Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf/45

 cut off the ears of another, and this upon so little animus or so entirely without cause that the Turks would own that he did it for the sake of doing it and because it was his nature."

PLACE DU GOUVERNEMENT

The carvings of wood and stone in the old palaces are the work of Christian slaves, of whom there were at one time no fewer than twenty-five thousand held in the city of Algiers alone. Many Christian priests voluntarily gave themselves up to the pirates and became slaves that they might minister the comforts of religion to the miserable captives. The price of slaves was quoted daily in the market-place; "Christian dogs are very cheap to-day," would be the word passed from mouth to mouth on the arrival of a corsair fleet with its convoy of captured merchant-men. Then Arab chiefs, with faces of dark bronze, or negroes, raised to wealth and influence by their courage or their villainy, would assemble to make bids for the human merchandise which was not always common stuff. Records tell of hundreds of gentlemen,—*