The next day, accompanied by five other marines, with that almost uncontrollable desire for pleasure and excitement known only by the men who undergo the rigid discipline of the navy, I boarded a sampan and was sculled ashore, where numerous guides, always in evidence in foreign ports, offered to conduct us through the labyrinths of gayety. Waving aside these pests, we ascended the stone steps leading to the plaza overlooking the bay and a grand boulevard. This plaza was thronged with pedestrians and equipages of the civic and military, French and Moorish officers, gendarmes, tourists, fakirs, fortune-tellers, Bedouins, and beggars, commingled, forming a most cosmopolitan scene. Seeking an exchange, we converted some money into centimes, sous, francs, and napoleons, and, after purchasing some relics from the bazaars, engaged landaus and proceeded to see the sights of this quaint African city. Arabs, Moors, Spaniards, Jews, French, Germans, Maltese, and Italians――in fact, every nationality extant――seem to be represented here. The City of Algiers was built about 935 A.D., was poorly governed by a long succession of Turkish deys, and fell under the yoke of French rule in 1830, obliterating the despotism which had long existed. The Boulevards, beautifully adorned with arcades and lined on either side with orange and lime trees, are the scenes of magnificent equipages drawn by blooded Arabian horses. The heat, though at times intense, is mitigated by a delightful cool sea-breeze. The principal places of interest are the French bazaars, the Catholic cathedral, the hot baths of Hammam Phira, the marketplace, casino, public bath, coffee-houses, theatres, bank, quarters of the soldiers of the foreign legion, the Moulin Rouge, identical with the famous “Red Mill” of Paris, where “birds of a feather flock together,” and where _L’amour et la fumee ne peuvent se cacher_. Discharging our landaus, we journeyed through the Rue Bab Azoun, passing here and there groups of French and Moorish soldiers, and occasionally brushing against women of the true faith, whose veils hide many a beautiful face. In the cabarets or cafés which line the plazas, French soldiers can frequently be heard singing the national air of France, the “Marseillaise.” The cosmopolites who comprise the foreign legion are an interesting body of soldiers, representing all nations, but serving under the dominion of the French government. Entering a cabaret where a game of roulette was in progress, we marines took a chance on the roll of the ivory ball, in which some of the party increased their wealth considerably. About every fourth turn of the ball, wine was dispensed. I had been very lucky in my play, having several times picked the number, column, and color at the same time, to the great disgust of the croupier, whose radiant smile beams only when the wheel wins.