d Captain Pantero Pantera's description of the
boatswain's demeanour: "He should appear kindly towards the crew:
assist it, pet it, but without undue familiarity; be, in short, its
guardian and in some sort its father, remembering that, when all's
said, 'tis human flesh, and human flesh in direst misery."

This terrible living grave of a galley, let us remember, is depicted
from Christian models. A hundred and fifty years ago such scenes might
be witnessed on many a European vessel. The Corsairs of Algiers only
served their enemies as they served them: their galley slaves were no
worse treated, to say the least, than were Doria's or the King of
France's own. Rank and delicate nurture were respected on neither
side: a gallant Corsair like Dragut had to drag his chain and pull his
insatiable oar like any convict at the treadmill, and a future grand
master of Malta might chance to take his seat on the rowing bench
beside commonest scoundrel of Naples. No one seemed to observe the
horrible brutality of the service, where each man, let him be never so
refined, was compelled to endure the filth and vermin of his neighbour
who might be half a savage and was bound to become wholly one; and
when Madame de Grignan wrote an account of a visit to a galley, her
friend Madame de Sevigne replied that she would "much like to see this
sort of Hell," and the men "groaning day and night under the weight of
their chains." _Autres temps, autres moeurs!_

Furttenbach tells us much more about the galley; and how it was rigged
out with brilliant cloths on the bulwarks on fete-days; how the
biscuit was made to last six or eight months, each slave getting
twenty-eight ounces thrice a week, and a spoonful of some mess of rice
or bones or green stuff; of the trouble of keeping the water-cans
under the benches full and fairly fresh. The full complement of a
large galley included, he says, besides about 270 rowers, and the
captain, chaplain, doctor, scrivener, boatswains, and master, or
pilot, ten or fifteen gentleman adventurers, friends of the captain,
sharing his mess, and berthed in the poop; twelve helmsmen
(_timonieri_), six foretop A.B's., ten warders for the captives,
twelve ordinary seamen, four gunners, a carpenter, smith, cooper, and
a couple of cooks, together with fifty or sixty soldiers; so that the
whole equipage of a fighting-galley must have reached a total of about
four hundred men.[59]

What is true of a European galley is also