by renegade;" for that he was; it is the
practice with the Turks to name people from some defect or virtue they
may possess; the reason being that there are among them only four
surnames belonging to families tracing their descent from the Ottoman
house, and the others, as I have said, take their names and surnames
either from bodily blemishes or moral qualities. This "scabby one" rowed
at the oar as a slave of the Grand Signor's for fourteen years, and when
over thirty-four years of age, in resentment at having been struck by a
Turk while at the oar, turned renegade and renounced his faith in order
to be able to revenge himself; and such was his valour that, without
owing his advancement to the base ways and means by which most favourites
of the Grand Signor rise to power, he came to be king of Algiers, and
afterwards general-on-sea, which is the third place of trust in the
realm. He was a Calabrian by birth, and a worthy man morally, and he
treated his slaves with great humanity. He had three thousand of them,
and after his death they were divided, as he directed by his will,
between the Grand Signor (who is heir of all who die and shares with the
children of the deceased) and his renegades. I fell to the lot of a
Venetian renegade who, when a cabin boy on board a ship, had been taken
by Uchali and was so much beloved by him that he became one of his most
favoured youths. He came to be the most cruel renegade I ever saw: his
name was Hassan Aga, and he grew very rich and became king of Algiers.
With him I went there from Constantinople, rather glad to be so near
Spain, not that I intended to write to anyone about my unhappy lot, but
to try if fortune would be kinder to me in Algiers than in
Constantinople, where I had attempted in a thousand ways to escape
without ever finding a favourable time or chance; but in Algiers I
resolved to seek for other means of effecting the purpose I cherished so
dearly; for the hope of obtaining my liberty never deserted me; and when
in my plots and schemes and attempts the result did not answer my
expectations, without giving way to despair I immediately began to look
out for or conjure up some new hope to support me, however faint or
feeble it might be.

In this way I lived on immured in a building or prison called by the
Turks a bano in which they confine the Christian captives, as well those
that are the king's as those belonging to private individuals, and also
what they call those