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 the Dey, and I should have my head cut off.”

“Fear not on that ground.  I will give you an acquittance.”

It was immediately drawn up in these terms:  “We, the undersigned, certify that the Caid of Bougie wished to dissuade us from going to Algiers by land; that he has assured us that we shall be massacred on the road; that notwithstanding his representations, reiterated twenty times, we have persisted in our project.  We beg the Algerine authorities, particularly our Consul, not to make him responsible for this event if it should occur.  We once more repeat, that the voyage has been undertaken against his will.

     Signed:  ARAGO and BERTHEMIE.”

Having given this declaration to the Caid, we considered ourselves quit of this functionary; but he came up to me, undid, without saying a word, the knot of my cravat, took it off, and put it into his pocket.  All this was done so quickly that I had not time, I will add that I had not even the wish, to reclaim it.

At the conclusion of this audience, which had terminated in so singular a manner, we made a bargain with a Mahomedan priest, who promised to conduct us to Algiers for the sum of twenty “piastres fortes,” and a red mantle.  The day was occupied in disguising ourselves well or ill, and we set out the next morning, accompanied by several Moorish sailors belonging to the crew of the ship, after having shown the Mahomedan priest that we had nothing with us worth a sou, so that if we were killed on the road he would inevitably lose all reward.

I went, at the last moment, to make my bow to the only lion that was still alive, and with whom I had lived in very good harmony; I wished also to say good-bye to the monkeys, who during nearly five months had been equally my companions in misfortune.[4] These monkeys during our frightful misery had rendered us a service which I scarcely dare mention, and which will scarcely be guessed by the inhabitants of our cities, who look upon these animals as objects of diversion; they freed us from the vermin which infested us, and showed particularly a remarkable cleverness in seeking out the hideous insects which lodged themselves in our hair.