This week we continue the series of posts on life in Algiers drawn from Relation de la captivité et liberté du sieur Emanuel d’Aranda, (The Relation of the Captivity and Liberation of Emanuel d’Aranda).
Though the hardships and misfortunes which slaves must endure are common to all reduced to that miserable condition, yet some must bear a greater portion than others. Among the former may be numbered the Knight de Cherf, one of my companions, as will be seen by the ensuing relation.
After we had first fallen into the hands of the Turks, the pirate ships that brought us to slavery cast anchor before the city of Algiers, discharging their guns to give notice of their arrival.
The news of the rich prize was presently spread about, as well among the Turks of the garrison as the people. As it commonly happens that news increases by going from mouth to mouth, so it was reported that, besides thirty thousand patacoons, which were found in the prizes, there was among the slaves a Lord of great Quality, meaning the aforesaid Knight de Cherf. Some said he was a General, others an Ambassador, and all imagined that the rest of us were his servants, and that all the money which was said to have been found aboard our ship belonged to him.
This news was partly spread by the pirates themselves, as they are wont to invent new stratagems to enhance the price of slaves newly brought in, loading them with titles and wealth to draw in the buyers to make greater offers, in hopes of a better ransom.
The Pasha [the Ottoman Governor of Algiers], hearing this news, took the Knight de Cherf for his portion—which is one in every eight [the Pasha was officially entitled to received one eighth of all slaves brought into Algiers]. The Knight was conducted to a stable of the Pasha’s, where he found other slaves. Among them there were some Spanish Captains and Officers, whose company he dared not keep, nor so much as speak to, least there should be notice taken of his demeanor, which would have marked him as being a person of high quality.
To beat it out of the Pasha’s head that he was neither a General nor an Ambassador, the Knight de Cherf kept seven or eight days all alone and had nothing to eat but a crust of dry bread. The Pasha’s Cook, observing this, ordered that the Knight de Cherf be given the remainder of some rice, which is the ordinary food of the Turks. Finding him apparently so submissive and serviceable, the Cook allowed the Knight to creep into the kitchen to help the scullions in bringing in wood, coals, turning the spit, and similar duties, which he could do only with his right arm, having lost the use of the left by a musket ball he had received in the service of his Catholic Majesty [the Spanish king Philip IV], in the year 1639, at the siege of Salses [one of the battles of the Franco-Spanish War, 1635-1659].
In return for the good services which the Knight did in the kitchen, the Cook permitted him to eat with the scullions, who were Moors, and took it ill that a Christian should put his fingers into the same dish with them. No doubt the Knight thought himself at an entertainment in Hell with the pages of Lucifer, for those livery those boys, being about fifteen or sixteen years of age, and having their clothes all black with grease and nastiness, suited the role excellently well.
And yet the Knight endeavored all he could to put himself into that same posture, that he might be thought the fitter for that company and employment.
After three months had passed in that miserable course of life, the Knight had of it this advantage: that he made the Pasha quit the opinion he had of his being a General or an Ambassador, and consequently the hope of getting much money out of him.
This put the Pasha upon a resolution to sell his slave, which he did—to the General of the Gallies, Alli Pegelin.
The Knight had acted his part well enough so far, but his new Master, Alli Pegelin, who had heard all that was reported concerning his slave, began to question him closely, asking him, in the language commonly spoken between the Turks and the slaves, who he was, and of what country he came from. The Knight, being obliged to make answer, said he was a poor youth, born at Ostend, the son of a mean Irish Officer, giving himself out to be of that nation—partly because he had the looks of one from it, and partly because the Irish nation is little known and not much esteemed at Algiers, those of it yielding but paltry ransoms.
The Knight was in hopes by this invention to come off the easier when he came to treat about his ransom. But Alli Pegelin, who was a person not so easily mislead, having heard his answer, said jeeringly to him, “You have acted your part very well in the Pasha’s kitchen, but I know you are an Ambassador, and one of the King of Spain’s Generals, and, what is more, that you are a Knight.”
This last title he gave him to make the matter worse than it was, inasmuch as the Turks know that the Knights of the Military Orders in Spain have commandries [lands] and pensions granted to them on condition that they wage war against the Turks and Moors. Alli Pegelin then dismissed the Knight, saying to him, “Go! Write home, that they may sell your lands, and send me patacoons, and you shall then return to your country.”
Alli Pegelin had a house at a little distance from his own, wherein, during the time of my being there, he lodged five hundred and fifty slaves. This place was called the Banio, or the Bath, and it might well be taken for a representation of Babylon, or an embodiment of Hell. The different nations, the confusion of languages, the miseries and inconveniences endured, and all the several kinds of crimes that are committed there would force even the lewdest person in the world to pass that judgement upon it.
To this place was our Knight-slave brought, where he was greeted by M. Caloën, Saldens, and myself. Our only consolation was that we were all together. Since the Knight was lame in one arm, and so was not obliged to go to work out of the Bath, we made him our caterer, to provide our meat for us, and to dress it, in which employment he continued, to our great convenience, for the space of six months.
At the end of this time, Alli Pegelin, thinking that the Knight might have received an answer from his country, sent for him to come to some agreement about his ransom. The Knight offered five hundred patacoons. At this, Alli Pegelin, being incensed—for he considered the offer far below what he expected—ordered the Knight to have a chain of sixty pound weight fastened to his leg, to induce him to come somewhat nearer to the sum of thirty thousand patacoons, at which he had set the Knight’s ransom.
For a continuation of the Knight de Cherf’s story, see the net post here in this blog.
_____
For those who may be interested…
This excerpt can be found in “Relation Thirty-Eight: The Adventures of Philip de Cherf of Vlamertingue [a village in West Flanders], Knight of the Order of Saint James,” in the seventeenth century English translation of d’Aranda’s Relation, titled The history of Algiers and it’s slavery with many remarkable particularities of Africk / written by the Sieur Emanuel D’Aranda, sometime a slave there; English’d by John Davies, pp. 213-217.
As usual, I have edited the original seventeenth century text to make it more easily readable.
The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson
The story of the Barbary corsair raid on Iceland in 1627
Amazon listing