of the Moors from Spain which followed upon the Christian
advance filled Africa with disaffected, ruined, and vengeful Moriscos,
whose one dominant passion was to wipe out their old scores with the
Spaniards.

Against such influences the mild governors of North Africa were
powerless. They had so long enjoyed peace and friendship with the
Mediterranean States, that they were in no condition to enforce order
with the strong hand. Their armies and fleets were insignificant, and
their coasts were long to protect, and abounded with almost
impregnable strongholds which they could not afford to garrison.
Hence, when the Moors flocked over from Spain, the shores of Africa
offered them a sure and accessible refuge, and the hospitable
character of the Moslem's religion forbade all thought of repelling
the refugees. Still more, when the armed galleots of the Levant came
crowding to Barbary, fired with the hope of rich gain, the ports were
open, and the creeks afforded them shelter. A foothold once gained,
the rest was easy.

It was to this land, lying ready to his use, that Captain Ur[=u]j
Barbarossa came in the beginning of the sixteenth century.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Le Comte de Mas-Latrie, _Relations et commerce de l'Afrique
Septentrionale avec les nations chretiennes au moyen age_, 1886.

[4] Le Comte de Mas-Latrie, _Relations et commerce de l'Afrique
Septentrionale avec les nations chretiennes au moyen age_, pp. 175-9.

PART I.

_THE CORSAIR ADMIRALS._

III.

UR[=U]J BARBAROSSA.

1504-1515.

The island of Lesbos has given many gifts to the world--Lesbian wine
and Lesbian verse, the seven-stringed lyre, and the poems of Sappho;
but of all its products the latest was assuredly the most
questionable, for the last great Lesbians were the brothers
Barbarossa.

When Sultan Mohammed II. conquered the island in 1462, he left there a
certain Sip[=a]hi soldier, named Ya'k[=u]b--so say the Turkish
annalists, but the Spanish writers claim him as a native
Christian--who became the father of Ur[=u]j Barbarossa and his brother
Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n. Various stories are told of their early career, and
the causes which led to their taking to the sea; but as Lesbos had
long been famous for its buccaneers, whether indigenous or
importations from Catalonia and Aragon, there was nothing unusual in
the brothers adopting a profession which was alike congenial to bold
hearts and sanctioned by time-honoured precedent.[5] Ur[=u]j