o depart,
and to go with our ship wherever we chose. What was the cause of this
sudden change? It was this.

During our quarantine in the windmill at Rosas, I had written, in the
name of Captain Braham, a letter to the Dey of Algiers. I gave him an
account of the illegal arrest of his vessel, and of the death of one of
the lions which the Dey had sent to the Emperor. This last circumstance
transported the African monarch with rage. He sent immediately for the
Spanish Consul, M. Onis, claimed pecuniary damages for his dear lion,
and threatened war if his ship was not released directly. Spain had then
to do with too many difficulties to undertake wantonly any new ones, and
the order to release the vessel so anxiously coveted arrived at Girone,
and from thence at Palamos.

This solution, to which our Consul at Algiers, M. Dubois Thainville, had
not remained inattentive, reached us at the moment when we least
expected it. We at once made preparations for our departure, and on the
28th of November, 1808, we set sail, steering for Marseilles; but, as
the Mussulmen on board the vessel declared, it was written above that we
should not enter that town. We could already perceive the white
buildings which crown the neighbouring hills of Marseilles, when a gust
of the "mistral," of great violence, sent us from the north towards the
south.

I do not know what route we followed, for I was lying in my cabin,
overcome with sea-sickness; I may therefore, though an astronomer, avow
without shame, that at the moment when our unqualified pilots supposed
themselves to be off the Baleares, we landed, on the 5th of December,
at Bougie.

There, they pretended that during the three months of winter, all
communication with Algiers, by means of the little boats named
_sandalis_, would be impossible, and I resigned myself to the painful
prospect of so long a stay in a place at that time almost a desert. One
evening I was making these sad reflections while pacing the deck of the
vessel, when a shot from a gun on the coast came and struck the side
planks close to which I was passing. This suggested to me the thought of
going to Algiers by land.

I went next day, accompanied by M. Berthemie and Captain Spiro
Calligero, to the Caid of the town: "I wish," said I to him, "to go to
Algiers by land." The man, quite frightened, exclaimed, "I cannot allow
you to do so; you would certainly be killed on the road; your Consul
would make a complaint to t