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Updated: May 14, 2025
This period began soon after Doria's disastrous campaign at Jerba, when the battle of Lepanto had destroyed the prestige of the Ottoman navy, but increased if possible the terror of the ruthless Corsairs. No really serious attempt was made to put down the scourge of the Mediterranean between 1560 and Lord Exmouth's victory in 1816.
It was soon observed that this newly discovered land was of very irregular elevation, that it extended due east and west across the horizon, thus dividing the gulf into two separate sections and completely concealing the island of Jerba, which must lie behind. Its position was duly traced on the Dobryna's chart.
Even the Governor thinks him the best Negro he ever knew. As is natural enough, he is a great favourite amongst the Negresses, and even amongst the Touarick ladies. I found him crying one day, and asked, "Said, what's the matter?" "I now recollect my wife whom I left in Jerba," he sighed out. Before this, I didn't know he was married; he was about thirty years of age.
The situation seemed purposely contrived for Corsairs. More than this, the coast was just what a pirate wants. Behind Jerba, the fabled island of the Lotus-Eaters, was an immense inland sea, commanded in the Middle Ages by castles, and affording a refuge for which the rovers had often had cause to be grateful.
The port of Tunis now hardly sufficed his wants, so he established himself temporarily on the fertile island of Jerba, and from its ample anchorage his ships issued forth to harry the coasts of Italy. To be king of Jerba was all too small a title for his ambition.
"The Pyramid of Ayeshah." "No myth, then, but reality," the Master commented, fascinated in spite of himself. "Even as the famous Tower of Skulls at Jerba, in Tunis!" "Thou hast said it, O Frank. Here be more than ten-score thousand skulls of the enemies of Islam, of blasphemers against the Prophet, of those who have penetrated the Empty Abodes, of those who have sought to carry gold from El Barr.
This, however, did not present an insuperable difficulty, as we have already seen in the case of Curtogali, and a similar arrangement was carried out by Uruj Barbarossa and his brother. Uruj now established himself at the island of Jerba, on the east coast of Tunis, which formed an admirable base from which to "work" the Mediterranean from the piratical point of view.
Thus ended the first meeting between Doria and Kheyr-ed-dīn: the next was less happy for the noble Genoese. Kheyr-ed-dīn, well aware of his brother's fierce humour, did not dare to face him after this humiliation, but left him to fume impotently in his sickroom, while he stole away to Jerba, there to work night and day at shipbuilding.
Without so much as waiting to see them disperse from the rail and return to their lounging attitudes about the forecastle, he turned to Asad. "It might have been well to hang the dog who spoke of Dragut and Jerba," he said. "But it was never in my nature to be harsh with those who follow me." And that was all.
Despairing of weathering the north side of Jerba the panic-stricken Christians ran their ships ashore, and deserted them, never stopping even to set them on fire. The deep-draught galleons stuck fast in the shallow water.
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