[318] A Mission had existed in Congo since the end of the fifteenth century.
[319] “Ragguaglio del Viaggio compendioso d’un Dilettante Antiquario sorpreso da’ Corsari, condotto in Barberia, e felicemente ripatriato.” 2 vols. Milan, 1805-6. The work is anonymous, but the authorship is plain from the passport and other circumstances. I am indebted for the knowledge of the book (which is now rare) to Mr. Garnett of the British Museum. A tolerably full account of it may be found in the Bibliothèque Universelle de Genêve (a continuation of the Bibliothèque Britannique) vol. VIII., pp. 388-408.
[320] A similar narrative was published as late as 1817 by Pananti. “Avventure ed Osservazioni sopra le Coste di Barberia.” Firenze 1817. It was translated into English by Mr. Blacquiere, and published in 1819. In the end of the seventeenth century, France and England severally compelled the Dey of Algiers to enter into treaties by which their subjects were protected from these piratical outrages; and in the following century, the increasing naval power of the other great European states tended to secure for them a similar immunity. But the weaker maritime states of the Mediterranean, especially Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, were still exposed not only to attacks upon their vessels at sea, but even to descents upon their shores, in which persons of every age and sex were carried off and sold into slavery. The long wars of the Revolution secured a sort of impunity for these outrages, which at length reached such a height, that when, in 1816, the combined English and Dutch squadron under Lord Exmouth destroyed the arsenal and fleet of Algiers, the number of Christian captives set at liberty was no less than ten hundred and eighty-three. Nevertheless even still the evil was not entirely abated; nor can the secure navigation of the Mediterranean be said to have been completely established till the final capture of Algiers by the French under Duperre and Bourmont, in 1830.
[321] In virtue of a treaty made in 1683, after the memorable bombardment of Algiers by Admiral Du Quesne.
[322] The Moorish form of the common Arabic name Tezkerah, [in Egypt, (see Burton’s “Medinah and Meccah,” I. 26.) Tazkirêh] of a passport. The Moorish Arabic differs considerably (especially in the vowel sounds,) from the common dialect of the East. Caussin de Percival’s Grammar contains both dialects, and a special Grammar of Moorish Arabic was published at Vienna by Dombay, of which Mezzofanti was already possessed (inf. 178.) Both the Grammars named above are in the Mezzofanti Library. Catalogo, pp. 14 and 17. Father Caronni gives a fac-simile of a portion of the Tiscara.
[323] Sidi Hamudah had been Bey of Tunis from the year 1782, when he succeeded his brother, Ali Bey. He survived till 1815. His reign is described as the Augustan age of Tunis (Diary of a Tour in Barbary, II. 79). Father Caronni tells of him that when one of his generals,—a Christian,—was about to become a Mahomedan in the hope of ingratiating himself with Hamudah, he rebuked the renegade for his meanness. “A hog,” said he, “remains always a hog in my eyes, even though he has lost his tail.”
[324] This month is called in the common Arabic of Egypt Gumada. There are two of the Mahomedan months called by this name, Gumada-l-Oola, and Gumada-t-Taniyeh (Lane’s Modern Egyptians, I. 330). The latter, which is the sixth month of the year, is the one meant here. As the Mahomedan year consists of only three hundred and fifty days, it is hardly necessary to say that its months do not permanently correspond with those of our year. They retrograde through the several seasons during a cycle of thirty-three years.
[325] The year of the Hegira, 1219, corresponds with A.D. 1804.
[326] Ragguaglio del Viaggio, vol. II. p. 140-1. Milan 1806.—The book, though exceedingly rambling and discursive, is not uninteresting. The second part contains the Author’s antiquarian speculations, which curiously anticipate some of the results of the recent explorations at Tunis.
[327] Moore’s “Diary.” III. 138.