whose revolts he repressed, by the aid of a body of janissaries sent from Constantinople, with merciless severity:* while from the impolitic persecution of the Spanish Moriscoes by Charles V., he derived the accession of a valiant and faithful colony. By an edict, published Dec. 1526, the Emperor summarily prohibited the public call to prayers, and other ceremonies of the Moslem faith, the free exercise of which had been guaranteed on the conquest of Granada by Ferdinand; and the Moors, overpowered in the attempt to defend their religious liberty by arms, implored the aid of Khair-ed-deen to transport them from their native soil, now become a land of bondage. The appeal was quickly replied to by the appearance of an Algerine flotilla on the coast; and no less than 70,000 Moslems are said by Hadji Khalfa to have been brought over, in successive voyages, from Europe to Africa, where they were settled mostly in Algiers and its vicinity, and proved the firmest support of their patron's sway. In the mean time his squadrons, consisting chiefly of galleys and light brigantines, overspread the sea under his subordinate officers, the principal of whom, besides the redoubted Kurd-Oghlu, and a renegade Jew named Sinan, were the reises or captains Salih and Aiden, and another noted corsair, known only by the uncouth nickname of Caccia-diovola, or Devil-driver, under which he is mentioned by European writers. Torghoud, (the Dragut of the Christians,t) whose fame as a naval commander almost rivalled in later years that of Khair-ed-deen himself, was at this time a captive of Doria in the Genoese galleys, having been captured in a marauding descent on the coast of Corsica. Many thousand Christian captives, torn from the coasts of Spain and Italy, were either detained in chains for ransom, or sent to work on the fortifications of Algiers and Djerbeh, an island intermediate between Tunis and Tripoli, which he had occupied as an eastern depot for his plunder. The miseries undergone

:

by these unhappy wretches, as described by a contemporary Italian writer, appear to have anticipated the more modern horrors of the negro slave trade. "Thrown by heaps like logs into the narrow holds of the Turkish galleys, they were only released occasionally for examination when those who appeared so nearly worn out with hunger and privations as to render their recovery doubtful, were cast alive, without further ceremony, into the sea." One of the works thus constructed was the vast mole, or artificial isthmus, which now unites the mainland to the small island covering the port, on which stands the famous lighthouse battery. By a sudden attack in 1530, Barbarossa had succeeded in dislodging the Spaniards from this important post; capturing at the same time a squadron of nine large ships, which arrived from Spain, though too late, for its succour. The crews of these vessels were kept in slavery; but the officers, many of whom were men of high rank, were put to death without mercy. "The relatives of the admiral" (says Hadji-Khalfa)" offered 7000 florins for his body, but the true believers disdained to become traffickers in infidel carcasses; and it was accordingly thrown into a pit!"

The system of the Mediterranean warfare of this age, as well as the character of the vessels employed in it, was so wholly different from that of modern times, as to require some description to render it intelligible. Though ships of heavy tonnage and more than one deck, impelled by sails alone, and carrying one or more complete tiers of guns, had been introduced for some time in war, these carracks, as they were called, (corresponding with the modern line-ofbattle ships,) were scarcely considered as constituting part of the active force, but rather regarded as floating castles, to cover with their guns the disembarkation of troops, or assist in the attack of seaport towns, and in seafights to serve as rallying points for the swarms of scattered galleys, which

might take refuge under their heavy battery, as broken infantry in land actions reform their ranks under cover of their artillery.

But the strength and vigour of the contending squadrons lay principally (as in the maritime wars of classic times) in the numbers and rapid manoeuvring of their long galleys, rowed usually by slaves or prisoners of war; and by the velocity and impetuous onset of which the fate of a naval action was generally decided, rather than by the weight of fire from the carracks. The ordinary wargalleys, (called in Turkish Tchekdereh or Tchekdermeh, and by the Moors Tareidat,) would seem to have differed so little, either in build or equipment, from the triremes with which the Lacedæmonians and Athenians had disputed the empire of the Egean nineteen centuries before, that some further details on these points may not be found uninteresting.

The hull lay very low and close to the water, extremely sharp built and straight in the run, and of such extraordinary length in proportion to the beam or width, that the Venetian galleys of the largest class, which measured 165 feet from stem to stern, were only 32 feet in total breadth. The prow was furnished, as of old, with a long and sharp beak: and from this, as well as from the usually black colour of the hull, the epithet of grab* (literally raven) was popularly applied to these vessels by the Moors. The after-part was occupied by an extensive poop or quarter-deck, which was the station of the captain and the soldiers, and which was defended on the quarter by galleries and boardingnettings. From this a descent of two or three steps led to a long narrow platform, (called in French coursier,

and in Spanish cruxia,) running the whole length of the vessel from the forecastle to the poop, and serving both for a gangway and a flush deck; on this the guns were mounted, usually a single long heavy piece pointed forwards in a groove near the bow, and two or four others of smaller calibre amidships. The rowing-benches (to which the galley-slaves were usually chained by one foot) were arranged in a quincunx order on a sort of sloping gallery or wide gunwale, (in French, pont,) which projected over the ship's side, so that those who stood in the highest rank were immediately below the coursier, and under the eye of their taskmasters, who quickened their exertions by the unsparing use of the lash. The galley was pulled with twenty-six oars on a side a number which seems to have been nearly invariable in all rates+ but the smaller classes (galères subtiles, or legères, called fergata or frigate, and khirlangitsch‡ by the Turks, and by the Moors, jafan and thelthi) had only one or two men to each oar; the largest (galeazza of the Venetians, and maona of the Turks) had sometimes even as many as five or six ;§ those of the ordinary rate, (galères bâtardes, whence the Turkish bashtarda,) which were almost exclusively employed by the Turks, had, like the ancient triremes, three.

The galley was provided with a main and foremast, which might be raised or struck as required, and which carried large lateen sails; but a craft of the construction just described could only have been trusted under sail in light winds and smooth seas, as her want of heel, and deficiency in beam, must have made her at all times a bad sea-boat; while her great length must have exposed her to break her back

and founder in a rough sea. But these disadvantages were compensated by the swiftness with which vessels so navigated could be impelled, like the steam-boats of modern days, over the smooth summer seas of the Mediterranean, and by the facility with which they penetrated into creeks, rivers, and inlets, which the intricacy or shallowness of their waters rendered impervious to vessels of draught, and depending only on sails. With their masts lowered, and their long, low hulls undiscernible on the surface of the sea by the sentinels on shore, the corsair galleys lay during the day unsuspected in the offing, opposite to a town which they had marked for plunder; at midnight the inhabitants were roused by the flames of their dwellings, and the fierce cry of the techir, and daybreak saw the marauders again far at sea, bearing with them their booty, and such of their captives as had been spared from the slaughter, long ere the ineffectual aid of the neighbouring garrisons could reach the scene of devastation. These enterprizes were frequently led by Mudagils, or exiled Spanish Moors, whose religious zeal was sharpened by the thirst for revenge, and whose local knowledge was aided by intelligence from their brethren, the new Christians of the Inquisition, who, in most cases, still adhered in secret to the faith of their fathers, and gladly guided the plunderers to lay waste the domains usurped from them by the Nazarenes. The numerous ruined atalayas, or watch-towers, which crown almost every eminence along the sea-board of Murcia and Valencia, afford still existing evidence of the frequency, at no very remote date, of these deadly visits, and of the unceasing vigilance necessary to guard against them.

The independent kingdom of Tunis still intervened between the Ottoman pashalik of Egypt and the newly-acquired dependencies of the Porte in Algiers; but its throne was no longer occupied by Sultan Mohammed, who died in 1523, after a reign of more than thirty years. The contest of his forty-seven sons terminated in the victory of Hassan, one of the youngest, who secured himself by the massacre

of all his brothers-Rashid alone escaping to Algiers, where he was sheltered and protected by Khair-eddeen.

He was still residing there in exile, when (in the summer of 1533) an imperial tchaoosh arrived to summon Barbarossa to a personal conference with the sultan at Constantinople-the successes of Doria on the coast of the Morea, and the capture of Coron, having determined Soliman to direct all the naval forces of his empire against the Genoese admiral. His obedience was prompt. Committing the management of affairs in Africa to Hassan Aga,* a renegado of approved prowess and fidelity, and carrying the Tunisian prince in his company, he departed with a squadron of eighteen sail, “burning with desire to render his face resplendent by rubbing it on the threshold of the abode of the august Padishah, whose glory is like that of Jemsheed!" Coron had already been recaptured by the Turks; and Doria, who was lying with his squadron at Prevesa, withdrew at the approach of his redoubted enemy to the Italian side of the Adriatic; but two of his ships were intercepted in their transit by the Algerine flotilla; and Barbarossa arrived in triumph at Navarino, where the capitan-pasha Ahmed, (surnamed Kemankesh, or the Archer,) awaited him with his fleet. The united armaments sailed together for Constantinople, entering the Golden Horn amidst reiterated salvos of artillery; and Khair-ed-deen was entertained as an honoured guest in the palace of the capitan-pasha. At his public audience of the sultan, he was received with distinguished favour, presenting gifts of African rarities and wild animals; his principal officers also bowed before the throne, and, after being invested with robes of honour, were appointed to the superinten. dence of different departments in the arsenal.

The influence of the grand-vizir Ibrahim, was at this period at its zenith; and the assiduity with which Khair-ed-deen had courted the good graces of this all-powerful minister, had been repaid by the care taken of his interests in the recent treaty with

Austria,* when the ministers of Charles V. (as king of Spain) had in vain endeavoured to procure restitution of the fortresses recently taken from them on the coast of Barbary. But his patron was now absent at Aleppo, where he had taken up his winter quarters with the advanced corps of the army destined to act in the spring against Persia; and Barbarossa, who found himself thwarted by the jealousy of the other vizirs in gaining the ear of the sultan to his schemes of African aggrandizement, obtained permission to repair in person to the camp, and receive from Ibrahim his investiture in the government of Algiers, which passed through the hands of the grand-vizir in virtue of the extraordinary powers conferred on him by his new office of seraskeral-sultanat. (See our September No., page 299, and November, page 598.) Though now entering on his sixtysixth year, the vigour and activity of the corsair were still unimpaired; and instantly mounting on horseback with his suite, he traversed Anatolia with the rapidity of a courier, and presented himself at the vizir's headquarters. "On his arrival at Aleppo, the vizir showed him the greatest respect, going out in grand procession to meet him, and mustering all the troops to do him honour. A general divan was held, in which Khair-ed-deen, after saluting the vizir, had his place assigned him, on the first day, below all the begs and pashas; but on the next day he was clothed with a robe, in token of his dignity as beglerbeg of Algiers, and took his seat above all the other governors." After the completion of the ceremony, he returned with equal speed to Constantinople, which he reached on the twenty-fourth day, having halted only long enough to pay his devotions at the tombs of two famous Moslem saints at Brousa and Iconium.

"

The winter of 1533-4 passed away amidst warlike preparations; but the enterprize which Khair-ed-deen had at heart, was the reduction of Tunis; and after representing to the sultan, in numerous interviews, the value and

importance of the place, and the ease with which it could be reduced, from the unpopularity of the reigning prince, he received the imperial permission to undertake it. Early in the summer, accordingly, while the sultan was advancing to open the campaign against Persia, which closed with the conquest of Bagdad, he passed the Dardanelles" on a propitious day," at the head of such a warlike armament as the Levant had hardly seen since the first days of the Osmanlis. So great had been the zeal and activity displayed in the arsenals, that sixty-one bashtardas, or heavy galleys, had been launched and equipped during the past winter and spring, which, with the Algerine squadron and fire vessels belonging to independent corsairs, raised the aggregate to eightyfour sail, on board which were 8000 janissaries. The peace still subsisting with Venice, preserved the Isles of the Archipelago from aggression; and the first attack was directed on Reggio, recently colonized with the Greek Christians transferred from Coron and Modon. The town, abandoned by the panic-stricken refugees at the first appearance of the crescent, was sacked and burned, with all its shipping: "and Khair-ed-deen, the same night, having had a favourable. dream, arose and set sail with lanterns lighted at the poop and prow of every galley," and continued his course along shore, pillaging and burning, almost without resistance, wherever he chose to land. Naples itself expected an attack; but the aim of Barbarossa was elsewhere directed. Stretching out from the shore during the day, he ran silently at night into the bay of Terracina, where 2000 men were landed for the attack of Fondi, a town a few miles inland, in which there resided the most celebrated beauty of the age, Giulia Gonzaga, wife of Vespasio Colonna, Count of Fondi. In a true corsair spirit of gratitude, he had formed the resolve of repaying the favours heaped on him at Constantinople, by securing this paragon of Italie" (as Knolles calls her) for the harem of Soliman; and

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with such suddenness and secrecy was the enterprize conducted, that the town was surprised by escalade, and the princess, starting from her couch while the Algerines were forcing her palace gates, was saved only by being thrown across a horse, half-naked as she was, by a cavalier* of her household, and carried off at full speed into the mountains. The Turks, after revenging themselves for their disappointment by pillaging the town and destroying the churches, returned unmolested to their vessels.

Thus balked of his intended prize, Khair-ed-deen instantly quitted the shores of Italy, as a leopard retreats on missing his prey; and the priests and citizens of Rome, who were already preparing their flight from a still more ruthless sack than that inflicted on them seven years before by the army of Bourbon, were relieved from their apprehensions by the news of his apparition on the coast of Africa. Casting anchor before the goletta of Tunis, in accordance with his previous instructions, he occupied the capital without opposition in the name of Muley-Rashid, whose former partizans crowded to his standard, while Hassan, deserted by all his adherents, fled into the interior. But the absence of Rashid, who had been left a state prisoner at Constantinople, could not be long concealed, and a fierce revulsion of popular feeling ensued; when Khair-ed-deen, boldly throwing off the mask, planted his horsetails before the citadel, and declared the kingdom to have become a province of the Ottoman empire. The infuriated but disorderly resistance of the Tunisians was speedily crushed by the veteran troops and formidable artillery at the disposal of the corsair ; and Hassan who, during the tumult, had re-entered the town at the head of a swarm of Bedoweens, was pursued into the desert and utterly overthrown.

Tunis was now completely in the power of Khair-ed deen, who occupied himself diligently in repairing and strengthening the fortifications of the town and the goletta, with the view of transferring thither the principal seat of his power from Algiers, which was less favourably situated either for an attack on the shores of Christendom, or communication with Constanti nople. But his sway was not destined to endure many months: the cause of the fugitive Hassan had been espoused by. Charles V., who eagerly embraced the opportunity of delivering his Sicilian dominions from the formidable neighbourhood of Khair-ed-deen :and in June 1535, a fleet of 500 sail, bearing 30,000 veteran troops under the command of the Emperor in person, appeared off the African coast. The events of the short campaign which followed are so popularly known from the eloquent pages of Robertson, that it is needless to give them in detail. The goletta, after a siege of a month, was carried by storm:-the citadel of Tunis was seized by the Christian captives confined in it:-and Barbarossa, finding all his efforts in the field unavailing against the overwhelming force opposed to him, was compelled to seek safety in flight. His fleet, with the vast naval and military stores which he had accumulated in the arsenal, became the prize of the victors: and Hassan was restored, as a tributary vassal of the Emperor, to the throne of a city which had just been subjected to all the horrors of war at the hands of his Christian allies.

When Tunis was irrecoverably lost, Barbarossa, with the corsair Sinan, and such of his personal adherents as remained, had made the best of his way to Algiers, the administration of which had been ably conducted in his absence by Hassan Aga and another renegade named Mourad. Undismayed by his reverses, he gave in