shores, or to batter down the strongholds of the pirates. Other states,
whose territories bordered on the Mediterranean, joined in these
expeditions; among them Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Sicily,--the two last the
dependencies of Spain,--and above all Genoa, whose hardy seamen did good
service in these maritime wars. To these should be added the Knights of
St. John, whose little island of Malta, with its iron defences, boldly
bidding defiance to the enemy, was thrown into the very jaws, as it
were, of the African coast. Pledged by their vows to perpetual war with
the infidel, these brave knights, thus stationed on the outposts of
Christendom, were the first to sound the alarm of invasion, as they were
the foremost to repel it.

[Sidenote: AFRICAN CORSAIRS.]

The Mediterranean, in that day, presented a very different spectacle
from what it shows at present,--swarming, as it does, with the commerce
of many a distant land, and its shores glittering with towns and
villages, that echo to the sounds of peaceful and protected industry.
Long tracts of deserted territory might then be seen on its borders,
with the blackened ruins of many a hamlet, proclaiming too plainly the
recent presence of the corsair. The condition of the peasantry of the
south of Spain, in that day, was not unlike that of our New England
ancestors, whose rural labors might, at any time, be broken by the
warwhoop of the savage, as he burst on the peaceful settlement, sweeping
off its wretched inmates--those whom he did not massacre--to captivity
in the wilderness. The trader, instead of pushing out to sea, crept
timidly along the shore, under the protecting wings of its fortresses,
fearful lest the fierce enemy might dart on him unawares, and bear him
off to the dungeons of Africa. Or, if he ventured out into the open
deep, it was under a convoy of well-armed galleys, or, armed to the
teeth himself, prepared for war.

Scarcely a day passed without some conflict between Christian and Moslem
on the Mediterranean waters. Not unfrequently, instead of a Moor, the
command was intrusted to some Christian renegade, who, having renounced
his country and his religion for the roving life of a corsair, felt,
like most apostates, a keener hatred than even its natural enemies for
the land he had abjured.[1271] In these encounters, there were often
displayed, on both sides, such deeds of heroism as, had they been
performed on a wider theatre of action, would have covered th