In his tale of the "Captive," Cervantes gives an account of the mode in which captives were treated at Algiers. He says, "There is a prison or house, which the Turks call a bagnio, in which the Christian captives are confined,--those belonging to the king as well as to various individuals; and also those of the Almacen, or slaves of the council, who labour for the town at the public works, or are employed in other offices; who, as they belong to the city, and not to any particular master, have no one with whom to treat concerning their ransom, and are worse off than the others. As I have said; various individuals place their slaves in this bagnio, and principally those whom they expect to be ransomed, because they are kept there more securely. The captives of the king, who expect to be ransomed, are not sent out to work with the rest; and they wear a chain, more as a sign that they are to obtain their freedom than from any other cause: and here many cavaliers and men of birth live, thus marked, and kept for redemption; and although hunger and nakedness might well weary them, nothing brought so much pain as witnessing the unspeakable and frightful cruelties practised towards the Christians. Each day, the dey, who was a Venetian renegade, hanged or impaled some among them; and this from such trifling causes, and often from none at all, that the Turks themselves were aware that he inflicted these cruelties in wantonness, and because it was his natural disposition to be the enemy of the human race. One man only did he treat well, a soldier, by name Saavedra, who, having achieved things that will remain for many years in the memory of that people, and all for the sake of gaining his liberty, yet never received a blow nor an ill word; though it was often thought that for the slightest of the things he did he would be impaled, and he himself often expected it; and, if it were not that I have no time nor place, I would recount what this soldier did, which would indeed excite your admiration and wonder."[59]