The sailors of the Cavallo Marino, about fifteen in number, were stationed forward; she was armed with a large thirty-two pound forecastle-piece, and manned by two hundred and fifty slaves, the dregs of the prisons and dungeons of Naples and Sicily: assassins, bandits, runaway priests, and villains of all descriptions, steeped in guilt of every imaginable kind. She had a captain, two lieutenants, and a few petty officers, who wore the government uniform: they were grouped on her lofty poop when I ascended on board. I was received, according to the custom of that service, by a cheer from the slaves: but, alas! such a cheer! It was more like a yell from the regions of darkness; for the boatswain and his mates used their rattans unsparingly, to increase the joy of my arrival. Many a bitter malediction was growled by the Italians, whose eyes gleamed like those of coiled-up snakes; many a pious cry to God broke from the swarthy Algerines, who were there doing penance for the slavery to which their countrymen subjected those unhappy Christians who, by conquest or shipwreck, fell under their horrible dominion. A Moor of Barbary, or a corsair of Algeria, formed the fifth slave at every sweep. The poop was armed with a few brass swivel guns; and the standard, having the arms of Sicily quartered with those of Naples, was displayed from a tall staff rigged aft, and hung drooping in deep folds over the water, which it swept at times, when agitated by the morning breeze. The officers were the only men on board who wore their side-arms: the slaves were all too securely chained to be dreaded; notwithstanding their number. By the captain, Guevarra, a pompous little Sicilian, I was formally welcomed on board "His Majesty’s galley, _Sea-Horse_" (a phrase he was very fond of repeating), and invited to breakfast with the officers in their little den under the poop. Here we were often in darkness, as the long folds of the standard obscured the windows; but when the wind wafted it aside, the full radiance of the rising sun glared in through the openings, on the light blue uniforms, silver epaulettes, and weather-beaten visages of my entertainers; on the glass cups of smoking coffee and thick chocolate, a savoury ham, with piles of eggs, pyramids of bread, and all the appurtenances of the breakfast table.