k Bey, Governor of Alexandria, known among the Christian
sailors of the Mediterranean as Mohammed Scirocco. The centre, commanded by
Ali in person, was made up of galleys from Rhodes and the Greek islands,
and from Constantinople and Gallipoli, and the Tripolitan squadron under
Djaffir Agha, Governor of Tripoli. The left under Ulugh Ali, the Viceroy of
Algiers, included ships from Constantinople, Asia Minor, Syria, and the
ports of North-west Africa. The reserve, chiefly composed of small craft,
was under the command of Murad Dragut of Constantinople.

There were a good many Greek and Calabrese renegades among the captains of
the galleys, but the Syrians and the mixed Arab race of Alexandria had
learned the ways of the sea; some even of the Turks were good sailors, and
the men of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers had made the sea their element. The
thousands of rowers, who provided the propelling power of the galleys, were
for the most part Christian slaves, chained to their heavy oars, by which
they slept when the fleet anchored, living a life of weary labour, often
half starved, always badly clothed, so that they suffered from cold and
wet. Death was the immediate penalty of any show of insubordination, and
the whip of their taskmasters kept them to their work. There were men of
all classes among them, sailors taken from prizes, passengers who had the
bad luck to be on board captured ships, fishermen and tillers of the soil
carried off in coast raids. They were short-lived, for their masters did
not spare them, and considered it a more economic policy to work the rowers
to the utmost and replace them by other captures when they broke down.

The oarsmen of the allied fleet had also a hard lot, but not as bad as that
of Ali Pasha's galley-slaves, because in the Christian fleet there was a
considerable proportion of men hired for the campaign. But there was also a
servile element, Turks taken prisoner in previous campaigns and chained to
the oar in reprisal for the treatment of Christian captives by Ottoman
commanders, and a considerable number of what we should now call convicts
sentenced to hard labour, a rough lot of murderers, brigands, thieves, and
the like. It must be remembered that in most European countries the
sentence for such offences would have been death. The convict galley-slaves
of Don Juan's fleet were encouraged by the prospect of winning either
complete pardon or a remission of part of their sentences if there