Imagine six men chained to their seats, entirely naked as when born, sitting with one foot on a block of timber fixed to the footstool; the other lifted up against the bench before them, holding in their hands an oar of an enormous size. Imagine them lengthening their bodies, their arms stretched out to push the oar over the backs of those before them; who are also themselves in a similar attitude. Having thus advanced their oar, they raise that end which they hold in their hands, to plunge the opposite in the sea; which done, they throw themselves back upon their benches below, which are somewhat hollowed to receive them. But none but those who have seen them labour can conceive how much they endure: none but such could be persuaded that human strength could sustain the fatigue which they undergo for an hour successively. But what cannot necessity and cruelty make men do? Almost impossibilities. Certainly no galley can be navigated in any other way, than by a crew of slaves, over whom a _comite_ may exercise the most unbounded authority. No free man could continue at the oar an hour unwearied: yet a slave must sometimes lengthen out his toil for ten, twelve, nay, for twenty hours, without the smallest intermission. On these occasions the _comites_, or some of the other mariners, put into the mouths of those wretches a bit of bread steeped in wine, to prevent their fainting through excess of fatigue or hunger, while their hands are employed upon the oar. At such times are heard nothing but horrid blasphemies, loud bursts of despair, or ejaculations to Heaven; all the slaves streaming with blood, while their unpitying taskmasters mix oaths and threats, and the smacking of whips, to fill up this dreadful harmony. At this time the captain roars to the _comite_ to redouble his blows; and when any one drops from his oar in a swoon, (which not unfrequently happens) he is whipped while any remains of life appear, and then thrown into the sea, without any farther ceremony. The _Diable Boitteux_, in order to make _Cleofas_ sensible of the happy condition of an inquisitor, tells him, Was not I a Dæmon, I would be an inquisitor? Were the devil to become a mortal, he would incline to be the _comite_ to the galley-slaves at Marseilles, whose hearts are inlapidated by cruelty. How these slaves are fed, to enable them to support such enormous toil, may be judged from the following account.--When it was necessary we should take some refreshment, the captain ordered _the dogs to their mess_. He only meant by this, that we should be served with beans, the usual food allowed us. These are indeed most intolerable eating, and what nothing but the most pinching hunger could dispense with. They are ill boiled, with scarce any oil, a little salt, and all to be eaten out of a capacious cauldron, not the cleanest in the world, as may easily be conceived.