was impossible to punish them. The men felt this, and, with the evident
intention of setting their officers at defiance, they spent the next few
evenings singing revolutionary songs, some verses of which they came and
yelled on their knees on the quarterdeck. The firmness of the commanding
officers got the better of these saturnalia, by degrees.

Storms delayed us in the Maltese waters, and we only just missed being
on the spot on the very day when an eruption threw up an island and a
volcano from the depths of the sea, to which they have now returned.
After a long passage, the frigate anchored at Algiers, which in 1831 was
still the city of the Deys. Not a street had been widened, nor a
European house built. It was still inhabited by a numerous native
population. The Rue de la Marine, which was like a narrow winding
staircase, was crowded with negro women street sellers, the cafes filled
with Moors wearing huge turbans. To increase the picturesqueness of the
situation, there was fighting going on at the city gates. Berthezene,
the Governor-General, had just been forced to beat a retreat from
Medeah. I could see the firing on the slopes of Kouba from the frigate,
and a column had to be sent out to revictual the Maison-Carree! Under
these circumstances, the Governor bethought himself that it would be a
good thing to show "the King's son" to the troops, and settled to hold a
review the next day. The troops were to be withdrawn for the moment from
the line of defense, and the review was to be held at Mustapha. I had
ventured to suggest that I might go and see the soldiers in their own
lines, hoping thus to get near the firing, a natural desire enough,
seeing I wore a volunteer uniform in spite of my thirteen years, but
nobody listened to me, and to Mustapha I was taken, mounted on the ex-
Dey's white mule, which an artilleryman persisted in leading by the
bridle, in spite of all my indignant protests.