it. When Ali Pasha questioned the
prisoners taken at Gomenizza, using torture to make them answer him, he
thought their admissions confirmed Kara Khodja's reports. So he decided to
come out of Lepanto and attack the allied armada.

Thus each fleet believed the other to be inferior in strength, and
consequently desired an early engagement. The Turkish fleet was made up of
210 galleys and 64 galliots and smaller craft, 274 sail in all, and its
commander, Ali Pasha, was one of the veteran admirals of Suleiman's
victorious days; 25,000 soldiers had been embarked under the Seraskier, or
General, Pertev Pasha. Ali had organized his fleet in four divisions,
centre, right wing, left wing, and reserve. All the ships had oars as well
as sails, and though Ali had no huge floating batteries, like the six
galleasses of Don Juan's fleet, the Turkish admiral could match the
Christians with galley for galley, and have a surplus of 8 galleys and 66
smaller craft. Of these the 44 galliots were almost as useful as the
galleys. Unlike the latter, which had two and often three masts, the
galliot had only one, and was smaller in size. But the Turkish galliots,
mostly belonging to the piratical states of North Africa, were as large as
many of the Christian galleys of the second class; they could sail well,
and they were manned by crews of fighting-men that had a long record of
piratical warfare.

The organization of Ali's fleet was:--

------------+----------+-----------+----------------+---------
Division. | Galleys. | Galliots. | Smaller Craft. | Totals.
------------+----------+-----------+----------------+---------
| | | |
{Right Wing | 54 | 2 | -- | 56
{ | | | |
{Centre | 87 | 8 | -- | 95
{ | | | |
{Left Wing | 61 | 32 | -- | 93
| | | |
Reserve | 8 | 2 | 20 | 30
------------+----------+-----------+----------------+---------
Totals | 210 | 44 | 20 | 274
------------+----------+-----------+----------------+---------

The fifty galleys of the right wing were ships from Egypt, the ports of
Asia Minor, and the arsenal of Constantinople, united under the command of
Mohammed Chulu