THE BARBARY ROVERS PEEPS AT HISTORY (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

Ever since the time when men began to "go down to the sea in ships, and have their business in great waters," there can be no doubt that pirates and sea-rovers sailed the deep too, eager to harass their honest brethren of the main, and seize by force the riches stored in a peaceful merchant vessel. Our own Saxon forefathers were feared as the most terrible of pirates and sea-robbers, and men of all nations have sailed under the black flag to harry and plunder all that came in their way and were too weak to resist their attack.Dotted over the map of the world are coasts and groups of islands famous or notorious for having been the haunts of pirates, corsairs, buccaneers, or rovers, to use some of the names by which these wolves of the sea are called. Some of these haunts were dreaded but for a short time where a nest of pirates was swiftly rooted out by ships of war, some were dreaded for a longer period where the rogues could not be so easily attacked, but no haunt of sea-rovers ever held the nations of Europe in terror for so long as the shores where lay the towns of the Barbary Corsairs.The Barbary shore is that strip of North African coast which lies south of the Mediterranean Sea. To-day it forms the coastline of the States of Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli. In Corsair times its chief ports were Algiers and Tunis, and of these Algiers was the more important. From these ports swarms of Moorish vessels would sally out to attack the shipping of all nations, to seize the cargoes and enslave all on board. Or if no shipping offered, the Moslem Corsairs would land on some Christian shore to burn the villages and smaller towns, sack the houses, and carry off the inhabitants. But it was not often that they were driven to make a raid for want of vessels to attack. Look on the map for their position, and then remember that in the days of their prime all the wealth of the East was poured into Europe by way of Alexandria and Smyrna. Think of the big, clumsy merchant vessels loading at those ports in the far east of the Mediterranean, and then slowly forging their way westwards towards Sicily, Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, France, Spain, or on through the Straits of Gibraltar for the great trading countries of England, Holland, and other lands of northern Europe.