n this manner, as is too
well known, they have utterly ruined and destroyed Sardinia, Corsica,
Sicily, Calabria, the neighbourhoods of Naples, Rome, and Genoa, all
the Balearic islands, and the whole coast of Spain: in which last more
particularly they feast it as they think fit, on account of the
Moriscos who inhabit there; who being all more zealous Mohammedans
than are the very Moors born in Barbary, they receive and caress the
Corsairs, and give them notice of whatever they desire to be informed
of. Insomuch that before these Corsairs have been absent from their
abodes much longer than perhaps twenty or thirty days, they return
home rich, with their vessels crowded with captives, and ready to sink
with wealth; in one instant, and with scarce any trouble, reaping
the fruits of all that the avaricious Mexican and greedy Peruvian have
been digging from the bowels of the earth with such toil and sweat,
and the thirsty merchant with such manifest perils has for so long
been scraping together, and has been so many thousand leagues to fetch
away, either from the east or west, with inexpressible danger and
fatigue. Thus they have crammed most of the houses, the magazines, and
all the shops of this Den of Thieves with gold, silver, pearls, amber,
spices, drugs, silks, cloths, velvets, &c., whereby they have rendered
this city the most opulent in the world: insomuch that the Turks call
it, not without reason, their India, their Mexico, their Peru."[54]

[Illustration: GALLEY RUNNING BEFORE THE WIND.

(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]

One has some trouble in realizing the sort of navigation employed by
Corsairs. We must disabuse our minds of all ideas of tall masts
straining under a weight of canvas, sail above sail. The Corsairs'
vessels were long narrow row-boats, carrying indeed a sail or two, but
depending for safety and movement mainly upon the oars. The boats were
called galleys, galleots, brigantines ("_galeotas ligeras o
vergatines_," or _frigatas_), &c., according to their size: a galleot
is a small galley, while a brigantine may be called a quarter galley.
The number of men to each oar varies, too, according to the vessel's
size: a galley may have as many as four to six men working side by
side to each oar, a galleot but two or three, and a brigantine one;
but in so small a craft as the last each man must be a fighter as well
as an oarsmen, whereas the larger vessels of the Corsairs were rowed
entirely by Christian sla