We left Gibraltar at ten on Monday night, and had very calm beautiful weather for two days…. We got to Algiers [Thursday morning] about three, and it was then rough, cloudy, and blowing fresh. This is the most wretched, wicked-looking place I ever set eyes upon. I can associate its idea with nothing but a wasp’s nest. It is huddled together, leaving no apparent room for its streets; its windows are loop-holes, as if to fire through. All beyond its walls looks perfectly desolate, except a number of white specks, which are houses where the rich inhabitants retire in time of plague. The town itself is a mass of white, as perfectly white as a chalk quarry; and the monotony of the glare[96] is only relieved by the rust of weather-stains, which are not white-washed by the French so regularly as by the Moors. ‘The Quay, as every one knows, is a strong battery, expressly for the shelter of pirates; and, when one thought of the horrors that had been practised in that detestable place, and felt the personal discomfort of an approaching storm, and saw, for a foreground, the infamous tricoloured flag on the ships, the general impression was as much the reverse of favourable as can easily be fancied. A boat came alongside with the Vice-consul, for letters. His Excellency was an English Jew, and there was an half-starved Frenchman for his πάρεδρος. He was rowed by four fellows, of what race I know not…. Their features were perfect apathy, and looked like stuffed red leather more than flesh and blood. If we had touched any one of the crew we should have been in for a hundred days’ quarantine in every port of Europe, and yet the wretches had the impudence to insist on our slitting all the letters, to let out the cholera. We stayed an hour, and then started; and sure enough, the storm came. The wind was north-west, and blew right across from the Gulf of Lyons, which I shall always think more formidable than the Bay of Biscay. The wind lasted till we got under the lee of Sardinia; and what with the stink of the bilge-water, which was stirred up by the tossing, and the constant noise, and the difficulty of standing and sitting and eating and drinking, we were constantly wretched enough. My father spent the whole time in his berth; [Newman] and I the greater part of ours. But ills have their end. The sea and the stink subsided, and we made the rest of our voyage to Malta stilly and quickly, arriving there on Monday morning after breakfast. [Newman] does not think his health perceptibly improved yet,[97] but he has entirely got over sea-sickness, and has written an immense deal for the _Lyra Apostolica_.[98] He has written so many letters to his mother and sisters, that I need say no more about him. He will write to you soon. I know you will think this a very dull letter, as it is about places and not people; but we have been so little on shore, that I have not been able to indulge your taste. Kindest remembrances to