dey ; a 

 place well worth seeing, but not containing anything 

 very peculiar to describe, barring a very pretty 

 fountain with twisted columns, surmounted by a 



