Page:A Set of Rogues.djvu/328

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A SET OF ROGUES.

outlaws for their slaves. For stealing a pullet I have seen the flesh beaten off the soles of an English sailor's feet, and he and his companions condemned to slavery for life."

"I'll lay a dozen fleeces on the ground for every sour orange I may take," says Dawson. "And as for quarrelling, a Turk shall pull my nose before ever a curse shall pass my lips."

With these and other exhortations and promises, we parted, and lying aboard that night, we set sail by daybreak the next morning, having a very fair gale off the land; and no ships in the world being better than these galleys for swiftness, we made an excellent good passage, so that ere we conceived ourselves half over the voyage, we sighted Alger looking like nothing but a great chalk quarry for the white houses built up the side of the hill.

We landed at the mole, which is a splendid construction some fifteen hundred feet or thereabouts in length (with the forts), forming a beautiful terrace walk supported by arches, beneath which large, splendid magazines, all the most handsome in the world, I think. Thence our captain led us to the Cassanabah, a huge, heavy, square, brick building, surrounded by high, massive walls and defended by a hundred pieces of ordnance, cannons, and mortars, all told. Here the Dey or Bashaw lives with his family, and below are many roomy offices for the discharge of business. Our captain takes us into a vast waiting-hall where over a hundred Moors were patiently attending an audience of the Dey's minister, and there we also might have lingered the whole day and gone away at night unsatisfied (as many of these Moors do, day after day, but that counts for nothing with these enduring