, with a band of about
twelve companions, commenced his career as a pirate, and in the course
of a few months he had been so successful that he became the owner of a
vessel of three hundred tons, and manned with a lawless crew. It was a
part of his system to leave British vessels unmolested, and he even
affected to be on good terms with them. We have heard an old officer
describe his appearance. He was then about forty-five years of age,
short in stature, but with a figure compact and square, a constitution
vigorous, and the characteristic qualities of his countrymen--frugality,
and patience of fatigue. Several scars already seamed his face, and the
bone of his arm had been shattered by a matchlock ball when boarding a
vessel. It is a remarkable fact that the intermediate bones sloughed
away, and the arm, connected only by flesh and muscle, was still, by
means of a silver tube affixed around it, capable of exertion.

Ramah was born to be the leader of the wild spirits around him. With a
sternness of purpose that awed those who were near him into a degree of
dread, which totally astonished those who had been accustomed to view
the terms of equality in which the Arab chiefs appear with their
followers, he exacted the most implicit obedience to his will; and the
manner in which he acted toward his son exhibits the length he was
disposed to go with those who thwarted, or did not act up to, the spirit
of his views. The young man, then a mere stripling, had been dispatched
to attack some boats, but he was unsuccessful. "This, dastard, and son
of a dog!" said the enraged father, who had been watching the progress
of the affair, "you return unharmed to tell me! Fling him over the
side!" The chief was obeyed; and but for a boat, which by some chance
was passing some miles astern, he would have been drowned. Of his
existence the father for many months was wholly unconscious, and how he
was reconciled we never heard; but during the interval he was never
known to utter his name. No cause, it appears, existed for a repetition
of the punishment; for while yet a youth, he met the death his father
would have most coveted for him. He fell at the head of a party that was
bravely storming a fort.

Many other acts of cruelty are related of him. Having seized a small
trading boat, he plundered her, and then fastened the crew--five in
number--round the anchor, suspended it from the bows, cut the cable, and
let the anchor, with its living bu