DON QUIXOTE – THE CAPTIVE’S TALE – PART 3

(This post is a continuation of Don Quixote – The Captive’s Tale – Parts 1 & 2. If you haven’t done so already, it’s probably best to read those posts before continuing on here.)

Last week, the captive related the story of his capture and enslavement, ending with a description of the successful Ottoman attack on the Goletta (La Goulette), the harbor of the city of Tunis. This week, he concludes that part of his story and moves on to Algiers.

The Goletta and the fort being thus in their hands, the Turks gave orders to dismantle the Goletta—for the fort was reduced to such a state that there was nothing left to level—and to do the work more quickly and easily they mined it in three places. Nowhere, however, were they able to blow up the part which seemed to be the least strong, that is to say, the old walls, while all that remained standing of the new fortifications came to the ground with the greatest ease. Finally, the fleet returned victorious and triumphant to Constantinople, and a few months later my master, El Uchali, died—he who was otherwise known as Uchali Fartax, which means in Turkish “the scabby renegade,” for that he was.

It is the practice with the Turks to name people from some defect or virtue they may possess, the reason being that there are among them only four surnames belonging to families tracing their descent from the Ottoman house, and the others, as I have said, take their names and surnames either from bodily blemishes or moral qualities. This “scabby one” rowed at the oar as a slave of the Grand Signor’s for fourteen years.

When over thirty-four years of age, in resentment at having been struck by a Turk while at the oar, he turned renegade and renounced his faith in order to be able to revenge himself; and such was his valor that, without owing his advancement to the base ways and means by which most favorites of the Grand Signor rise to power, he came to be Pasha of Algiers, and afterwards General at Sea, which is the third place of trust in the realm. He was a Calabrian by birth, and a worthy man morally, and he treated his slaves with great humanity. He had three thousand of them, and after his death they were divided, as he directed by his will, between the Grand Signor (who is heir of all who die and shares with the children of the deceased) and his renegades.

I fell to the lot of a Venetian renegade who, when a cabin boy on board a ship, had been taken by El Uchali and was so much beloved by him that he became one of his most favored youths. He came to be the most cruel renegade I ever saw. His name was Hassan Aga, and he grew very rich and became Pasha king of Algiers himself. With him I went to Algiers from Constantinople, rather glad to be nearer to Spain, not that I intended to write to anyone about my unhappy lot, but to try if fortune would be kinder to me in Algiers than in Constantinople, where I had attempted in a thousand ways to escape without ever finding a favorable time or chance.

In Algiers, I resolved to seek for other means of effecting the purpose I cherished so dearly, for the hope of obtaining my liberty never deserted me, and when the results of my plots and schemes and attempts did not answer my expectations, without giving way to despair, I immediately began to look out for or conjure up some new hope to support me, however faint or feeble it might be.

In this way I lived on confined in a building or prison called by the Turks a baño in which they confine the Christian captives, those that are the Pasha’s, those belonging to private individuals, and also those they call the Almacen, which is to say the slaves of the municipality who serve the city in the public works and other employments. Captives of this third kind recover their liberty only with great difficulty, for, as they are public property and have no particular master, there is no one with whom to treat for their ransom, even though they may have the means.

To these baños, as I have said, some private individuals of the town are in the habit of bringing their captives, especially when they are to be ransomed, because there they can keep them in safety and comfort until their ransom arrives. The king’s captives who are to be ransomed also do not go out to work with the rest of the crew—unless their ransom is delayed. Then, to make them write for it more pressingly, they compel the captives to work and go for wood, which is no light labor.

I was one of those held for ransom, for when it was discovered that I was a captain, although I declared my scanty means and want of fortune, nothing could dissuade them from including me among the gentlemen and those waiting to be ransomed. They put a chain on me, and so I passed my life in that baño with several other gentlemen and persons of quality marked out as being held to ransom. Though at times, or rather almost always, we suffered from hunger and scanty clothing, nothing distressed us so much as hearing and seeing at every turn the unexampled and unheard-of cruelties my master inflicted upon the Christians.

Every day he hanged a man, impaled one, cut off the ears of another; and all with so little provocation, or so entirely without any, that the Turks acknowledged he did it merely for the sake of doing it, and because he was by nature murderously disposed towards the whole human race. The only one that fared at all well with him was a Spanish soldier, something de Saavedra by name, to whom he never gave a blow himself, or ordered a blow to be given, or addressed a hard word, although he had done things that will dwell in the memory of the people there for many a year, and all to recover his liberty. For the least of the many things he did, we all dreaded that he would be impaled, and he himself was in fear of it more than once. If time allowed, I could tell you things about what that soldier did that would interest and astonish you much more than the narration of my own tale.

But to go on with my story… The courtyard of our prison was overlooked by the windows of the house belonging to a wealthy Moor of high position. As is usual in Moorish houses, these were mere loopholes rather than windows, and besides were covered with thick and close latticework.

It so happened, then, that as I was one day on the terrace of our prison with three other comrades, trying to while away the time by seeing how far we could leap with our chains. We were alone there, for all the other Christians had gone out to work. I chanced to raise my eyes, and from one of these little closed windows, I saw a reed appear with a small cloth bundle attached to the end of it. The reed kept waving to and fro, as if as a sign for us to come and take it.

We watched it for a little time, and then one of those who were with me went and stood under the reed to see whether whoever held it would let it drop. As he drew close, however, the reed was raised and moved from side to side, as if they meant to say “No” by a shake of the head.

The Christian came back, and the reed was again lowered, making the same movements as before. Another of my comrades went, but the same happened to him as with the first. Then the third went forward, with the same result as the first and second. Seeing this, I decided to try my luck, and as soon as I came under it, the reed it was dropped and fell inside the baño at my feet.

I hastened to untie the small cloth bundle attached to the end of it. It contained ten cianis, which are coins of base gold, current among the Moors. Each worth ten reals of our money.

Needless to say, I rejoiced over this godsend, but my joy was not less than my wonder as I strove to imagine how this good fortune could have come to us, but to me specially, for the evident unwillingness to drop the reed for any but me showed that it was for me that the favor was intended. I took my welcome money, broke the reed, and returned to the terrace. Looking up at the window, I saw a very white hand put out that opened and closed very quickly. From this we gathered, or fancied, that it must be some woman living in that house that had done us this kindness. To show that we were grateful for it, we made salaams after the fashion of the Moors, bowing the head, bending the body, and crossing the arms on the breast.

For a further installment of The Captive’s Tale, see the next post in this blog.

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A bit of background explanation…

The “baño” in which the captive was incarcerator was, as he says, a prison where slaves and captives were kept. At this time, Algiers had several such baños. The word means “bath.” The common explanation for this term—an unlikely word to denote a slave prison—is that the prison in Istanbul where captives were first kept was a re-purposed public bathhouse, and the term came into general use throughout the Ottoman Empire to designate a prison for captives/slaves.

Here is a contemporary description of the Algiers baños:

The baños are the houses—or, more accurately the corrals—where they keep their Christian captives and slaves. One is called the Great Baño, which is constructed as a square, although not exactly, since it is longer than it is wide: seventy feet long and forty feet wide. The Great Baño has upper and lower quarters, with many small rooms, and in the middle a cistern of water. And to one side, on the lower level, is a church or chapel for the Christians… The other baño, called the Baño de la Bastarda, is not as large but is also divided into many habitations… There are sometimes fifteen hundred to two thousand Christians in the Great Baño, whereas the captives in the Baño de la Bastarda ordinarily number no more than four or five hundred.

Scattered throughout the city as they were, baños were an integral part of life in Algiers and served as more than just prisons. The larger ones included permanent chapels, shops and markets, and even taverns (operated by slaves). This list may make baños seem relatively benign. Indeed, if you were not a slave, you could while away many a pleasant hour drinking in a baño tavern, some of which even served free food (taverns were outlawed generally in Algiers, due to the Islamic prohibition against drinking alcohol, but they were tolerated in the baños). For the vast majority of slaves incarcerated there, though, baños were painfully oppressive places. (The image at the top of this post is of a baño.)

The captive was particularly fortunate, since his captors thought he was a rich man for whom they could collect a large ransom. Such captives were not put to work but instead were kept safely locked up, either in a private residence or, as in the captive’s case, one of the baños.