"I have executed my commission," said the eunuch; "I am going to take shipping at Ceuta, and I'll take you along with me to Italy. 'Ma che sciagura d'essere senza coglioni! '" I thanked him with tears of joy; and instead of taking me with him into Italy, he carried me to Algiers, and sold me to the Dey of that province. I had not been long a slave, when the plague, which had made the tour of Africa, Asia, and Europe, broke out at Algiers with redoubled fury. You have seen an earthquake; but tell me, miss, had you ever the plague? "Never," answered the young baroness. If you ever had (continued the old woman) you would own an earthquake was a trifle to it. It is very common in Africa; I was seized with it. Figure to yourself the distressed situation of the daughter of a pope, only fifteen years old, and who in less than three months had felt the miseries of poverty and slavery; had been ravished almost every day; had beheld her mother cut into four quarters; had experienced the scourges of famine and war, and was now dying of the plague at Algiers. I did not, however, die of it; but my eunuch and the Dey, and almost the whole seraglio of Algiers, were swept off, As soon as the first fury of this dreadful pestilence was over, a sale was made of the Dey's slaves. I was purchased by a merchant, who carried me to Tunis. This man sold me to another merchant, who sold me again to another at Tripoli; from Tripoli I was sold to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Smyrna, and from Smyrna to Constantinople. After many changes, I at length became the property of an aga of the janissaries, who, soon after I came into his possession, was ordered away to the defence of Asoph, then besieged by the Russians. The aga, being very fond of women, took his whole seraglio with him, and lodged us in a small fort, with two black eunuchs and twenty soldiers for our guard. |
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