he lake is now the Mediterranean, or
rather its western basin, for we know that the Barbary island was once
nearly a peninsula, joined at its two ends to Spain and Sicily, and
that its Atlas ranges formed the connection between the Sierra Nevada
and Mt. Aetna. By degrees the Isthmus between Cape Bona and Sicily
sank out of sight, and the ocean flowed between Spain and Africa,
while the great sea to the south dried up into the immense stony waste
which is known preeminently as _the_ Sahra, the Desert, "a tract of
land, bare as the back of a beast, without trees or mountains."

[Illustration: _After Bourguignat_ _Walker & Boutallsc._

THE BARBARY PENINSULA.

(_Elisee Reclus._)]

Through one or both of these narrow straits, Gibraltar and Malta, all
vessels from the outer ocean bound for the ports of France and Italy
and the Levant, were obliged to pass; and it must be remembered that
just about the time when the Corsairs made their appearance in
Barbary, the riches of the new-found Western world were beginning to
pour through the straits to meet those of the East, which were brought
to France and Spain, England and Holland, from Alexandria and Smyrna.
An immense proportion of the trade of Europe had to cross the western
basin of the Mediterranean, of which Barbary formed the southern
boundary. Any bold man who could hold Tunis at the eastern corner, or
Algiers in the middle, or Ceuta or Tangiers at the western point,
might reckon upon numerous opportunities of stopping argosies of
untold wealth as they passed by his lair. The situation seemed
purposely contrived for Corsairs.

[Illustration: A MAP OF THE KINGDOMS OF BARBARY.

(_Voyages to Barbary for the Redemption of Captives, 1736._)]

More than this, the coast was just what a pirate wants. The map shows
a series of natural harbours, often backed by lagunes which offer
every facility for the escape of the rover from his pursuers; and
while in the sixteenth century there were no deep ports for vessels of
heavy draught, there were endless creeks, shallow harbours, and
lagunes where the Corsairs' galleys (which never drew more than six
feet of water) could take refuge. Behind Jerba, the fabled island of
the Lotus-Eaters, was an immense inland sea, commanded in the Middle
Ages by castles, and affording a refuge for which the rovers had often
had cause to be grateful. Merchant vessels were shy of sailing in the
dangerous Gulf of the Greater Syrtes with its heavy tides