ACRES OF WIDE-AWAKES NESTING ON ASCENSION ISLAND These birds breed four times in three years, on the clinker plains of this barren volcanic landspot in the South Atlantic. During the nesting season thousands of dozens of edible eggs can be gathered each week (see text, page 199). twenty miles of westing are not made in a week, and it is only by the industrious use of every squall and slant of wind that the passage can be made." On August 7 I stood out to sea on the last and longest run of the voyage and what proved to be the most difficult part of all. A light northerly wind carried us out of Panama Bay, and I passed Cape Mala at noon on the second day. Here I parted company with the stream of steam traffic passing through the Panama Canal and bore away to the southwest alone. Down through the region of rain squalls and calms the Islander edged her way to west and south until she came out into the southeast trade winds in latitude 3° 43′ N. In the trades a westerly course was kept to longitude 110° W., a distance of some 1,800 miles to westward of Panama; then, bearing away to the northwest, I passed through the doldrums and into the northeast trade winds. Continuing on into the northwest, I passed out of the northeast trade winds, and then, in latitude 30° N., when about 600 miles offshore, a north wind came up and I stood in for the California coast and home. Eighty-five days is a long time to be alone on the sea, but I bore it well. Nor was it so monotonous as one might suppose. During the long passage through the doldrums, a day never passed without some excitement being occasioned by the squalls. The study of the weather, when one is depending on the wind, is a subject of never-ending interest, and one watches the approach of the last of a thousand rain squalls with as much interest as the first. No part of the sea was so full of life as this. For more than a month a vast school of albacore and dolphins accompanied the Islander on her course. night they appeared as great luminous wings stretching far on either side of the boat. In calm weather great numbers of turtles were seen floating lazily on the surface. There was a continuous flight of flying fishes striving to escape from the dolphins and albacore, often to be caught by the gannets and man-of-war birds that were always circling about. Down in this part of the ocean I met with a squid similar to the flying or leaping squid of the Indian Ocean (see text, page 187), and often I would find more of these squid than flying fish on deck in the morning. The dolphins swam close alongside, their dorsal fins cutting the surface. One of these I caught with the gaff hook and landed him in the cockpit, where he lay, a streak of gleaming silver dotted over with spots of brightest blue; a moment later he had turned to a golden color and the spots were brown. I made a spear out of a copper rod and caught several more. Of albacore I could have taken a shipload. TWO COMPANIONS FROM THE SKY JOIN THE SHIP Two gannets came and took up their residence on board. On account of their colors, I named one Blue Bill and the other Yellow Bill. I drove them far aft, where each chose a roosting place which he seemed to recognize as his own. They spent the greater part of their time preening their feathers, but went off several times a day for fish. Blue Bill was very quarrelsome, and I kept a stick handy with which to join in when he made an attack on Yellow Bill. The birds always sighted a shark before I did, and I usually became aware of the presence of one of these scavengers through the actions of my feathered companions. From long drifting in tropical waters the bottom of the Islander became so foul with sea barnacles that her sailing was very much impeded. When I was becalmed I went over the side and cleaned them off with a scraper made from a block of hard wood on a bamboo handle. At last I was clear of the steamy doldrums and sailed on through the trades. As the weather became cooler and the flying fish grew scarce, first Yellow Bill and then Blue Bill deserted. San Clemente was sighted and on October 31, 1925, I cast anchor in Los Angeles harbor, after an absence of three years eleven months and thirteen days, during which the Islander had cruised around the world. BY LIEUT. COL. GORDON CASSERLY AUTHOR OF "TRIPOLITANIA, WHERE ROME RESUMES SWAY," IN THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE T HE long, sweeping curve of a crescent streets, where the broad sidewalks shelter bay-the storied Bay of under arcades, of shady squares where Algiers here fringed with yellow sand, there, at one end, edged with gleaming black rocks, and everywhere backed by the steep slopes of a semicircular chain of low hills rising abruptly from the water's edge and crowned with white villas in verdant gardens flaming with Bougainvillea and poinsettia. Behind the hills lies the narrow, fertile plain of the Mitidja, in springtime blazing with the varied hues of wild flowers, the yellow of oranges, the green of cornfield and vineyard. Towering above the plain in rugged grandeur the mighty chain of the Atlas Mountains, seeming, like the mythological giant whose name they bear, to support the heavens on their snow-clad shoulders. And the clouds gather round their peaks and leave the sky clear and blue, almost as blue as the waters of the Mediterranean below. At one end of the bay are the spacious harbor, the busy wharves, and the terraced houses of a white city climbing to the hilltop. Algiers, the White City! Its story runs from Hercules and the Golden Apples of the Hesperides through the forgotten chronicles of Numidian, Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Arab, and Turk to the last of the Bourbon kings, to Napoleon III, and the French Republic. Not a century ago it was the haunt and headquarters of the cruelest, most bloodthirsty pirates that the world has ever seen; to-day it is a bright and beautiful city of modern France. Alongside its quays lie great steamers being loaded with the produce of a bountiful land; its wharves are piled high with cask and case. Immediately over them rises a high, clifflike wall pierced with caves-merchants' warehouses and offices in vaults. Along the summit of this wall stretches the beautiful Boulevard de la République, the beginning of a quarter that might rival the best bit of Paris between the Opéra and the Seine, a quarter of well-built white mosques front busy cafés and palm trees wave above the electric trams that link the town with the suburbs stretching around the curving bay (see pp. 225-226). This is the quarter of theaters, hotels, WHERE ALL ONCE WATCHED FOR THE But a short distance back from the seaward wall the level ceases and the gayly colored, crowded houses climb on each other's shoulders up the steep hillside, as if striving to look over their neighbors' heads out to sea. Here is the native quarter, and in it dwelt the pirate population that lived by bloody crime on the face of the waters. Every being in it-man, woman, and child, Moorish pasha and Christian slavehad a personal interest in watching each sail that lifted above the distant horizon. It might be an Algerine rover loaded with plunder and chained captives. It might be the herald of a Frankish fleet coming to batter down the pirate stronghold and set free the wretched slaves. The flat roof of every house, then, must show its occupants the coming ship that might be friend or foe. It might bear the master of the household back enriched with spoils to deck his wives with additional jewels. It might bring the news of his death in battle-news that would scatter those wives to other harems or, if youth and beauty had deserted them, to the slave market or the beggar's corner. Upward and still upward, house tops house, until one comes to the Kasba, once the palace-fortress of the Dey, the tyrant of Algiers, who claimed his share of the booty that each murderous seawolf brought home, whether it were plunder THE BAY OF ALGIERS WAS ONCE THE LAIR OF CORSAIR For three hundred years the very name of Algiers sufficed to bring consternation to the hearts of Mediterranean travelers. Its pirates continued to exact tribute from European shipping until finally subdued by the French less than a century ago. OLD AND NEW ARE STRANGELY BLENDED IN THIS TERRACED WHITE CITY Beyond the series of great modern boulevards which rise from the busy water front of Algiers, there are sections of the one time capital of the Deys which still suggest, in custom and in costume, the time and clime of the "Arabian Nights." BY LIEUT. COL. GORDON CASSERLY AUTHOR OF "TRIPOLITANIA, WHERE ROME RESUMES SWAY," IN THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE T HE long, sweeping curve of a crescent streets, where the broad sidewalks shelter shady bay--the storied Bay of under arcades, of squares where Algiers-here fringed with yellow sand, there, at one end, edged with gleaming black rocks, and everywhere backed by the steep slopes of a semicircular chain of low hills rising abruptly from the water's edge and crowned with white villas in verdant gardens flaming with Bougainvillea and poinsettia. Behind the hills lies the narrow, fertile plain of the Mitidja, in springtime blazing with the varied hues of wild flowers, the yellow of oranges, the green of cornfield and vineyard. Towering above the plain in rugged. grandeur the mighty chain of the Atlas Mountains, seeming, like the mythological giant whose name they bear, to support the heavens on their snow-clad shoulders. And the clouds gather round their peaks and leave the sky clear and blue, almost as blue as the waters of the Mediterranean below. At one end of the bay are the spacious harbor, the busy wharves, and the terraced houses of a white city climbing to the hilltop. Algiers, the White City! Its story runs from Hercules and the Golden Apples of the Hesperides through the forgotten chronicles of Numidian, Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Arab, and Turk to the last of the Bourbon kings, to Napoleon III, and the French Republic. Not a century ago it was the haunt and headquarters of the cruelest, most bloodthirsty pirates that the world has ever seen; to-day it is a bright and beautiful city of modern France. Alongside its quays lie great steamers being loaded with the produce of a bountiful land; its wharves are piled high with cask and case. Immediately over them rises a high, clifflike wall pierced with caves merchants' warehouses and offices in vaults. Along the summit of this wall stretches the beautiful Boulevard de la République, the beginning of a quarter that might rival the best bit of Paris between the Opéra and the Seine, a quarter of well-built white mosques front busy cafés and palm trees wave above the electric trams that link the town with the suburbs stretching around the curving bay (see pp. 225-226). This is the quarter of theaters, hotels, and commercial offices, of attractive shops, of crowded streets where automobile and electric tram dispute the right of way with. five-horsed carts. Well-dressed European men and short-skirted, silk-stockinged French girls pass veiled women and stately Arabs in flowing burnooses. WHERE ALL ONCE WATCHED FOR THE But a short distance back from the seaward wall the level ceases and the gayly colored, crowded houses climb on each other's shoulders up the steep hillside, as if striving to look over their neighbors' heads out to sea. Here is the native quarter, and in it dwelt the pirate population that lived by bloody crime on the face of the waters. Every being in it-man, woman, and child, Moorish pasha and Christian slavehad a personal interest in watching each sail that lifted above the distant horizon. It might be an Algerine rover loaded with plunder and chained captives. It might be the herald of a Frankish fleet coming to batter down the pirate stronghold and set free the wretched slaves. The flat roof of every house, then, must show its occupants the coming ship that might be friend or foe. It might bear the master of the household back enriched with spoils to deck his wives with additional jewels. It might bring the news of his death in battle-news that would scatter those wives to other harems or, if youth and beauty had deserted them, to the slave market or the beggar's corner. Upward and still upward, house tops house, until one comes to the Kasba, once the palace-fortress of the Dey, the tyrant of Algiers, who claimed his share of the booty that each murderous seawolf brought home, whether it were plunder |