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Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2346, 23 July 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

There is a curious object of interest in the Algiers museum—a ghastly plastercast of the Christian martyr Geronimo, writhing in the agony of death. Tradition has for 300 years told the story of the Moorish lad who, coming under the influence of Spanish missionary monks, became a Christian and a saint. He abjured the fiaith, it was said, for a brief moment under the persecution and slavery, but returned to it with new zeal, and proved it in the end by a heoric and horrible death—that of being thrown alive witn his hands tied behind him, into a block of liquid concrete, which was afterwards built into the wall of one of the outlying forts near the city. Such is the tradition, singularly and literally true in the minutest details, as was proved in 1533, when part of a fort was demolished, and a block of concrete found containing the accurate impression of the writhing body, face downward, with the hands tied with cords behind the back. The block itself was deposited with great honour in what used to be a Mahommedan mosque, but is now the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the town.