. A family flight around home. t forms. There is scarcely anything in modern history so extraordinary asthe existence for nearly three centuries of the private princedomof Algiers. A State which lived by robbery, and that of theworst and most cruel description ; a stealer of souls, trafficking inhuman blood, it was a perpetual danger to every traveller whoseduty or business led him across the Mediterranean. The State was founded by the Moors on their expulsion fromSpain by Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492, and the Spanish au-thority was never established there. Charles the Fifth made anattempt
. A family flight around home. t forms. There is scarcely anything in modern history so extraordinary asthe existence for nearly three centuries of the private princedomof Algiers. A State which lived by robbery, and that of theworst and most cruel description ; a stealer of souls, trafficking inhuman blood, it was a perpetual danger to every traveller whoseduty or business led him across the Mediterranean. The State was founded by the Moors on their expulsion fromSpain by Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492, and the Spanish au-thority was never established there. Charles the Fifth made anattempt to subjugate the Barbary powers, but it was a failure, andfrom that time forward there were unceasing hostilities betweenthem and the Christians ; thence sprang the system of piracy whichmade the corsairs so terrible in the Mediterranean, and which wasso long submitted to by the Christian powers. These Algcrines lived upon exactions and plunder,—a nest of rob-bers, with few redeeming traits save those of courage and nautical. PIRATES. 267 skill. Though their avowed religion was that of Mahomet, manyof their leaders were renegades, — Greeks and Italians, fiercer andmore bitter with their captives than any native Turk. With sucha population, almost altogether dependent upon the robbery of theseas, the Algiers of that period presents a singular spectacle ofthe moral effect of the fear produced by the tortures of slavery,which made the sight of a corsair at sea appalling. One of the•early authorities from which knowledge is gained of this strangecommunity is Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, who was acaptive for five years in Algiers. When a young man, he served with the Spanish army in thefamous battle of Lepanto, one of the most important naval battlesever fought (October 7, 1671 ), as the first effective blow givento the power of the Turks who had hitherto been thought invin-cible at sea. Cervantes received two wounds, and lost the use ofhis left hand for life. Returni
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectuniteds, bookyear1884
