El Buscapié

by Adolfo de Castro

A little to the west of Algiers, there was a garden, close to the sea shore. It was attached to a villa belonging to Aga Hassan, then Dey of Algiers. Hassan, who was a Venetian by birth, had originally been the slave of the celebrated Uchali. He turned Mahometan, and his apostacy helped him to rise to wealth and distinction in the Ottoman Empire. At the time of the Battle of Lepanto, Aga Hassan filled the high post of Captain-General of the Turkish fleet, and he was afterwards elected Dey of Algiers. This turbulent and cruel man ruled his temporary sovereignty with a rod of iron. His tyranny and barbarity were exercised alike on Moors and Christians; for, as Cervantes makes the captive in Don Quixote remark, “he was the homicide of the whole human race.” Era homocida de todo el género humano.

Aga Hassan’s garden was under the care and superintendence of a gardener, who was a Christian slave and a native of Navarre. Cervantes having made himself acquainted with this man, induced him to make an excavation under the garden in the form of a cave. As early as February, 1577, some months prior to the departure of Rodrigo Cervantes, this excavation was in progress, and several Christian slaves, who had escaped from bondage had taken refuge in it. The number of the fugitives gradually augmented, and in September of the same year Cervantes himself succeeded in eluding the watchful eye of his master, and joining his friends in their subterraneous retreat. He had accurately calculated the time when the expected ship would near the African coast. It did so on the 28th of September; but stood off during the day, so as to keep out of sight, and at night standing close in shore, the vessel gave the signal to the captives. This being unluckily observed by some Moorish slaves, who happened to be on the spot, they gave the alarm. The vessel immediately put back, but shortly afterwards made a second attempt to near the shore, which ended in failure, and she was captured.

But this disaster, discouraging as it was, did not subdue the hopes of Cervantes and his companions, who determined to remain in their hiding place to await another opportunity for attempting their escape. But their schemes were frustrated by the treachery of a slave, who had been a renegade from Islamism to Christianity, and whom the fugitives had incautiously admitted to their confidence. This slave, who was surnamed El Dorador, again turned renegade, and by renouncing Christianity entitled himself to the reward of his twofold apostacy and treachery. The Dey, who claimed all runaway slaves as his own, dispatched a troop of soldiers to the garden. The cave was searched and the fugitives captured.

The details of this event are related by Father Diego de Haedo, a Spanish ecclesiastic, who was contemporary with Cervantes, and who wrote a history of Algiers. Alluding to the seizure of the fugitives in the cave, Haedo says, “The Dey’s emissaries took especial care to secure Miguel de Cervantes, a Hidalgo of Alcalá de Henares, who was the contriver of the whole scheme.”[17] He then adds, “It was a most marvellous thing that these Christians remained hidden in the cave, without seeing the light of day, some for five or six, and others for so long as seven months;—sustained all that time by Miguel de Cervantes; and this too at the peril of his own life, for several times he was on the point of being hanged, empaled, or burnt alive, for the bold adventures by which he attempted to restore his comrades to freedom. Had his good fortune been equal to his courage, enterprise and skill, Algiers would at this day have been under Christian rule; for to no less an object did his designs aspire. The gardener, who was a native of Navarre, was hanged by the feet. He was a very good Christian. Of the incidents which occurred in that cave, during the seven months that those Christians remained within it—and of the bold enterprises hazarded by Miguel de Cervantes—a particular history might be composed.”[18]

Finding that himself and his friends were in the power of their captors, and that it was fruitless to attempt resistance, Cervantes at once declared himself the sole contriver of the scheme, and begged that, as he alone was guilty, the whole punishment might devolve on him. This avowal caused him to be put in chains, and amidst the scoffs and insults of the populace, he was conducted to the presence of Aga Hassan. With fearful threats the tyrant sought to intimidate him into a confession that he had accomplices, and to denounce them; for his object was to make it appear that Father Jorge Olivar, the Redentor, or Slave Ransomer, of the crown of Aragón, was implicated in the affair. But Cervantes persisted in affirming that no one could be accused but himself.

Nevertheless, the barbarous Hassan forthwith condemned all the fugitives to death. The unfortunate gardener was hanged, and Cervantes and his friends would doubtless have shared the same fate, but that, luckily for them, Hassan’s cupidity triumphed over his cruelty. The prospect of ransom money saved the lives of the prisoners; but they were thrown into one of the most loathsome prisons in Algiers, and subjected to all sorts of privation and misery.

But in spite of their bitter sufferings, the captives, most of whom were Spaniards, did not yield to despondency. Each one cheered himself and his companions, by pleasant stories and recollections of their dear native land. The song and the dance, diversions ardently loved by every Spaniard, were not wanting to enliven the gloom of their prison-house. By turns they recited or sang their old national romances, and the heroic deeds of their ancestors inspired them with courage. Their religious festivals, too, were celebrated with all the ceremony which circumstances admitted of, and the prisoners even succeeded in getting up some dramatic representations.[19]

In those palmy days of the Spanish drama, the passion for histrionic performance had taken firm root in the public mind. So popular and universally admired were the comedies of Lope de Rueda, that Spaniards, who had been for years out of their native country, could recollect and repeat by heart favourite passages and scenes from them.

It is well known that Cervantes drew from his captivity in Algiers the subjects of two plays which he wrote at a subsequent period of his life, and in which he depicts the sufferings of the Christian slaves. In one, Los Baños de Argel, a pastoral dialogue, (Coloquio Pastoril) is introduced. It is stated to be from one of Lope de Rueda’s comedies, and is curious from the fact of its being in verse, whilst all the dramas, or as they are called, comedias, of Lope de Rueda, now extant, are in prose. The other play by Cervantes, founded on the subject of Algerine captivity, is entitled La Gran Sultana. The heroine is a Spanish lady, Doña Catalina de Oviedo, supposed to have been captured by corsairs.