< Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf
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THE PALACE OF THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL

back from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. Burning with hatred of their conquerors they established all along the northern shore of Africa a chain of pirate cities. Their one object in life became revenge. Europe had cast them forth, the fleets of Europe should therefore be their spoil; the fruits of piracy support them in their exile. The first leader to bring Algiers prominently forward as a pirate power was the renegade Greek, Barbarossa, who called himself the "Friend of the Sea and the Enemy of all who sail upon it." The sailors and passengers upon the captured ships were sold as slaves in the Algerian market-places. No less a personage than Cervantes, author of "Don Quixote" was here sold at the block in 1575. He served five years in the house of a cruel Moslem master, and had he not escaped, we should never have known the lanky Knight of La Mancha nor laughed at Sancho Panza's jests. But fortunately he did escape and lived to write his famous work in which he says, referring to the Turkish viceroy who ruled Algiers at the time of his captivity, "Every day he hanged a slave, impaled one,

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