hese wild tribes would be to
incur the disaster of the Emperor Julian; to neglect their aggressions
is scarcely possible.

Algiers has at first an air of diminutiveness inferior to its fame in
ancient and modern times. It rises up from the shore like a wedge,
composed of a large mass of close-packed white houses, piled as thick on
each other as they can stand; white-terraced roofs, and without windows,
so the number of its inhabitants must be immense, in comparison to the
ground the buildings occupy--not less, perhaps, than 30,000 men. Even
from the distance we view it, the place has a singular Oriental look,
very dear to the imagination. The country around Algiers is [of] the
same hilly description with the ground on which the town is situated--a
bold hilly tract. The shores of the bay are studded with villas, and
exhibit enclosures: some used for agriculture, some for gardens, one for
a mosque, with a cemetery around it. It is said they are extremely
fertile; the first example we have seen of the exuberance of the African
soil. The villas, we are told, belong to the Consular Establishment. We
saw our own, who, if at home, put no remembrance upon us. Like the
Cambridge Professor and the elephant, "We were a paltry beast," and he
would not see us, though we drew within cannon [shot], and our fifty
36-pounders might have attracted some attention. The Moors showed their
old cruelty on a late occasion. The crews of two foreign vessels having
fallen into their hands by shipwreck, they murdered two-thirds of them
in cold blood. There are reports of a large body of French cavalry
having shown itself without the town. It is also reported by Lieutenant
Walker,[488] that the Consul hoisted, _comme de raison_, a British flag
at his country house, so our vanity is safe.

We leave Algiers and run along the same kind of heathy, cliffy, barren
reach of hills, terminating in high lines of serrated ridges, and scarce
showing an atom of cultivation, but where the mouth of a river or a
sheltering bay has encouraged the Moors to some species of
fortification.

_November_ 18.--Still we are gliding along the coast of Africa, with a
steady and unruffled gale; the weather delicious. Talk of an island of
wild goats, by name Golita; this species of deer-park is free to every
one for shooting upon--belongs probably to the Algerines or Tunisians,
whom circumstances do not permit to be very scrupulous in asserting
their right of dominion; but D