The frightful system of cruising for captives, and taking them to Algiers to sell them into slavery, which continued for so many hundred years, had not long before been carried to greater height than ever by two pirates, who possessed themselves of Algiers and Tunis. The horror of this warfare had excited the emperor Charles V. to undertake to crush it. He made two expeditions into Africa, the second of which was unsuccessful, and the Algerine corsairs pursued their nefarious traffic with greater cruelty and success than ever: every particular connected with it was frightful and deplorable: the weak and unoffending were its chief victims: the sea coasts were ravaged for prisoners; and these, if too poor for ransom, became slaves for life, under the most cruel masters. The abhorrence excited by these unprovoked attacks caused the Mahometan name to be held in greater odium than ever; and in Spain, particularly, this detestation was visited on the Moriscos: the cruelties and oppression they endured, again excited the Moors of Africa to reprisals; and innocence and helplessness became on all sides the victims of revenge and hatred. Still the piracies carried on by the Algerines, and the system to which they reduced their practice of slavery, raised them to a "bad height" in this war of reciprocal cruelty. None, also, were more pitiless than the renegades; Christians who, taken prisoners, bought their freedom by the sacrifice of their faith. These men, often the most energetic and prosperous among the corsairs, were also the most cruel towards their prisoners; and, among them all, none was so cruel as the Arnaout Mami. Fortunately, interesting details of Cervantes's captivity have come down to us from undoubted and impartial sources, as well as from his own accounts; and these place him in the brightest light as a man of sagacity, resolution, and honour. That these details are not fuller we must lament; but, such as they are, they display so much gallantry and magnanimity on Cervantes's part, that they must be read with the greatest pleasure.