Early in the present century, the name Algiers terrified every schoolboy who read of the evil deeds of the pirates, whose business it was to roam over the seas for plunder from foreign vessels.
Many a brave man lost his life trying to save his vessel from surrender, while his crew was mercilessly cut down by the sabres of the infuriated pirates, who were determined to capture the prize at any cost.
Sometimes, forced to surrender, the hapless captain and his crew were conveyed in their vessel to Algiers, and thrust into dark and loathsome dungeons, where life became one long torture.
The confiscated vessel was then employed as a decoy, or painted over so as not to be recognized on the high seas by the crews of other vessels sailing from the same country.
So desperate were these pirates that, if they saw no chance of securing a vessel, they did not hesitate to scuttle it, and to leave the crew to find a watery grave, as it sank beneath the waves.
Early in the present century, the English nation sent out a fleet to bombard Algiers. Then the French nation, in turn, sent its fleets to wage war against the Algerine pirates, whose name had become a terror, and whose deeds were notorious throughout the commercial world.
CHAPTER LXXVII.
THE STATE OF TUNIS.
Tunis is the smallest and most easterly of the Barbary States.