ALGIERS – AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1627 – PART 2

Last week, we looked at Reverend Ólafur Egilsson’s description of Algiers as it was in August-September, 1627. This week, we continue with that description. (Parts of Reverend Ólafur’s description require some explanation; I have done this in footnotes.)

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Now about the town itself, even though I do not like to talk about it much.

I want to explain that it is white as chalk from limestone, which is boiled in big iron kettles, under each of which fire burns in four places. The town is built upon the slope of a mountain. It is narrower at the upper end near the top of the mountain. Seen from a distance, it seems to be about a mile wide.

Each house is open at the top, and there are small, narrow rooms where people sleep. The windows have nothing other than iron gratings in them. Because of the great heat which is there from the sun, men and women go almost without clothes.

Because the sun is always high in the sky, the land grows two crops during the year, and all the fruits of the earth—corn, grapes, grain—grow like this. The grass is never cut, and sheep and cattle are never put into houses because there is no winter there, never any frost or snow at any time the whole year round. The sheep, which are both big and very fat, lamb two times a year. There are no barren or gelded sheep. In one day, I saw 100 rams, with tails hanging nearly down to the ground.

As for people’s clothes, those who came to this land as Christians kept to their own manner of dress. The Turks say that in that place there are 9,000 Christian people who have been there for a very long time.[1]

The Turkish women wear very good dresses with many folds and pleats around the waist. These dresses are made of silk, of the finest weave which I think exists in the world. They are not open, except at the neck. Also, the women wear linen trousers down to their shoes, attaching one end of the cuffs to their instep and the other to their heels. They wear skullcaps made of linen, which are neat and handily made, and a mantle which is made either of circular-woven linen or other valuable weaving. When they go outside, they wrap the lap of the mantle around their face so that, when they walk on the streets, nobody knows them.[2] Indoors, they wear good plain clothes without folds, though they wear linen trousers. The Christian women are dressed in a similar way, except that they do not wear linen trousers.

In that place, plates and serving dishes are all made of either clay or copper. Dishes and washbasins are of tinned copper, but the drinking cups are all made of clay and have clay necks. Everyone has the same sort of drinking cups, both the Turks and the prisoners. In that place, they drink only warm, brackish water, which in many places is brought into the houses.[3]

Most people in that place sleep on the floor without a mattress but place thick blankets beneath and on top of them—though I had no experience of these. There were no storage chests to be seen and no barrels, where I was, and no tables or benches. They do not use knives when eating, and, as far as I could see, there were no spoons except those made of wood. There was no iron on the doors except for three hinges. Most houses had swinging doors. When food is eaten, people sit straight legged on the floor.

During that time, I was barefoot and had no shoes. Then God awakened one French man who had been there for a long time. That man gave me new shoes and some aqua vitae [brandy] when I was sick. He also gave me some homespun woolen cloth three ells in length. And that same man told me that many Icelandic people were lying sick and dying all around the town, which did not make me happy. He also told me that in the Christian cemetery there were already thirty-one people buried. The Icelanders could not endure the terrible heat of that place. [4]

That same French man also told me that a girl who had been my servant, who was very good looking, had been sold—first for 700 dalers. But then a rich man came from Jerusalem and paid 1,000 dalers for her and took her back with him to Jerusalem, where he gave her to a Christian man.[5] In that place, Christian men cannot have intercourse with Turkish women, nor Turkish men with Christian women. Otherwise, they lose their lives.

About such things I do not have need to write further, except to say that I witnessed these things and that they are truth.

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On the 20th day of September, I was taken from the house where I was imprisoned by four men and brought to the street where the house containing my wife and babies was located. I begged with all humbleness and prayer of the men who had fetched me that I might be allowed to say goodbye to my wife and the children who were with her, all of whom were deadly sick. I was hardly allowed ten words with them, however, and then my captors callously pulled me away.

After this painful meeting with my family, I was taken to the street where the official who was to issue me a safe-conduct lived. This safe-conduct, written in many different languages, I was to give to any Turkish pirates who might capture a ship on which I was a passenger. The document explained that I should neither be killed nor interfered with because I was acting as a messenger. I still have this document and have shown it to several people, including the Archbishop of Copenhagen.

In order to receive this safe-conduct, I had to kiss the pirates’ hands again.

That same day, I was put aboard an Italian ship and sailed away from Algiers.

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[1]  By “Turks,” Reverend Ólafur means the Muslim inhabitants of Algiers. Like other Europeans of the time, Icelanders used the word “Turk” as a generic term for all Muslims. It is not clear whether the “9,000 Christian people” Reverend Ólafur mentions is a reference to slaves or to renegades. There were about 25,000 Christian slaves in Algiers and environs at this time, and something like 8,000 renegades. So perhaps Reverend Ólafur is referring to the renegade population. He is certainly not referring to a free Christian population. There was no substantial free Christian population in Algiers.

[2]  Reverend Ólafur seems to be describing a version of the hijab, the traditional head covering that some Muslim women wear in public.

[3]  Algiers in the seventeenth century had an aqueduct that brought water into the town.

[4]  Many of the Icelandic captives died of sickness within a few weeks of their arrival in Algiers.

[5]  The “daler” mentioned by Reverend Ólafur is the Danish rigsdaler, the standard silver coin used by the Danes at the time, It was equivalent in value to the famous Spanish piece of eight. Young attractive European women fetched high prices in the Badestan (the slave market)—they much were sought after as additions to wealthy men’s harems. The ransom demanded for Reverend Ólafur’s pregnant wife and young child was 1,200 dalers. This was a great deal of money: 1,200 rigsdalers equalled approximately 30 years’ worth of wages for an ordinary Icelander.