rected against the Ionian Islands, which
had been in the possession of Venice since 1401. On August 18th Soliman
laid siege to Corfu, and was disastrously beaten, re-embarking his men
on September 7th, after losing thousands in a fruitless attack on the
fortress. He returned to Constantinople utterly discomfited. It was the
seventh campaign which the Sultan had conducted in person, but the first
in which the ever-faithful Ibrahim had not been by his side.

This defeat at the hands of the Venetians was not, however, the only
humiliation which he was destined to experience in this disastrous year;
for once again Doria, that scourge of the Moslem, was loose upon the
seas, and was making his presence felt in the immediate neighborhood of
Corfu, where the Turks had been defeated. On July 17th Andrea had left
the port of Messina with twenty-five galleys, had captured ten richly
laden Turkish ships, gutted and burned them. Kheyr-ed-Din was at sea at
the time, but the great rivals were not destined to meet on this
occasion. Instead of Barbarossa, Andrea fell in with Ali-Chabelli, the
lieutenant of Sandjak Bey of Gallipoli. On July 22nd the Genoese admiral
and the Turkish commander from the Dardanelles met to the southward of
Corfu, off the small island of Paxo, and a smart action ensued. It
ended in the defeat of Ali-Chabelli, whose galleys were captured and
towed by Doria into Paxo. That veteran fighter was himself in the
thickest of the fray, and, conspicuous in his crimson doublet, had been
an object of attention to the marksmen of Chabelli during the entire
action. In spite of the receipt of a severe wound in the knee, the
admiral refused to go below until victory was assured. He was surrounded
at this time by a devoted band of nobles sworn to defend the person of
their admiral or to die in his defense. His portrait has been sketched
for us at this time by the Dominican Friar, Padre Alberto Guglielmotto,
author of "La guerra dei Pirati e la marina Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560."
The description runs thus: "Andrea Doria was of lofty stature, his face
oval in shape, forehead broad and commanding, his neck was powerful, his
hair short, his beard long and fan-shaped, his lips were thin, his eyes
bright and piercing."

Once again had he defeated an officer of the Grand Turk; and it may be
remarked that Ibrahim was probably quite right in the estimation, or
rather in the lack of estimation, in which he held the sea-officers of
his