magicians, who have acquired the power to destroy life by impious arts, purely human." Upon the whole, the point of development to which this superstition has attained, appears to Captain Macpherson to be nearly that which is ascribed to the religion of Greece in the Pelasgic period-" it is the reign of Cœlus and Terra, of night and the starry signs, the genii and the nymphs, and the gods now forgotten' of Hesiod; before the dynasties of Olympus, to which later speculations assigned a cosmological character; before Homer and the bards conferred unity and nationality upon the perplexed mythical circles of Greece; when the primary deities were honoured in the forms of nature over which they presided, and the lesser and the derived gods were symbolically adored in blocks of wood and stone, as were the goddess of fertility at Paphos, and the Graces at Orchomenos." Strange it is to find these oldworld notions still existing; strange that Englishmen in the nineteenth century should speak face to face with men holding a different faith which had melted away, and become part of obsolete antiquity before the days of Homer-in comparison with which the stories of Thor and Odin are tales of yesterday, and the Hindu religion, with its records, carried back fourteen centuries before the Christian era, a mere innovation. But stranger still will it be, if, now that we have found them-now that they are within the range of our influence; in a word, now that we are responsible for them, we should fail to act beneficially upon their minds, to encourage their boldness and truth, and the good qualities which they possess, to wean them from their unhappy superstitions, and, if possible, (and, it must be remembered, that their rude notions may be more easily displaced than the more subtle and systematic religion of the Hindoos,) to impart to them, eventually, our own pure faith. There is now opening to India (unless her foreign relations interfere) a prospect of the full development of the capacities of the richest soil in the world. There is also opening, through the zeal and care of the English government, a still nobler prospect-a prospect of the moral improvement of a clever and industrious population— of the cultivation of their great powers of mind, and the eradication of their evil practices; and we are confident that a few years will do the work of ages with these rude mountaineers, and that they will, ere long, be as far removed from the opinions and the feelings which dictate human sacrifice, as we are from the superstition of the Druids. : CHAPTERS OF TURKISH HISTORY. No. VIII. BARBAROSSA OF ALGIERS. the sultan ;" and the 300 vessels, which were shamefully routed by a squadron of five Christian ships, and which were afterwards drawn with ease overland from the Bosphorus to the Golden Horn, could be scarcely entitled to rank with even the lowest rate of modern galleys. The armaments directed against Rhodes and Otranto, in the latter part of the same reign, indicate a considerable advance in naval tactics; but their fleets were adapted rather for the conveyance of troops and warlike stores, than for an engagement at sea with a hostile force; and on the repulse of the former expedition by the knights of St John, the Rhodian and Venetian squadrons continued to rule the Grecian seas, and to infest, almost with impunity, the commerce of the subjects of the Porte. THE original seat and cradle of the name and nation of the Turks, the Altai range of Central Asia, is described by Gibbon as " lying at the equal distance of two thousand miles from the Caspian, the Icy, the Chinese, and the Bengal seas:"-and it was not till the later part of the eleventh century of our era, that the conquests of the Seljookian sultans first brought the hordes of their native subjects in contact with the open sea, on the shores of Kerman and Syria. But the genius of the Turks continued to be essentially unmaritime :-even when their territories comprehended the extensive shores of Anatolia, the practice of navigation, whether for purposes of war or commerce, was still almost unknown and their language itself, even at the present day, so strongly retains the impress of its inland origin, that the ocean is expressed by the same term, (deniz,) which properly signifies a large lake; and not only the whole vocabulary of nautical technicalities, but even the distinctive names of different classes of vessels, are borrowed from the various languages of the Levant. The Osmanli Turks, in the infancy of their empire, were equally unskilled with their Seljookian prede-parently, confined principally to the cessors in all that related to naval affairs and long after their rule was established at Adrianople and throughout Romania, the sultans and their armies owed the means of transport across the narrow strait of the Dardanelles to the precarious aid of their Greek and Genoese vessels, who held the ports of Lycia and the adjacent isles of the Archipelago. (See Gibbon, chap. 65, &c.) Almost the first* vestiges of an Ottoman imperial marine are to be found in the flotilla equipped by Mohammed II. for the siege of Constantinople. "But this hasty and imperfect navy was created," (as is observed by Gibbon,) " not by the genius of the people, but the will of The office of capitan, or high admiral, does not appear at this time to have ranked as a separate and permanent dignity, or to have entitled its holder to the grade of pasha, but was generally annexed to the sandjak or government of Gallipoli, the earliest acquisition of the Ottomans on the European side of the straits. The duties of this officer were indeed, ap superintendence of the arsenal and equipment of the galleys, and did not extend to the command of the armament when afloat, which usually devolved (as was the custom till a far later period in our own and other countries of western Europe) on the general of the land troops embarked for service. Under Bayezid II., the Turkish navy began to acquire a more regular organization; the ships were of increased size and stronger construction, and mounted with numerous heavy guns; and Kemal-Reis, originally a page of the seraglio, and who owed his elevation in the first instance to his extraordinary personal beauty, was the first Ottoman naval * "It is indeed related, that, in the time of Sultan Mourad II., the Ottomans occasionally made excursions to the neighbouring shores and islands: but these expeditions are not worth enumerating."-HADJI KHALFA, Maritime Wars of the Turks. commander whose exploits made him known and formidable in the Mediterranean. The terror of his name extended even to the shores of Spain, which he ravaged in 1487, in the hope of effecting a diversion in favour of his Moslem brethren in Grenada, then engaged in their last mortal struggle against the overwhelming power of Cas. tile and Aragon; but the impulse thus communicated soon again died away. In the last year of Selim I., when a fresh attack was meditated against that "nest of pirates, Rhodes," (the reduction of which had become doubly necessary from its intercepting the communication between Constantinople and the newly-conquered realms of Egypt and Syria,) the wrath of the fierce monarch was vehemently kindled against his ministers, to whose misconduct he attributed the dilapidation of the fleet, and the deficiency of stores and ammunition in the arsenal. "When the viziers reported to the sultan that they had ammunition sufficient for a four months' siege, the padisha replied in fury, Have all men yet forgotten the disgrace sustained by the arms of my grandfather, Sultan Mohammed-khan, the conqueror, before this infidel castle of Rhodes, that you would fain double it on me? If in twice four months we take such a fortress, it will be well done. How stand ye there at my footstool, and talk of powder for four months only? As for myself, I believe that I shall never undertake another voyage, except that to the next world; but be that as it may, I will commence no war so ill prepared, or by the advice of such improvident counsellors!' These words spake the glorious sultan, as with fore-knowledge; for within six months from this conversation he was summoned to the world of spirits; and Rhodes was with difficulty taken * within the time he specified, when besieged by his son Sultan Solimankhan of auspicious memory." [HadjiKhalfa.] Such is the brief outline of the naval history of the Ottomans, prior to the accession of Soliman the Magnificent. But before many years had elapsed subsequent to that event, the crimson ensign of the crescent and star had been displayed in triumph on every European shore within the Pillars of Hercules, and the maritime service of the Porte had been raised to a degree of completeness and organization, fully commensurate with that which the regulations of the Sultan had introduced in the other departments of public affairs, and far exceeding that of any contemporary Christian state, with the single exception, perhaps, of Venice. Yet this sudden impulse was received, not (like most of the improvements of that glorious reign) from the personal energy of the sovereign, but mainly from the victories of an obscure piratical adventurer of the Ægean, whose valour and rare good fortune enabled him to lay the vassal kingdoms of Barbary at the feet of the Sultan, in acknowledgment of the honours which were heaped upon him, and who not only introduced among the Ottomans themselves the rudiments of maritime tactics, but formed by his example a school of naval commanders, and first organized that system of Moorish piracy, which (originally intended to retaliate the ravages of the Maltese knights and Sicilian rovers) continued, almost up to our own time, the scourge of the Mediterranean commerce. The early career of this corsairking, and his not less famous brother, (to whom was applied, in common with him, the sobriquet of Barbarossa, or Red-beard,) has been made in some measure known to European readers by the narrative of Robertson, (Hist. of Charles V., book 5):—but as his account is not without inaccuracies, we shall follow the statements of Hadji Khalfa, (Maritime Wars of the Turks, ch. ii.,) who professes to have drawn his materials from an autobio * A curious discovery was made, about twenty years since, relative to this second and famous siege of Rhodes, which places the conduct of Lisle-Adam and his chival rous followers in rather a new light. In the course of some excavations among the ruins of the Grand Master's palace, a range of hidden vaults was laid open, containing more than 20,000 pounds of powder; which, as was surmised from appearances, had been placed there for the purpose of blowing the Commander of the Faithful, and all his host of true believers, into the air as soon as the defenders had evacuated the place, which they did immediately on its surrender! The "deadly nitre" had, however, slum bered for more than three centuries, harmless and unsuspected. graphy compiled by Khair-ed-deen himself, at the command of Sultan Soliman. Their father, Yakoob, whom Robertson calls "a potter of the Isle of Lesbos," had in truth been a levend, or soldier of irregular infantry from Anatolia, and having formed part of the garrison left in Mitylene on its capture by Mohammed II. in 1462, continued to reside there on receiving his discharge. His son, Khizr, afterwards Prince of Algiers, was born in 1468, (the same year with his great antagonist Andrea Doria,) and commenced active life by accompanying his elder brothers, Oroudj* and Elias, in their trading voyages to the coasts of Egypt and Syria. But their commercial prospects were ruined by the capture of their vessel by the Knights of St John, after a conflict in which Elias was slain, and by a long subsequent detention in the dungeon of Rhodes ; and the two surviving brothers, when at length set at liberty by an exchange of captives, obtained from the Prince Korkoud, who governed the coasts of Anatolia for his father Bayezid, an authorization (like a modern letter of marque) to cruise at sea against the Christians for the reparation of their broken fortunes. Their nautical skill and daring soon made their names renowned throughout the Levant, and their depredations extended even to the Adriatic and the coasts of Italy ;-but the fall and death of their patron Korkoud, which immediately followed the accession of his brother, Selim I., appears to have rendered their position insecure ;+ and abandoning for a time their haunts in the Egean, they sailed with their galleys and treasure to Tunis, where they demanded shelter and protection. Their reputation ensured them a favourable reception from the reigning prince, Mahommed,‡ whose weakness at sea exposed his coasts to constant devastation by the Christians: and on condition of receiving a fifth of all their captures, he even committed to their custody the important castle of the Halk-al-Vad, or Goletta, which, guarding the narrow entrance of the salt-water lake on which Tunis stands, is in effect the key of the capital on the seaward side. This compact continued, at least nominally, in force for several years; during which the power and resources of the brothers derived vast accessions, not only from their own valour and exertions, but from the voluntary adhesion of the numerous Moslem rovers, who, singly or in small squadrons, had scoured the Mediterranean, but who were now attracted by the fame of these new sea-kings to range themselves under their victorious flag. Thus reinforced, they no longer confined their operations within the petty limits of a piratical cruise, but turned their thoughts to the establishment of their power on the mainland of Northern Africa, the political aspect of which at that conjuncture was singularly favourable to such an enterprize. Since the final extinction of the Mohammedan kingdom in Granada, the Spanish arms had assumed the offensive on the coast of Barbary. Oran, Tripoli, and other places of importance had been annexed to the crown of Castile; and little opposition could be offered to the further progress of the invaders by the disunited and distracted principalities of the Moors. The power of the Shereef dynasty, which still rules in Maghreb,§ * Called Horuc by Robertson and others. The word in Turkish signifies "young," and perhaps may have been merely a nom-de-guerre, as we know no other instance of its use as a proper name. In this statement we have have followed Hadji-Khalfa; but it would appear, from all other accounts, that the commencement at least of their Tunisian career must have long preceded this epoch. Mohammed was the twenty-first sultan of the dynasty of the Beni-Hafs, which had governed the kingdom since A. D. 1226, when it threw off the yoke of the Almohades. He succeeded Muley-Zakaria, by whose mediation the peace was concluded in 1491 between Bayezid II. and the Mamluke sultan, Kait- Bey. (See our January No. p. 41.) Von Hammer, (Hist. of Ott. Emp. lib. xxviii. note,) erroneously places the establishment of the Beni-Hafs in A. D. 1156, only ten years later than the æra of the Almohades. SMaghreb," the Land of the Setting, or of the West," is a term often used by Arabic writers resident in Asia, to denote the whole extent, from Egypt westward, of Northern Africa, the natives of which are popularly termed Maghrebins. In Africa, however, it is generally confined to the provinces west of Telmessan, forming the moern empire of Morocco. Al-Gharb (Algarve) has nearly the same signification. or Morocco, was then struggling in its infancy; and the other provinces, as Algiers, Telmessan or Tlemecen, &c., were held either by petty chiefs who pretended to independence, or by princes of the house of Beni-Hass, paying little more than nominal alle giance to their titular sovereign, the King of Tunis. Every thing contributed, therefore, to the aggrandize ment of these daring adventurers; and having earned the character of champions of the faith by the recapture of Cherchel and other ports from the Christians, their succour was invoked by the Algerines, whose chief or sheikh-al-beled, a Bedouin emir named Selim Aben-Toomi,* could not protect them against a threatened attack from the Spanish governor of Oran, who had already blockaded their harbour by building a fort on an islet commanding the entrance. The aid of Oroudj was prompt and effective; but, as usual in such cases, he speedily rid himself of Aben-Toomi, assumed the sovereignty in his own name, and by the reduction of the neighbouring chiefs of Tennes and Telmessan, became so formidable as to draw on himself an attack from a strong Spanish force, headed by the Marquess de Comares. A host of Moors and Arabs, the partizans of the deprived rulers, joined the Spaniards on their landing and Oroudj, attacked by overwhelming numbers in the inland districts of Telmessan, attempted to cut his way through to the coast, accompanied by his younger brother Tshak, and a band of his faithful Levantines; but they were surrounded near the Tafna, "where the valiant Oroudj Reis, and all who were with him, died sword in hand, and drank the perfumed sherbet of martyrdom," (1518.) His head and right hand (for he had lost his left arm some years before in an attack on Bugia) were paraded in brutal triumph through the seaport towns of Spain, where his name had long been a "sound of terror." Khizr was at Algiers when he learnt the fate of his brother, which left him the sole survivor of the sons of Yakoob. His authority was readily acknowledged by the troops and people; and a Spanish fleet, which appeared before the place the ensuing spring, was shattered by a storm; while a land force, which had moved from Oran to co-operate in the expected attack, was encountered in the field by Barbarossa, and defeated with loss. Still his tenure of Algiers would have been but precarious, had it depended entirely on his own address and good fortune: but the recent overthrow of the Mamluke power by the Ottomans had extended the shadow of the horsetails far along the north of Africa, and the divan of Selim at Cairo was crowded by the representatives of the Moorish potentates. Khizr had before this time made overtures for the favour of this redoubted conqueror, and had sent to Constantinople, in token of homage, two cargoes of rich stuffs selected from his prizes-a gift which was graciously received and remunerated by the Sultan. He now openly declared himself the vassal of the Osmanli Emperor, in whose name he struck coin, and read the khotbah at Algiers, dispatching at the same time into Egypt his most trusted lieutenant, a noted corsair named Kurd-Oghlu, (" son of the wolf,") who was charged to lay at the feet of Selim the submission and homage of his master. Selim, transported at this easy acquisition of a new kingdom, received the envoy with the highest distinction; and delivered into his hands the pelisse and sabre of honour, the horsetails and kettledrum, which were the appropriate ensigns of the dignity of beglerbeg, or viceroy, of Algiers, to which Barbarossa was elevated by a special firman, under the new title of Khair-ed-deen Pasha -a name signifying "one good in the faith," corrupted by Christian writers into Hayradin or Hariadenus. Such was the commencement at once of the Turkish supremacy on the Barbary coast, and of the immediate connexion of Barbarossa with the policy of the Porte, of which he continued thenceforward the firmest and most loyal, as he was the most powerful feudatory. Secured in his usurped possessions by this potent alliance, he continued during several succeeding years to complete the reduction of the neighbouring Arab and Berber chiefs, * Called by Robertson" Eutemi, King of Algiers," |