In the year 1612, twenty years before the period of which we write, a Frenchman, still young, arrived at Tripoli, with one servant.
The captain of the vessel which brought him to Tripoli had frequent opportunity to observe that his passenger was very expert in matters pertaining to navigation; he concluded finally that the traveller was an officer on the vessels and galleys of the king, and he was not mistaken.
Seigneur Pog—we continue to give him this assumed name—was an excellent sailor, as we shall soon see.
Upon his arrival at Tripoli, Pog, after having, according to the custom of Barbary, bought the protection of Bey Hassan, hired a house in the suburbs of the city, not far from the sea. He lived there during one year with his valet in profound solitude.
Some French merchants, established at Tripoli, exhausted their powers of conjecture on the singular taste of their compatriot, who came, as they thought, through mere caprice, to inhabit a wild and deserted coast.
Some attributed this eccentricity to a violent, desperate grief; others saw, if not an unpardonable folly, a monomania, at least, in his strange determination.
These last suppositions did not lack foundation.
At certain periods of the year, Pog, it was said, was subject to such attacks of despair and rage that belated herdsmen, passing his solitary house at night, would hear furious and frantic cries.
Three or four years passed in this manner.
To distract his mind from gloomy thoughts, and to recuperate his health, Pog made long voyages at sea in a small vessel, but a very smooth and swift-sailing ship which he himself managed with rare skill. His crew consisted of two young slave Moors.