The Story of the Barbary Corsairs | Page 7

heavy tides and spreading sandbanks, and even the war-galleys of Venice and Spain were at a disadvantage when manoeuvring in its treacherous eddies against the Corsair who knew every inch of the coast. Passing westward, a famous medieval fortress, with the remains of a harbour, is seen at Mahd[=i]ya, the "Africa" of the chroniclers. Next, Tunis presents the finest harbour on all the Barbary coast; within its Goletta (or "Throat") a vessel is safe from all the winds that blow, and if a canal were cut to join it with the inland lake of Bizerta, a deep harbour would be formed big enough to hold all the shipping of the Mediterranean. The ancient ports of Carthage and Porto Farina offered more protection in the Corsairs' time than now when the sand has choked the coast; and in the autumn months a vessel needed all the shelter she could get when the Cyprian wind was blowing off Cape Bona. Close to the present Algerine frontier is Tabarka, which the Lomellini family of Genoa found a thriving situation for their trading establishments. Lacalle, once a famous nest of pirates, had then a fine harbour, as the merchants of Marseilles discovered when they superintended the coral fisheries from the neighbouring Bastion de France. Bona, just beyond, has its roads, and formerly possessed a deep harbour. J[=i]jil, an impregnable post, held successively by Phoenicians, Normans, Romans, Pisans, and Genoese, till Barbarossa got possession of it and made it a fortress of refuge for his Corsairs, stands on a rocky peninsula joined by a sandy isthmus to the mainland, with a port well sheltered by a natural breakwater. Further on were Buj[=e]ya (Bougie), its harbour well protected from the worst winds; Algiers, not then a port, but soon to become one; Shersh[=e]l, with a harbour to be shunned in a heavy swell from the north, but otherwise a valuable nook for sea rovers; Tinnis, not always accessible, but safe when you were inside; and Oran, with the important harbour of Mars El-Keb[=i]r the "Portus Divinus" of the Romans; while beyond, the Jamia-el-Ghazaw[=a]t or Pirates' Mosque, shows where a favourite creek offered an asylum between the Brothers Rocks for distressed Corsairs. Passing Tangiers and Ceuta (Septa), and turning beyond the Straits, various shelters are found, and amongst others the celebrated ports of Sal[=e], which, in spite of its bar of sand, managed to send out many mischievous craft to harass the argosies on their return from the New World.
Not only were there ports in abundance for the shelter of galleys, but the land behind was all that could be desired. River indeed there was none capable of navigation, but the very shortness of the watershed which precluded the possibility of great streams brought with it a counterbalancing advantage; for the mountains rise so steep and high near the coast that the Corsairs' look-out could sight the vessels to be attacked a long way out to sea, and thus give notice of a prize or warning of an enemy. Moreover the land produced all that was needed to content the heart of man. Below the mountains where the Berbers dwelt and the steppes where Arab shepherds roamed, fertile valleys spread to the seashore. Jerba was a perfect garden of corn and fruit, vines, olives, almonds, apricots, and figs; Tunis stood in the midst of green fields, and deserved the title of "the White, the Odoriferous, the Flowery Bride of the West,"--though, indeed, the second epithet, according to its inhabitants, was derived from the odour of the lake which received the drainage of the city, to which they ascribed its peculiar salubrity.
What more could be required in a land which was, now to become a nest of pirates? Yet, as though this were not sufficient, one more virtue was added. The coast was visited by terrible gales, which, while avoidable by those who had experience and knew where to run, were fatal to the unwary, and foiled many an attack of the avenging enemy.
It remains to explain how it was that the Corsairs were able to possess themselves of this convenient territory, which was neither devoid of inhabitants nor without settled governments.
North Africa--the only Africa known to the ancients--had seen many rulers come and go since the Arabs under Okba first overran its plains and valleys. Dynasty had succeeded dynasty; the Arab governors under the Khalifs of Damascus and Baghd[=a]d had made room for the Houses of Idr[=i]s (A.D. 788) and Aghlab (800); these in turn had given way to the F[=a]tim[=i] Khalifs (909); and when these schismatics removed their seat of power from their newly founded capital of Mahd[=i]ya to their final metropolis of Cairo (968), their western empire speedily split up into the several princedoms of the Zeyr[=i]s of Tunis, the Ben[=i] Hamm[=a]d of Tilims[=a]n, and