IV 



My Log 397 



scarce everywhere, and only to be got at by turning 

 out a squadron of Spahis, and having a regular 

 funcion. The zoological garden is but poor, but I 

 saw a beast, which was distinctly a cheetah or hunt- 

 ing leopard, labelled as a leopard from the interior. 

 In the Casba at Algiers I saw an old iron gun 

 doing duty as a post by the wayside ; on it was a 

 rose and E. R. 15. 



I do not think, from what I heard and saw, that 

 Algiers can be a very first-rate place for a con- 

 sumptive patient. It is flaringly, blazingly bright, 

 and there is great want of pleasant and shady walks. 

 The only garden is generally crowded by very queer 

 people indeed. Messena and Catania, the first wet 

 and the second dry alternately, are well worth 

 trying, and the scenery of both is perfectly lovely. 

 Somehow Algiers has no smack of the sea ; and 

 that tideless stewpan of a harbour can be little less 

 unwholesome than that of Naples. 



On a piece of newly macadamised road are 

 playing a troop of dirty, but gaudily-dressed little 

 French boys ; to them from a side path a long 

 line of camels and wild Arabs, at whom the little 

 boys commence ' lancing ' stones after their 

 cowardly fashion, spitefully and insolently. The 

 Arabs, though hit, take it in good part and chivy 

 the boys with their long sticks, the boys continuing 

 to shy so long as they are in reach. Nobody thinks 

 of interfering. Little French boys are the most 

 spoiled, conceited, precocious little wretches in the 



