Part 8 (2/2)
(_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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p'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 flags.h.i.+p (_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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ps. 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 s.h.i.+nes upon various pennants and burgees aloft. Behind, overlooking the roof of the p.o.o.p, stands the pilot who steers the s.h.i.+p by the tiller in his hand.
Between the two decks, in the s.h.i.+p'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 flags.h.i.+p 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]
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