The Story of the Barbary Corsairs Part 8

The age of the great Corsairs may be said to have ended with the battle of Lepanto, which sounded the knell of the naval supremacy of the Ottomans. It is true that they seemed to have lost little by Don John's famous victory; their beard was shorn, they admitted, but it soon grew again:--their fleet was speedily repaired, and the Venetians sued for peace. But they had lost something more precious to them than ships or men: their prestige was gone. The powers of Christendom no longer dreaded to meet the invincible Turk, for they had beaten him once, and would beat him again. Rarely after this did an Ottoman fleet sail proudly to work its devastating way along the coasts of Italy.

Small raids there might be, but seldom a great adventure such as Barbarossa or Sinan led. Crete might be besieged for years; but the Venetians, pressed by land, nevertheless shattered the Turkish ships off the coast. Damad 'Ali might recover the Morea, and victoriously surround the sh.o.r.es of Greece with his hundred sail; but he would not venture to threaten Venice, to lay siege to Nice, to harry Naples, or attack Malta. The Turks had enough to do to hold their own in the Black Sea against the encroaching forces of Russia.

Deprived of the protection which the prestige of the Turks had afforded, the Barbary Corsairs degenerated into petty pirates. They continued to waylay Christian cargoes, to ravish Christian villages, and carry off mult.i.tudes of captives; but their depredations were not on the same grand scale, they robbed by stealth, and never invited a contest with ships of war. If caught, they would fight; but their aim was plunder, and they had no fancy for broken bones gained out of mere ambition of conquest.

Ochiali was the last of the great Corsairs. He it was who, on his return to Constantinople after the fatal October 7, 1571, cheered the Sultan with the promise of revenge, was made Captain-Pasha, and sailed from the Bosphorus the following year with a fleet of two hundred and thirty vessels, just as though Lepanto had never been fought and lost.

He sought for the Christian fleets, but could not induce them to offer battle. His operations in 1574 were limited to the recapture of Tunis, which Don John had restored to Spain in 1573. With two hundred and fifty galleys, ten _mahons_ or gallea.s.ses, and thirty caramuzels, and supported by the Algerine squadron under Ahmed Pasha, Ochiali laid siege to the Goletta, which had owned a Spanish garrison ever since the conquest by Charles V. in 1535. Cervellon defended the fort till he had but a handful of men, and finally surrendered at discretion.

Then Ochiali disappeared from the western seas; he fought for his master in the Euxine during the Persian War, and died in 1580, aged seventy-two, with the reputation of the most powerful admiral that had ever held sway in the Golden Horn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TUNIS IN 1573.

(_From a Map in the British Museum._)]

We have not closely followed the succession of the Pashas or Beglerbegs of Algiers, because more important affairs absorbed the whole energies of the Turkish galleys, and the rulers on land had little of consequence to do. Ochiali was the seventeenth pasha of Algiers, but of his predecessors, after the deaths of Uruj and Kheyr-ed-din Barbarossa, few attained special eminence. Hasan the son of Barbarossa took part in the siege of Malta, Salih Res conquered Fez and Bujeya; but the rest were chiefly occupied with repressing internal dissensions, fighting with their neighbours, and organizing small piratical expeditions. After Ochiali had been called to Stambol as Captain-Pasha, in 1572, when he had been Pasha of Algiers for four years, nine governors succeeded one another in twenty-four years. At first they were generally renegades: Ramadan the Sardinian (1574-7), Hasan the Venetian (1577-80 and 1582-3), Ja'far the Hungarian (1580-2), and Memi the Albanian (1583-6), followed one another, and (with the exception of the Venetian) proved to be wise, just, and clement rulers. Then the too usual practice was adopted of allotting the province to the highest bidder, and rich but incompetent or rascally Turks bought the reversion of the Pashalik.

The reign of the renegades was over; the Turks kept the government in their own hands, and the _role_ of the ex-Christian adventurers was confined to the minor but more enterprising duties of a Corsair res or the "general of the galleys." The Pashas, and afterwards the Deys, with occasional exceptions, gave up commanding piratical expeditions, and the interest of the history now turns upon the captains of galleys.

Piracy without and bloodshed and anarchy within form the staple of the records. Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers showed very similar symptoms.

Tripoli was the least powerful, and therefore the least injurious; Algiers dominated the Western Mediterranean and to a considerable extent the Atlantic; Tunis, less venturesome, but still formidable, infested the Eastern Mediterranean, and made the pa.s.sage of Malta and the Adriatic its special hunting grounds. At Tunis thirty Deys, appointed by the Sublime Porte, succeeded one another from 1590 to 1705--giving each an average reign of less than four years. Most of them were deposed, many murdered, and one is related on credible authority to have been torn to pieces and devoured by the enraged populace. In 1705 the soldiery, following the example of Algiers, elected their own governor, and called him Bey; and the Porte was obliged to acquiesce. Eleven Beys followed one another, up to the French "protectorate." The external history of these three centuries is made up of lawless piracy and the levying of blackmail from most of the trading powers of Europe, accompanied by acts of insufferable insolence towards the foreign representatives; all of which was accepted submissively by kings and governments, insomuch that William III. treated a flagrant Corsair, 'Ali Res, who had become Dey, with the courtesy due to a monarch, and signed himself his "loving friend."

The earliest English treaty with Tunis was dated 1662; many more followed, and all were about equally inefficacious. Civil anarchy, quarrels with France, and wars with Algiers, generally stopped "by order" of the helpless Porte, fill up the details of this uninteresting canvas.

Precisely the same picture is afforded by the modern annals of Algiers. Take the Deys at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Hasan Chawush was deposed in 1700, and succeeded by the Aga of the Sipahis, Mustafa, nicknamed _Bogotillos_ or "Whiskerandos," who, though something of a coward, engaged in two successful campaigns against Tunis and one with Morocco, until he had the misfortune to find the bow-string round his throat in 1706. Uzeyn Khoja followed, and Oran fell during his one year's reign, after which he was banished to the mountains, and died. Bektash Khoja, the next Dey, was murdered on his judgment-seat in the third year of his reign. A fifth Dey, Ibrahim Deli, or "the Fool," made himself so hated by his unconscionable licentiousness that he was a.s.sa.s.sinated, and his mutilated body exposed in the street, within a few months, and 'Ali, who succeeded in 1710, by murdering some three thousand Turks, contrived to reign eight years, and by some mistake died in his bed.

The kingdom of Morocco is not strictly a Barbary state, and its history does not belong to this volume Nevertheless, the operations of the Morocco pirates outside the Straits of Gibraltar so closely resemble those of the Algerine Corsairs within, that a few words about them will not be out of place. At one time Tetwan, within the Straits, in spite of its exposed haven, was a famous place for rovers, but its prosperity was destroyed by Philip II. in 1564. Ceuta was always semi-European, half Genoese, then Portuguese (1415), and finally Spanish (1570 to this day). Tangiers, as the dowry of Charles II.'s Queen, Catherine of Portugal, was for some time English territory. Spanish forts at Penon de Velez de la Gomera and Alhucemas, and Portuguese garrisons, repressed piracy in their vicinity; and in later times Sale was perhaps the only port in Morocco that sent forth buccaneers. Reefs of rocks and drifts of sand render the west coast unsuitable for anchorage, and the roads are unsafe when the wind is in the south-west. Consequently the piracy of Sale, though notorious and dreaded by merchantmen, was on a small scale; large vessels could not enter the harbour, and two-hundred-ton ships had to be lightened before they could pa.s.s the bar. The cruisers of Sale were therefore built very light and small, with which they did not dare to attack considerable and well-armed ships. Indeed, Capt.

Delgarno and his twenty-gun frigate so terrified the Sale rovers, that they never ventured forth while he was about, and mothers used to quiet naughty children by saying that Delgarno was coming for them, just as Napoleon and "Malbrouk" were used as bugbears in England and France. There was not a single full-sized galley at Sale in 1634, and accounts a hundred years later agree that the Sale rovers had but insignificant vessels, and very few of them, while their docks were practically disused, in spite of abundance of timber.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century there seems to have been an increase in the depredations of the Sale pirates, which probably earned them their exaggerated reputation. At that time they had vessels of thirty and thirty-six guns, but unwieldy and badly built, with which they captured Provencal ships and did considerable mischief, till the Chevalier Acton in 1773, with a single Tuscan frigate, destroyed three out of their five ships. About 1788 the whole Morocco navy consisted of six or eight frigates of two hundred tons, armed with fourteen to eighteen six-pounders, and some galleys. The rovers of Sale formed at one time a sort of republic of pirates, paying the emperor a t.i.the of prize-money and slaves, in return for non-interference; but gradually the Government absorbed most of the profits, and the trade declined, till the emperors, in return for rich presents, concluded treaties with the chief maritime Powers, and to a large extent suppressed piracy.[51]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SALE IN 1637.

(_From a Map in the British Museum._)]

Turning from the monotonous records of internal barbarism, the more adventurous side of Algerine history claims a brief notice. Among the captains who continued to make the name of Corsair terrible to Christian ears, Murad Res holds the foremost place; indeed, he belongs to the order of great Corsairs. There were several of the name, and this Murad was distinguished as the Great Murad. He was an Arnaut or Albanian, who was captured by an Algerine pirate at the age of twelve, and early showed a turn for adventure. When his patron was engaged at the siege of Malta in 1565, young Murad gave him the slip, and went on a private cruise of his own, in which he contrived to split his galleot upon a rock. Undeterred by this misadventure, as soon as he got back to Algiers he set out in a brigantine of fifteen banks, and speedily brought back three Spanish prizes and one hundred and forty Christians. He was with Ochiali when that eminent rover seized Saint-Clement's galleys, and was with difficulty restrained from antic.i.p.ating his admiral in boarding the _St. Ann_. He soon gained the reputation of a Corsair of the first water, and "a person, who, for our sins, did more harm to the Christians than any other." In 1578, while cruising about the Calabrian coast with eight galleots in search of prey, he sighted the _Capitana_ of Sicily and a consort, with the Duke of Tierra Nuova and his retinue on board. After a hot pursuit the consort was caught at sea; the flagship ran on sh.o.r.e; the Duke and all the ship's company deserted her; and the beautiful vessel was safely brought into Algiers harbour. In 1585 Murad ventured out into the Atlantic out of sight of land, which no Algerine had ever dared to do before, and picking up a reinforcement of small brigantines at Sale, descended at daybreak upon Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, sacked the town without opposition, and carried off the governor's family and three hundred captives. This done, he unblushingly ran up a flag of truce, and permitted the Count and the chief families to come on board and buy back their relations. In 1589, after picking up a stray trader or two, he fell in with _La Serena_, a galley of Malta, which had a Turkish prize in tow. Far from shirking a conflict with so formidable an antagonist, Murad gave hot pursuit with his single galleot, and coming up with the _Serena_, boarded and mastered her in half an hour.

Then, after stopping to arrest the misdoings of a Majorcan pirate, who was poaching on his own private manor, the Corsair carried his prizes into Algiers, where he was honourably mounted on the Pasha's own horse and escorted in triumph to the Palace by a guard of Janissaries. In 1594, when he had attained the dignity of "General of the Algerine Galleys," Murad, with four galleots, encountered two Tuscan galleys off Tripoli; lowering the masts of two of his galleots, so that they should escape observation, he towed them behind the other two, and when the Tuscans had drawn near in full expectation of a couple of prizes, he loosed the vessels astern, and with all four bore down upon the enemy; both galleys were taken, and the Florentine knights and soldiers were chained to the oars in place of the Turks who had lately sat there.[52]

No more typical example of the later sort of pirate can be cited than 'Ali Pichinin, General of the Galleys and galleons of Algiers in the middle of the seventeenth century. This notable slaver, without Barbarossa's ambition or n.o.bility, possessed much of his daring and seamanship. In 1638, emboldened by the successes of the Sultan Murad IV. against the Persians, 'Ali put to sea, and, picking up some Tunisian galleys at Bizerta, set sail with a squadron of sixteen for the east coast of Italy. He sacked the district of Nicotra in Apulia, carrying off great spoils and many captives, not sparing even nuns; and then scoured the Adriatic, took a ship in sight of Cattaro, and picked up every stray vessel that could be found.

Upon this a strong Venetian squadron, under Marino Capello, sallied forth, and compelled the Corsairs to seek shelter under the guns of the Turkish fortress of Valona in Albania. In spite of the peace then subsisting between Venice and the Porte, Capello attacked, and the fortress naturally defended, the refugees. The Corsairs were obliged to land, and then Capello, carried away by his zeal, and in contravention of his orders, sent in his galleots and, after a sharp struggle, towed away the whole Barbary squadron, leaving 'Ali and his unlucky followers amazed upon the beach. For this bold stroke Capello was severely reprimanded by the Senate, and the Porte was consoled for the breach of treaty by a _douceur_ of five hundred thousand ducats: but meanwhile the better part of the Algerine galley-fleet had ceased to exist, and owners and captains were bankrupt. It was small consolation that in the same summer an expedition to the north, piloted by a renegade from Iceland, brought back eight hundred of his unfortunate countrymen to exchange the cold of their native land for the bagnios of Algiers.

In 1641, however, the Corsairs had recovered from their losses, and 'Ali Pichinin could boast a fleet of at least sixty-five vessels, as we have it on the authority of Emanuel d'Aranda, who was his slave at the time. The wealth and power of the General of the Galleys were then at their zenith. Six hundred slaves were nightly locked up in his prison, which afterwards was known as the Khan of 'Ali Pichinin, and in Morgan's time was noted for its grape vines, which covered the walls and fringed the windows with the luscious fruit up to the top storey. The son of a renegade himself, he liked not that his followers should turn Turk upon his hands; which "was but picking his pocket of so much money to give a disciple to Mohammed, for whom he was remarked to have no extraordinary veneration. He had actually cudgelled a Frenchmen out of the name of Mustafa (which he had a.s.sumed with a Turkish dress) into that of John, which he would fain have renounced.

His farms and garden-houses were also under the directions of his own Christians. I have heard much discourse of an entertainment he once made, at his garden, for all the chief Armadores and Corsairs, at which the Pasha was also a guest, but found his own victuals, as fearing some foul play; nothing of which is ill taken among the Turks.

All was dressed at town in the general's own kitchen, and pa.s.sed along from hand to hand by his slaves up to the garden-house, above two miles' distant, where as much of the victuals as got safe thither arrived smoking hot, as they tell the story."[53] A good part, however, disappeared on the road, since, in Corsair's phrase, "the Christian slaves wore hooks on their fingers," and the guests went nigh to be starved. 'Ali's plan for feeding his slaves was characteristic. He gave them no loaves as others did, but told them they were indeed a sorry set of scoundrels, unworthy of the name of slaves, if, during the two or three hours of liberty they enjoyed before sunset, they could not find enough to keep them for a day. His bagnios used to be regular auction-rooms for stolen goods, and were besieged by indignant victims, who were reproached for their carelessness, and made to re-purchase their own valuables: in fine, 'Ali Pichinin "has the honour of having trained up the cleanest set of thieves that were anywhere to be met with." Once a slave found a costly ring of the general's, and restored to him without price: for which "unseasonable piece of honesty" 'Ali gave him half a ducat, and called him a fool for his pains; the ring was worth his ransom.

Another time, a slave bargained to sell to an ironmaster the general's anchor from out of his own galley: when discovered, he was commended for his enterprising spirit, and told he was fit to be a slave, since he knew how to gain his living. This slave-dealer had a genius for wheedling the truth out of captives; he was so civil and sympathizing when a new prize was caught, so ready with his "Count" and "my lord" to plain gentlemen, and his "your Eminence" to simple clergymen, that they soon confided in him, revealed their rank, and had their ransom fixed: but, to do him justice, he kept his word, and once promised the release was certain: "My word is my word," he would say.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGHT OF THE "MARY ROSE" WITH ALGERINE PIRATES, 1669.

(_Ogilby's Africa, 1670._)]

He was a man of very free views in religion. Once he asked a Genoese priest to tell him candidly what would become of him; "frankly," said Father Angelo, "I am persuaded that the devil will have you;" and the response was cheerfully accepted. Another time it was a devout Moslem sheykh who begged 'Ali to give him a Christian slave to kill, as he did not feel that he had offered any sufficiently pleasing sacrifice to the prophet Mohammed. 'Ali unchained the stroke-oar of his galley, a muscular Spaniard, and armed him at all points, and sent him to be killed by the holy man. "This Christian," shrieked the good sheykh, running as hard as he could, "looks as if he rather wanted to kill me than to be killed himself." "So is it," said 'Ali, "that you are to merit the prophet's favour. Thus it is that Christians are to be sacrificed. Mohammed was a brave, generous man, and never thought it any service done him to slaughter those who were not able to defend themselves. Go; get yourself better instructed in the meaning of the Koran." He was a thorough Corsair, with the rough code of honour, as well as the unprincipled rascality of the sea-rover.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] See John Windus, _Journey to Mequinez_ (Lond., 1735), describing the emba.s.sy of Commodore Stewart to Morocco, in 1721, when two hundred and ninety-six English slaves were freed, and a treaty repudiating piracy and the right of search was concluded. Capt. John Braithwaite's _History of the Revolutions in Morocco_ (1729) includes a journal of events and observations made during Mr. Russell's mission in 1728. Sale is described at pp. 343 ff. See also Chenier, _Present State of the Empire of Morocco_ (Eng. transl., 1788). Chenier was French Consul from 1767: the original work is ent.i.tled _Recherches historiques sur les Maures_.

[52] Morgan, 557-9, 588, 597, 607.

[53] Morgan, 674.

XVI.

GALLEYS AND GALLEY SLAVES.

16th Century.

"The Corsairs," says Haedo, "are those who support themselves by continual sea-robberies; and, admitting that among their numbers some of them are natural Turks, Moors, &c., yet the main body of them are renegadoes from every part of Christendom; all who are extremely well acquainted with the Christian coasts." It is a singular fact that the majority of these plunderers of Christians were themselves born in the Faith. In the long list of Algerine viceroys, we meet with many a European. Barbarossa himself was born in Lesbos, probably of a Greek mother. His successor was a Sardinian; soon afterwards a Corsican became pasha of Algiers, then another Sardinian; Ochiali was a Calabrian; Ramadan came from Sardinia, and was succeeded by a Venetian, who in turn gave place to a Hungarian, who made room for an Albanian. In 1588 the thirty-five galleys or galleots of Algiers were commanded by eleven Turks and twenty-four renegades, including nations of France, Venice, Genoa, Sicily, Naples, Spain, Greece, Calabria, Corsica, Albania, and Hungary, and a Jew. In short, up to nearly the close of the sixteenth century (but much more rarely afterwards) the chiefs of the Corsairs and the governors were commonly drawn from Christian lands. Some of them volunteered--and to the outlaws of Europe the command of a Barbary galley was perhaps the only congenial resort;--but most of them were captives seized as children, and torn from their homes in some of the Corsairs' annual raids upon Corsica and Sardinia and the Italian or Dalmatian coasts. Most of such prisoners were condemned to menial and other labour, unless ransomed; but the bolder and handsomer boys were often picked out by the penetrating eye of the res, and once chosen the young captive's career was established.

"While the Christians with their galleys are at repose, sounding their trumpets in the harbours, and very much at their ease regaling themselves, pa.s.sing the day and night in banqueting, cards, and dice, the Corsairs at pleasure are traversing the east and west seas, without the least fear or apprehension, as free and absolute sovereigns thereof. Nay, they roam them up and down no otherwise than do such as go in chase of hares for their diversion. They here snap up a ship laden with gold and silver from India, and there another richly fraught from Flanders; now they make prize of a vessel from England, then of another from Portugal. Here they board and lead away one from Venice, then one from Sicily, and a little further on they swoop down upon others from Naples, Livorno, or Genoa, all of them abundantly crammed with great and wonderful riches. And at other times carrying with them as guides renegadoes (of which there are in Algiers vast numbers of all Christian nations, nay, the generality of the Corsairs are no other than renegadoes, and all of them exceedingly well acquainted with the coasts of Christendom, and even within the land), they very deliberately, even at noon-day, or indeed just when they please, leap ash.o.r.e, and walk on without the least dread, and advance into the country, ten, twelve, or fifteen leagues or more; and the poor Christians, thinking themselves secure, are surprised unawares; many towns, villages, and farms sacked; and infinite numbers of souls, men, women, children, and infants at the breast, dragged away into a wretched captivity. With these miserable ruined people, loaded with their own valuable substance, they retreat leisurely, with eyes full of laughter and content, to their vessels. In this manner, as is too well known, they have utterly ruined and destroyed Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Calabria, the neighbourhoods of Naples, Rome, and Genoa, all the Balearic islands, and the whole coast of Spain: in which last more particularly they feast it as they think fit, on account of the Moriscos who inhabit there; who being all more zealous Mohammedans than are the very Moors born in Barbary, they receive and caress the Corsairs, and give them notice of whatever they desire to be informed of. Insomuch that before these Corsairs have been absent from their abodes much longer than perhaps twenty or thirty days, they return home rich, with their vessels crowded with captives, and ready to sink with wealth; in one instant, and with scarce any trouble, reaping the fruits of all that the avaricious Mexican and greedy Peruvian have been digging from the bowels of the earth with such toil and sweat, and the thirsty merchant with such manifest perils has for so long been sc.r.a.ping together, and has been so many thousand leagues to fetch away, either from the east or west, with inexpressible danger and fatigue. Thus they have crammed most of the houses, the magazines, and all the shops of this Den of Thieves with gold, silver, pearls, amber, spices, drugs, silks, cloths, velvets, &c., whereby they have rendered this city the most opulent in the world: insomuch that the Turks call it, not without reason, their India, their Mexico, their Peru."[54]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GALLEY RUNNING BEFORE THE WIND.

(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]

One has some trouble in realizing the sort of navigation employed by Corsairs. We must disabuse our minds of all ideas of tall masts straining under a weight of canvas, sail above sail. The Corsairs'

vessels were long narrow row-boats, carrying indeed a sail or two, but depending for safety and movement mainly upon the oars. The boats were called galleys, galleots, brigantines ("_galeotas ligeras o vergtines_," or _frigatas_), &c., according to their size: a galleot is a small galley, while a brigantine may be called a quarter galley.

The number of men to each oar varies, too, according to the vessel's size: a galley may have as many as four to six men working side by side to each oar, a galleot but two or three, and a brigantine one; but in so small a craft as the last each man must be a fighter as well as an oarsmen, whereas the larger vessels of the Corsairs were rowed entirely by Christian slaves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STAGES IN BUILDING A GALLEY.

(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN AND SECTIONS OF A GALLEY.

(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Caique._ _Canoe._

HOLD OF A GALLEY.

(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]

The galley is the type of all these vessels, and those who are curious about the minutest details of building and equipping galleys need only consult Master Joseph Furttenbach's _Architectura Navalis: Das ist, Von dem Schiff-Gebaw, auf dem Meer und Seekusten zu gebrauchen_, printed in the town of Ulm, in the Holy Roman Empire, by Jonam Saurn, in 1629. Any one could construct a galley from the numerous plans and elevations and sections and finished views (some of which are here reproduced) in this interesting and precise work.[55] Furttenbach is an enthusiastic admirer of a ship's beauties, and he had seen all varieties; for his trade took him to Venice, where he had a gallea.s.se,[56] and he had doubtless viewed many a Corsair fleet, since he could remember the battle of Lepanto and the death of Ochiali. His zeal runs clean away with him when he describes a _stolo_, or great flagship (_capitanea galea_) of Malta in her pomp and dignity and lordliness, as she rides the seas to the rhythmical beat of her many oars, or "easies" with every blade suspended motionless above the waves like the wings of a poised falcon. A galley such as this is "a princely, nay, a royal and imperial _va.s.sello di remo_," and much the most suitable, he adds, for the uses of peace and of war in the Mediterranean Sea. A galley may be 180 or 190 spans long--Furttenbach measures a ship by _palmi_, which varied from nine to ten inches in different places in Italy,--say 150 feet, the length of an old seventy-four frigate, but with hardly a fifth of its cubit contents--and its greatest beam is 25 spans broad. The one engraved on p. 37 is evidently an admiral's galley of the Knights of Malta. She carries two masts--the _albero maestro_ or mainmast, and the _trinchetto_, or foremast, each with a great lateen sail. The Genoese and Venetians set the models of these vessels, and the Italian terms were generally used in all European navigation till the northern nations took the lead in sailing ships. These sails are often clewed up, however, for the mariner of the sixteenth century was ill-practised in the art of tacking, and very fearful of losing sight of land for long, so that unless he had a wind fair astern he preferred to trust to his oars. A short deck at the prow and p.o.o.p serve, the one to carry the fighting-men and trumpeters and yardsmen, and to provide cover for the four guns, the other to accommodate the knights and gentlemen, and especially the admiral or captain, who sits at the stern under a red damask canopy embroidered with gold, surveying the crew, surrounded by the chivalry of "the Religion,"

whose white cross waves on the taffety standard over their head, and shines upon various pennants and burgees aloft. Behind, overlooking the roof of the p.o.o.p, stands the pilot who steers the ship by the tiller in his hand.

Between the two decks, in the ship's waist, is the propelling power: fifty-four benches or banks, twenty-seven a side, support each four or five slaves, whose whole business in life is to tug at the fifty-four oars. This flagship is a Christian vessel, so the rowers are either Turkish and Moorish captives, or Christian convicts. If it were a Corsair, the rowers would all be Christian prisoners. In earlier days the galleys were rowed by freemen, and so late as 1500 the Moors of Algiers pulled their own brigantines to the attack of Spanish villages, but their boats were light, and a single man could pull the oar. Two or three were needed for a galleot, and as many sometimes as six for each oar of a large galley. It was impossible to induce freemen to toil at the oar, sweating close together, for hour after hour--not sitting, but leaping on the bench, in order to throw their whole weight on the oar. "Think of six men chained to a bench, naked as when they were born, one foot on the stretcher, the other on the bench in front, holding an immensely heavy oar [fifteen feet long], bending forwards to the stern with arms at full reach to clear the backs of the rowers in front, who bend likewise; and then having got forward, shoving up the oar's end to let the blade catch the water, then throwing their bodies back on to the groaning bench. A galley oar sometimes pulls thus for ten, twelve, or even twenty hours without a moment's rest. The boatswain, or other sailor, in such a stress, puts a piece of bread steeped in wine in the wretched rower's mouth to stop fainting, and then the captain shouts the order to redouble the lash.

If a slave falls exhausted upon his oar (which often chances) he is flogged till he is taken for dead, and then pitched unceremoniously into the sea."[57]

"Those who have not seen a galley at sea, especially in chasing or being chased, cannot well conceive the shock such a spectacle must give to a heart capable of the least tincture of commiseration. To behold ranks and files of half-naked, half-starved, half-tanned meagre wretches, chained to a plank, from whence they remove not for months together (commonly half a year), urged on, even beyond human strength, with cruel and repeated blows on their bare flesh, to an incessant continuation of the most violent of all exercises; and this for whole days and nights successively, which often happens in a furious chase, when one party, like vultures, is hurried on almost as eagerly after their prey, as is the weaker party hurried away in hopes of preserving life and liberty."[58]