THE GALLEY SLAVE.

Waikato Argus, Volume II, Issue 109, 20 March 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE GALLEY SLAVE.

Tun Mediterranean galley of olden time whs ii liw) and very narrow sliip of the true racing build, undecked save at bow and stern, where two poops towered up, and single roasted ; for it relied much less on its sails than on its 52 groat, oars. To make the galley travel still more quickly the bows were groused, and on critical occasions tho soldiers wore forbidden ro walk about lest they should disturb tlio trim of tho vessel, aud thereby lessen its speed. It was tho torpedo-catcher of those times, the fastest craft afloat, and unscaw'irthy to the last degree and incapable of weathering a storm ; the, four that accompanied the Armada all foundered in the Bay of Biscay. Their open build rendered them perfectly helpless in the face of a well-directed fire, so by France aud Spain they were only used as cruisers ; but nothing elso was so well suited to Algerian Piracy. A privateer must bo fast, but she need not be heavily armed. The most successful cruiser of this century has beci: the Alabama, which was sunk by a gunboat. Id the so-called Christian countries the galleys were recruited from the prisons. Bernardo, for instance, the brother of Beatrics Conci, was condomned for the murder of bis father to "be sent to the galleys for ever, so that life may be a torment and death a release." The justice of those days drew no distinction between crimes. A man sentenced to two years' imprisonment .vould, if transferred to the galleys, be still rowing in them a dozen vears after. The mere vagrant sat side by sid. l with the desperado, the Pretestant by (ho pickpocket; libellers <>f the Court, Mohammedan prisoners, sailors guilty of smoking at forbidden times, all were hurried oil: to these flouting hells. The French peasants, always poorer than a church rat, and often starviug, were compelled by law to buy so many pounds of salt a year at an exorbitant price. Tbey smuggled it in, and were sent to the galleys. Once, however, the French king met with a rebuff. Ho could torture his own subjects at his pleasure, but when he treacherously seized a number of Iroquois Indians and shipped them into the galleys their comrades in Canada made matters so unpleasant th.it the captives had to be released. The Moors on their side filled tho benches with Christian victims exclusively. When Barbarossa, the greatest of the Corsairs, became the ally of Francis I, and wintered in Toulon harbour, the slaves died of fever by hundreds within,; sight of their own countrymen, but no Christian burial was allowed them, and the gaps in tho benches were filled up by nightly raids among the neighbouring villages. Half a century afterwards, when the Turks were routed at Lepanto, 15,000 poor wretches were set at liberty, and as Don John boarded tho floating torture ichambers they raised a feeble '' flu-, hu, hu !" - In preparation for galley life tho captive's head and beard were shaved ; ho was stripped of his clothes, and a red cotton shirt and some breeches were tossed to him. This was but a nominal covering, worn into shreds long before it was replaced. A piece of cork was then fastened round his neck, which he was frequently ordered to put into his mouth to ensure silence. His daily fare consisted of 12oz of biscuit and a spoonful of green stuff, and under the bench stood a water can containing vinegar and water, with a few drops of oil oh the surface. When was not in motion and the wind not too violent, a sail was stretched over the heads of the crew ; but this was a rare luxury, aud as a rule the tramontane winds swept through their shreds of clothing, the rain drenched their naked skins, and, worst of all, the southern sun boat down upon their shaven and unprotected heads. Old writers speak of tho horrible musty odours that came across the water from these galleys, and tne fact is scarcely surprising. Imagine '2OO men cooped up in a narrow, filthy space, and rowing hard for hours at a time in a sweltering heat. In their chains they ate and in their chains they slept. The seas breaking over tho bulwarks bruised and maimed them, and in tho words of a groat poet who has described the life: "The salt made tho oar handles lii<o shark skin, our knees were cut to the bone, and our lips to the gums with salt cracks." The only hospital was a den about 3ft high in the hold ; but even into this the sufferer was only admitted after a spell of truly Turkish doctoring. " I have seen," says Edmund Webbe, a galley slave in 1580, " when some of my fellows were so weak that they could not row by reason of sickness aud faiiitness, the Turks lay upon them as upon horses and beat them in such sort as oftentimes they died." Down the centre of the vessel ran a platform 6ft wide, on a level with the shoulders of the oarsmen. On this the boatswains, in all the bravery of padded and embroidered clothes and feathered caps, walked up and down with cowhide whips in their hands. At first they used " stolidly " to smite the poor fellows with a bistiuado, or give them a prod in the naked flesh with a goad, until a royal order commanded them to use whips " in order that tho meu's arms may not be broken or disabled." With those whips every order was enforced, and -when it was desired to improve upon the normal rate of '26 strokes a mauute the dreaded whistle shrieked through the ship as a fignal to quicken up. " They heard the blast of the whistle," s;iys an old chronicler, " through al' the swish of the water, through the rattle and rumpus and kicks and cuffs that they got, through tho rudder's wash and the dismal clank of the chain." Occasionally the men, brutalised beyond all conception by this persecution, took a savai»e and sudden revenge. Any boatswain cireless enough to bo on tho platform at night within reach of tho slaves was drugged down, beaten to death with the chains, and flung overboard. Cervantes gives us an instance of a much higher personage than a boatswain meeting with a very similar reward. On tho galley La Trcsa tho slaves were so cruelly treated by Barbarossa's son that they seized him as he was walking between them on the deck, calling out to thorn to row hard, and passing him on from hand to hand gave him such blows that before he got back to the masthead he was dead. The only wonder is that these outbreaks were so rare. " Think," says Jean Marteille do Perger.ie, a slave in 1701 " think of six men chained to a bench by the ankle standing up with one foot on the stretcher, tho other on the bench in front, and holding an immensely heavy oar, 35ft to -10 ft long. In order to put the whole of their bodies back on to the groaning benches. Think of them sometimes pulling for 10, 12, or even 20 hours without a moment's rest. The boatswain in such a stro.-s puts a piece of bread steeped in wine to the wretched rower's mouth to stop fainting, and then the captain shouts the order to redouble the lash. If a slave falls exhausted upon his oar, which often chances, ho is (logged until he is taken for dead, and then pitched unceremoniously into the sea." To such a life even a sea-fight, with all its hail of iron fnr.i arquebus and musket, came as a relief. The slaves rowed up to the enemy, clapped their oars into her as grappling-iron", aud held her fast. Boiling oil, molten lead, stinkpots, and handgrenades might fall upon their miserable heads, but push oil: they dare not. The hardihood aud skilful seamanship of the

English were usually 100 much for the cunning: of these snake-like craft, and our sailors rarely fell into the clutches of the pirates; but some of our countrymen were bound to bo captured by the not more humane Npauiaids during Queen Bess's long struggle with Phillip I', and two black-letter days m particular darken the records of those times. At the beginning of her reign, when we were at war with France and at peace with Spain, eight merchant ships were lying under Gibraltar, when a French ship came to anchor and was boarded by eight '' familiars." This so fired the merchants that they attacked the ship. Just then a Spanish fleet sailed in, the merchants were overpowered, and the crews, to the number of 210 men, were sent to tho galleys. There the treatment was so brutal that after nine months only 90 were left alive. A few years later Hawkias, in one of bis expeditions to tho West Indies, lost his largest ship, and, being so overcrowded with her crew, set 100 of them on shore in Florida. When tli3 Spanish " assassin" heard of tbis they were seized, some were burnt in an auto-da-fe, and the rest were sent to the galleys, But their old captain, being in no mind to desert his men in their extremity, so worked upon the credulity of Phillip that he was able to obtain their release as the price of his own pretended desertion to Spain.— W. A. Fox in Public Opinion.