I came to an open place by and by, a tiny square which proved to be a kind of second-hand market-place. I altered all my standards of economy there in a few minutes. They were selling things that the poorest family of the East Side of New York would pitch into the garbage-barrel. Broken bottles, tin cans, wretched bits of clothing, cracked clay water-jars that only cost a few cents new. I had bought a new one myself as I came along for eight cents. I began to feel a deep regret that I had not waited. Adjoining the market was a gaming-place and coffee-house combined. Men squatting on the ground in the dusk played dominoes and chess wordlessly, never looking up, only sipping their coffee now and then, wholly indifferent to time and change and death and the hereafter. I could have watched them longer, but it would really be dark presently, and one must reach the ship by a certain hour. One could hardly get lost in the Arab quarter, for any downhill stair takes you toward the sea, but I did not know by which I had come, so I took the first one and started down. I walked pretty rapidly, and I looked over my shoulder now and then, because--well, never mind, I looked over my shoulder--and I would have been glad to see anything that looked like a Christian. Presently I felt that somebody was following me. I took a casual look and made up my mind that it was true. There were quantities of smoking, drinking people all about, but I didn't feel any safer for that. I stepped aside presently and stood still to let him pass. He did pass--a sinister looking Arab--but when I started on he stepped aside too, and got behind me again. So I stopped and let him pass once more, and then it wasn't necessary to manoeuvre again, for a few yards ahead the narrow Arab defile flowed into the lighter French thoroughfare. He was only a pick-pocket, perhaps--there are said to be a good many in Algiers--but he was not a pleasant-looking person, and I did not care to cultivate him at nightfall in that dim, time-forgotten place. I picked up some friends in the French quarter, and Laura and I drifted toward the ship, pressed by a gay crowd of merry-makers. It was carnival-time, as before mentioned, and the air was full of confetti, and the open-air cafés were crowded with persons of both sexes and every nation, drinking, smoking, and chattering, the air reeking with tobacco and the fumes of absinthe. Everywhere were the red and blue soldiers of France--Chasseurs d'Afrique and Zouaves--everywhere the fashionable French costumes--everywhere the French tongue. And amid that fashion and gayety of the West the fez and the turban and the long flowing robe of the Orient mingled silently, while here and there little groups of elderly, dignified sons of the desert stood in quiet corners, observing and thinking long thoughts. And this is the Algiers of to-day--the West dominant--the East a memory and a dream. XII WE TOUCH AT GENOA