house on one street and descend from one basement to another and find yourself on the top floor of a house on another street. That cannot be done in any other city. Some of the old streets are only six feet wide, the doors in the houses being very heavy and studded thickly with large iron bolts. The windows are high from the ground and only twenty inches square, with heavy iron bars, the whole place resembling a strong prison. The new part of the city is quite modern in construction. The French introduced new ideas when they captured the country. The French Government took the coal from our vessel as they needed it. They were paying one hundred dollars a day for the time the ship was detained in the harbour. One day I was sitting on the edge of the fore-hatch, cleaning a brace-block, when suddenly my work ceased, and I was laid up for a week. A man was aloft, tightening the truss bolts on the foretop-sail yard. He had a small iron bar which he was using at the work. Contrary to all rules, he neglected to fasten it with a lanyard. He had difficulty in turning the bolt with his hands, so he reversed the operation by holding to the rigging with both hands and pushing the iron bar with his feet. It was a success, so far as he was concerned. The bolt went around, the bar slipped out, and, whirling through the air, fetched me a whack on the side of the head. The mate gave him a good cursing for his carelessness. I was picked up, my head dressed, and was nicely tucked away in my little bed. In about ten weeks' time the coal was all discharged, the ship cleaned up, and one hundred tons of stone ballast taken on board. We left Algiers, and commenced our voyage for New Orleans. We had pleasant weather while in the Mediterranean Sea. A couple of days after leaving port, a large Swedish sailor and myself were taken sick--headache and fever--then pustules commenced to appear on our faces and hands. We all knew what that meant. It was smallpox. At first the captain intended to put us in the lower hold, but, as our vaccination marks showed very plainly, he waited for further developments. The fresh sea air and plain style of living were in our favour; varioloid was all the disease amounted to. The rest of the crew were a badly scared lot of men for a few days.