date.

Warriors to a man, the hosts of Boabdil crossed the Straits of Gibraltar
into Africa; warriors but now broken men, from whom had been reft not only
their lands and houses but even the chance of remaining in their native
country. Religious toleration had been the rule of the Moslem States in
Spain. In the name of religion they had been expropriated; therefore
toleration was slain, and to exalt the Crescent above the Cross became the
duty of every fighting Mohammedan. Into all the ports and harbours of the
North African littoral the Moslems intruded themselves, their one
preoccupation to revenge themselves upon the Christians, of no matter what
race or nationality. There was at this date but small opposition from the
rulers of the Pagan States who held in their weak and inefficient hands
such strong places of arms as Algiers and Tunis.

Very soon the Moslems acquired the habit of the sea, and very soon the
Christian States discovered how different was the Mohammedan dwelling at
peace in Andalusia, or at worst fighting with his co-religionists, to the
desperate corsairs created by their own act who now ravaged the shores of
the tideless sea.

In the years succeeding to the conquest of Granada the corsairs became the
scourge of the Mediterranean. France, Spain, Genoa, Venice, were all at
odds with them; as the trading vessels, which had hitherto passed to and
fro unmolested, were now captured, haled into North African ports, their
cargoes sold, and their hapless crews forced to labour, naked and chained
to the benches of the pirate galleys, until death came and mercifully put
an end to their sufferings.

From Reggio to Genoa, from Venice to Taranto, the cry of rage and fear went