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Updated: June 18, 2025
Ha!" continued Mariano, turning towards the little old lady, "you should have seen him, granny, in the Bagnio of Algiers, when the guards were inclined to be rather hard on some of the sick " "No, no!" interrupted the old lady, shaking her head; "don't talk of that." "Well, I won't, except to say that I'm thankful we are well out of it."
In a word, it is the aristocracy of the bagnio." "I like them. They are interesting to fathom and to know, amusing to listen to, often witty, never commonplace as the ordinary French guests. Their women are always pretty, with a little flavor of foreign knavery, with the mystery of their past existence, half of which, perhaps, spent in a House of Correction.
Whereto she answered: ''Tis this persecution by Filippello which thou hast brought upon me by the encouraging answers that thou wouldst have me give him: he now tells me that he is most earnestly desirous to know my intentions, and that, should I be so minded, he would contrive that I should have secret access to a bagnio in this city, and he is most urgent and instant that I should consent.
Not that I deem it strange your having appointed father your clerk for, in the circumstances, it would have been charity to have appointed him even to the office of shoe-black anything being better than the Bagnio, but what wild fancy induced you to make me shop-boy to a Jew?"
She left us soon after dinner, making me promise to dine with her the day after next. I passed the next day with the amiable nobleman who initiated me into the mysteries of the English bagnio, an entertainment which I shall not describe, for it is well known to all who care to spend six guineas.
Six armed soldiers were at once turned out, and with these obedient, unquestioning slaves he marched down the tortuous streets to the Bagnio. The ring procured him admittance at once, and the same talisman converted the head jailer into an obsequious servant.
Betimes at nightfall, when he was returning heart-broken at not having discovered anything at either bagnio or mosque, our man from Tarascon, in passing mansions, would hear monotonous songs, smothered twanging of guitars, thumping of tambourines, and feminine laughter-peals, which would make his heart beat. "Haply she is there!" he would say to himself.
In the midst of our conversation an undercurrent of thought kept running through my mind thus: "Who knows but they have sent a dispatch to the Union Bank of London, merely as a matter of business precaution, and that they are delaying me to get a reply? In that case I shall have a good opportunity to learn the pure French accent while passing my days in the Bagnio at Toulon."
"I went to the bagnio about ten o'clock. It was already full of women. It is built of stone, in the shape of a dome, with no windows but in the roof, which gives light enough, There were five of these domes joined together, the outmost being less than the rest, and serving only as a hall, where the portress stood at the door.
Before I left the city I went into a bagnio, here I caused my beard and eyebrows to be shaved, and put on a calender's habit. I began my journey, not so much deploring my own miseries, as the death of the two fair princesses, of which I have been the occasion.
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