Galleys

“ It was the antechamber of the galleys. Men were put there for stealing a hare from the king. In this sepulchre-hell, what did they do? What man can do in a sepulchre, they went through the agonies of death, and what can man do in hell, they sang; for song lingers where there is no longer any hope. In the waters of Malta, when a galley was approaching, the song could be heard before the sound of the oars. Poor Survincent, the poacher, who had gone through the prison-cellar of the Châtelet, said: “It was the rhymes that kept me up.” ”

“ Put out to sea and capture that accursed black galley. String up the whole of its crew from its own yardarms and the devil take their souls. Tomorrow at daybreak I want the four galleys that are lying here at anchor to weigh anchor. Do you hear me, gentlemen? The Andrea Doria will stay here and await further orders. But the galleys will make sail tomorrow good and early. The message has already been given to the ships' captains at Sluys to put out to sea with every ship available. The black galley—bring me the black galley or bring me back Satan himself. ”

“ This is the occasion that, when at any time the Christian galleys chase them, their custom is, by way of game and sneer, to point to their fresh-tallowed poops, as they glide along like fishes before them, all one as if they showed them their backs to salute: and as in the cruising art, by continual practise, they are so very expert, and withal (for our sins) so daring, presumptuous, and fortunate, in a few days from their leaving Algiers they return laden with infinite wealth and captives ”

“ Nay, far from being under apprehension, they are certain of their game; since their galleots are so extremely light and nimble, and in such excellent order, as they always are [63] ; whereas, on the contrary, the Christian galleys [Pg 223] are so heavy, so embarrassed, and in such bad order and confusion, that it is utterly in vain to think of giving them chase, or of preventing them from going and coming, and doing just as they their selves please. ”

“ The number of oars or sweeps varied, the larger galley having twenty-five on each side; the galleass as many as thirty-two, each being worked by several men. This labour was from the earliest times often performed by slaves or prisoners of war. It became the custom among the Mediterranean powers to sentence condemned criminals to row in the war galleys of the state. Traces of this in France can be found as early as 1532, but the first legislative enactment is in the Ordonnance d’Orléans of 1561. In 1564 Charles IX. forbade the sentencing of prisoners to the galleys for less than ten years. ”

“ When the gang or chain reached the port at which the prisoners were to be confined, they were drafted on board the different galleys. These were for the most part stationed at Toulon, but there were also other galleys in which Huguenots were imprisoned—at Marseilles, Dunkirk, Brest, St. Malo, and Bordeaux. Let us briefly describe the galley of those days.
The royal galley was about a hundred and fifty feet long and forty feet broad, and was capable of containing (p. 198) about five hundred men. It had fifty benches for rowers, twenty-five on each side. ”

“ If they do not serve, it is impossible to maintain galleys here, because there are no other people to row. What I have been able to accomplish is that the Indians are to remain on the galleys until your Majesty shall advise me of the plan which you are pleased to adopt. I have manned one of the galleys with four hundred Çambales, who were captured in war. They were given to me by some captains and soldiers, and I have used them in your Majesty's service. ”

“ In reality, however, the number of slaves employed on the galleys was small compared with those who worked on shore. If the Spanish historian be correct in his statement that at the close of the sixteenth century the Algerines possessed but thirty-six galleys and galleots, (the brigantines were not rowed by slaves,) with a total of twelve hundred oars, even allowing three men to an oar, which is excessive for some of the Corsairs’ light galleots, the number of slaves is but three thousand six hundred. ”

“ For they sail away, being not once touched by the glance of a shot, and are quickly out of the Turkish cannons' reach. Then might they see them coming down by heaps to the water's side, in companies like unto swarms of bees, making show to come after them with galleys, bustling themselves to dress up the galleys, which would be a swift piece of work for them to do, for that they had neither [65] oars, masts, sails, nor anything else ready in any galley. ”

“ The boats were called galleys, galleots, brigantines (“galeotas ligeras o vergãtines,” or frigatas) , &c., according to their size: a galleot is a small galley, while a brigantine may be called a quarter galley. The number of men to each oar varies, too, according to the vessel’s size: a galley may have as many as four to six men working side by side to each oar, a galleot but two or three, and a brigantine one; but in so small a craft as the last each man must be a fighter as well as an oarsmen, whereas the [Pg 206] larger vessels of the Corsairs were rowed entirely by Christian slaves. ”

“ Out of the sea will rise Behemoth and Leviathan, and sail round the high-pooped galleys, as they do on the delightful maps of those ages when books on geography were actually readable. Dragons will wander about the waste places, and the phoenix will soar from her nest of fire into the air. We shall lay our hands upon the basilisk, and see the jewel in the toad’s head. ”

“ For all that we have done, it is none the less the truth that it is no country of ours, and that we hold it as we won it by the sword.”
“Yes, every man, woman, and child of Latin blood must come with us to Gaul. The galleys are already waiting at Portus Dubris. Get the orders out, Crassus, at once. As the Valerian legion falls back from the Wall of Hadrian it can take the northern colonists with it. The Jovians can bring in the people from the west, and the Batavians can escort the easterns if they will muster at Camboricum. ”

“ With the remaining free fingers pressing against the ends of the lines and pushing at the same time down against the stick, he lifts the type 18bodily and puts it into the galley. The first line should go against the closed end and should read from the lower side of the galley up. The closed end of the galley should always be at the right as the worker stands at the case.
The galley, Fig. 10, is a kind of rectangular brass tray open at one end, into which the compositor places the lines of type on removing them from the stick. Galleys are of various sizes for different kinds of work. ”

“ Opposite Cadiz, on the other side of the outer harbor, was Port St. Mary, and within the Puntal channel, at the extreme end of the inlet, stood Port Royal. Both places, however, were so protected by shoals as to be unapproachable except to the port pilots. It was an ideal scene of action for galleys to develop their full capabilities. Two had already appeared to reconnoitre, and how many more there were no one could tell. Galleys, it must be remembered, were then considered the most formidable warships afloat, and quite invincible in confined waters or calms. ”

“ And although the oarsmen must, of course, have been unencumbered with armour, each seems to have been furnished with some light weapons, a cutlass probably and javelin, to play his part with in the exigencies which continually occurred during an action at sea. For we must bear in mind that, when we read of the ancient galleys running each other down in action, we [740] are not to suppose that the struck galley was instantly sunk by the shock. ”

“ If a slave falls exhausted upon his oar (which often happens) , he is flogged till he is taken for dead, and then pitched unceremoniously into the sea." [1]
Jean Marteille, of Bergerac, who was himself on the galleys about the year 1701, thus described the life:—
"Those who have not seen a galley at sea, especially in chasing or being chased, cannot well conceive the shock such a spectacle must give to a heart capable of the least tincture of compassion. ”

“ Indeed, the ancients practised this art with the greatest care, and the rowers were frequently exercised on benches erected on the shore, and their harmonious movements were sometimes made an object of display in their theatres. In nearly every case they plied their oars to the sound of either vocal or instrumental music, so that a fleet of the larger description of galleys, when under way on the smooth waters of the Levant, must have been, as various ancient authors describe, a heart-stirring and magnificent display. ”

“ The galley has always been the type of business ship on the Mediterranean. All through the classical wars the rowing galley was the mainstay of power. The Homeric catalogue of ships, the Phœnician coinage, the Assyrian sculptures, the Greek fleets, the Carthaginian navy and its destroyers of Rome, the pirates of Liburnia and Lycia, down to the Venetian fleet and the French galleys of a couple of centuries ago, all show the dominance of the oar. ”

“ If we hold our course, they will join us ere we round the harbour mole.”
Slowly the injured galley toiled on her way, and more swiftly the two newcomers swept down from the north. Only a few miles off lay the green point and the white houses which flanked the great African city. Already, upon the headland, could be seen a dark group of waiting townsmen. Gisco and Magro were still watching with puckered gaze the approaching galleys, when the brown Libyan boatswain, with flashing teeth and gleaming eyes, rushed upon the poop, his long thin arm stabbing to the north. ”

“ The Kateryn was sometimes called a bark and sometimes a galley and this leads us to the question of the classification of the royal vessels. If we accept without inquiry that of the list of 5th January 1548, [239] we find ships like the Anne Gallant, Unicorn, Salamander, Tiger, Hart, Antelope, Lion, Dragon, Jennet, Bull and Greyhound, described as galleys. But in Anthony’s list of 1546 the same vessels are called galleasses ”

“ By the twelfth, they are to be punished with six years in the galleys, if they leave the towns or villages in which they are located, and pass to others, or wander in the fields or roads; and they are only to be permitted to go out, in order to exercise the pursuit of husbandry. ”

“ Surely, your holiness, they are the greatest of all ships in the world.”
The old man, who was the abbot of the monastery of Saint Nicephorus in Antioch, laid his hand upon the boy’s shoulder.
“Be wary, Leon, and speak less loudly, for until we have seen your mother we should keep ourselves secret. As to the red galleys they are indeed as large as any, for they are the Imperial ships of war, which come forth from the harbour of Theodosius. Round yonder green point is the Golden Horn, where the merchant ships are moored. ”

“ And to the classes 32of galleys so distinguished the Italians, of the later Middle Age at least, did certainly apply, rightly or wrongly, the classical terms of Bireme, Trireme, and Quinquereme, in the sense of galleys having two men and two oars to a bench, three men and three oars to a bench, and five men and five oars to a bench. ”

“ We can provide against everything but the craving for change. Not being birds to fly, and unable to compel the eagles to lend us their wings, the best resort is a galley; then the sea is ours—the sea, wide, mysterious, crowded with marvels. I am never so near the stars as there. When a wave is bearing me up, they seem descending to meet me. Times have been when I thought the Pleiades were about to drop into my palm.... Here is my galley. You see, child, the palace is to be yours, the galley mine. ”

“ Now the deck of Magro's ship is flush with the water, and the Romans, drawn towards it by the iron bonds which held them, are tilted downwards, one bulwark upon the waves, one reared high in the air. Madly they strain to cast off the death grip of the galley. She is under the surface now, and ever swifter, with the greater weight, the Roman ships heel after her. There is a rending crash. The wooden side is torn out of one, and mutilated, dismembered, she rights herself, and lies a helpless thing upon the water. ”

“ I judged that this galley, which was under sail when first sighted, had come out from Cartagena in search of us, and from the fact that she did not at once bear down upon us, but hung persistently to windward, I conjectured that she was not alone, that she had one or more consorts somewhere to windward, and that, upon fully identifying the galleon, she would lower her sails, out sweeps, and be off to windward for help to tackle us. ”

“ It was a spring morning, one hundred and forty-six years before the coming of Christ. The North African Coast, with its broad hem of golden sand, its green belt of feathery palm trees, and its background of barren, red-scarped hills, shimmered like a dream country in the opal light. Save for a narrow edge of snow-white surf, the Mediterranean lay blue and serene as far as the eye could reach. In all its vast expanse there was no break but for a single galley, which was slowly making its way from the direction of Sicily and heading for the distant harbour of Carthage. ”

“ The Romans, too, were heading in such a way that it was before their very faces that their ship was about to be cut off; and yet of all this multitude not one could raise a hand in its defence. Some wept in impotent grief, some cursed with flashing eyes and knotted fists, some on their knees held up appealing hands to Baal; but neither prayer, tears, nor curses could undo the past nor mend the present. That broken, crawling galley meant that their fleet was gone. Those two fierce darting ships meant that the hands of Rome were already at their throat. ”