Finally, the negroes, captured from Barbary pirate vessels where they rowed as slaves, remained in a sort of torpor, a stupid immobility, with their elbows on their knees and their heads in their hands.
The greater part of these blacks died of grief, while the Mussulman and Christians grew accustomed to their fate.
Among these last, some were horribly mutilated, as they belonged to the class recaptured in their efforts to escape.
In order to punish them for attempting to escape, according to the law, their noses and ears had been cut off, and even more than this, their beards, heads, and eyebrows were completely shaven; nothing could be more hideous than the faces so disfigured.
In the fore part of the galley, and confined in a sort of covered guard-house, called rambade, could be seen a battery,—the five pieces of artillery belonging to the vessel.
This place was occupied by the soldiers and gunners.
These never formed a part of the crew, but composed, if such a thing may be said, the cargo of the vessel impelled by the oars of the galley-slaves.
About twenty sailors, free also, were charged with the management of the sails, with the anchorage, and other nautical manoeuvres.
The soldiers and gunners, considered as lay brothers and servants, wore coats of buff-skin, hoods, and black breeches.
Sheltered by the roof of the rambade, some, seated on their cannon, busied themselves in cleaning their arms; others, wrapped in their hoods, lay on the deck asleep, while others still—a rare thing even among the soldiers of religion—were occupied in pious reading, or in telling their rosaries.