s called
by the Turks. Ali Basha has a title to fame in the fact that he is
mentioned by Cervantes in his _Don Quijote de la Mancha_ under the name of
"Uchali" in chapter xxxix., "Donde el cautivo cuenta su vida y sucesos."
The captive is supposed to have been no less a person than the famous
Cervantes himself, and he briefly describes how Uchali became "Rey de
Argel," or King of Algiers.

Ali was a Christian, having been born at a miserable little village in
Calabria called Licastelli. Nothing whatever is known of his birth and
parentage, and he does not appear even to have possessed a Christian name,
although born in a Christian land. He followed from his earliest youth the
calling of a mariner; "he was from infancy inured to salt water," says
Joseph Morgan, in his _Compleat History of Algiers_, and he was, as a mere
boy, captured by Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, and was chained to the
starboard-bow oar in the galley of that officer. He was thus very early in
life "inured" to suffering, and must have possessed a constitution of iron
to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hardships of the life of a galley-slave,
which as a rule broke down the endurance of strong men in a very few years.
Morgan presents us with a description of him at this period which in these
more squeamish days can certainly not be set down in its entirety: suffice
it to say that he suffered all his days from what is known as "scald-head,"
and that personal filthiness was one of his principal characteristics.

For some years Ali remained at the heart-breaking toil of the rower's
bench: cut off from home, which to him meant nothing, devoid of kinsfolk,
alone--miserably alone in a world which, so far, had given him naught but
the chain and the whip--it is not a matter for surprise that he became a
Mussulman, thus freeing himself from slavery. From the time that he took
this step his fortunes mended rapidly in that strange medley of savagery
and bloodshed in which his lot was cast.

Alert, strong, capable, and vigorous, he became in early manhood chief
boatswain in the galley in which his apprenticeship had been passed--a
position which enabled him to accumulate a small store of ducats, with
which he bought a share in a brigantine. Here he soon acquired sufficient
wealth to become captain and owner of a galley, in which he soon gained the
reputation of being one of the boldest corsairs on the Barbary coast.
Having in some sort made a name for himself, hi