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 of the Almacen, which is as much as to say the
slaves of the municipality, who serve the city in the public works and
other employments; but captives of this kind recover their liberty with
great difficulty, for, as they are public property and have no particular
master, there is no one with whom to treat for their ransom, even though
they may have the means. To these banos, as I have said, some private
individuals of the town are in the habit of bringing their captives,
especially when they are to be ransomed; because there they can keep them
in safety and comfort until their ransom arrives. The king's captives
also, that are on ransom, do not go out to work with the rest of the
crew, unless when their ransom is delayed; for then, to make them write
for it more pressingly, they compel them to work and go for wood, which
is no light labour.

I, however, was one of those o