continual threats might endanger him, (for they had no support beyond
his mere animal courage,) we had wished to render him expert in the
handling of arms by giving him some lessons in fencing; but he could not
endure the idea that Christians should touch him 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 I mention that,
having one day heard a pistol-shot, the sound of which proceeded from
his room, people ran, and found him bathed in his blood; he had just
shot off a ball into his arm to cure himself of a rheumatic pain.

Seeing with what facility the Deys disappeared, I said one day to our
janissary, "With this prospect before your eyes, would you consent to
become Dey?" "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 consular 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 mistake;
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 half a century.
This man, of exemplary virtue, had devoted himself with admirable
self-denial to the service of the slaves of the Regency, and had
divested himself of all considerations of nationality;--the Portuguese,
Neapolitans, Sicilians, all were equally his brethren.