According to the testimony of Father Haedo, in whose _Topography of Algiers_, published in 1612, we have the most valuable authority for this period of Cervantes’ life, and who was an eye-witness to the cruelties practised upon the Christian slaves, the captivity of Cervantes was one of the hardest ever known in Algiers. Mr. Watts has given us an eloquent account of our hero in this bondage. It was borne, he says, with a courage and constancy which, had there been nothing else to make his name memorable, must have sufficed to rank Cervantes among the heroes of his age and country. No episode more romantic is contained in the books of chivalry. No adventures more strange were encountered by any knight-errant. Not Amadis nor Esplandian, nor any of those whose fabled deeds had kindled his youthful imagination, displayed a loftier spirit of honour, or more worthily discharged his knightly devoir, than did Miguel de Cervantes when in duress in Algiers. A slave in the power of the bitter enemy of his creed and nation, cut off in the heyday of his fame from the path of ambition which fortune seemed to have opened to him; no lot could be more cruel than that which, in the fulness of his manhood and genius, fell to his share. Nor is there any chapter of his life more honourable than that record of the singular daring, fortitude, patience and cheerfulness with which he bore his fate during this miserable period. With no other support than his own indomitable spirit, forgotten by those whom he had served, unable to receive any help from his friends, subjected to every kind of hardship which the tyranny or caprice of his masters might order, pursued by an unrelenting evil destiny, which seemed in this, as in every other passage of his career, to mock at his efforts to live that high heroic life which he had conceived to himself; this poor maimed soldier was looked up to by that wretched colony of Christian captives (including among them many men of higher birth and rank) as their chief counsellor, comforter, and guide. In his formal information, laid before the commissary of the Spanish Government at Algiers, Father Juan Gil, of the Order of the Redemptorists, very particular testimony is borne by Cervantes’ fellow-captives to his character and conduct, as one who bore himself always as a faithful Christian, who cheered those who were despondent, who shared with the poor the little that he possessed, who helped the sick in their necessities, who risked every danger in the cause of the faith, behaving himself always like a true soldier of the King and a noble gentleman--all of which good record is confirmed by the honest Father himself of his own personal knowledge.