216 
TRAVELS IN BARBARY. 
rich and beautiful niece of her own in marriage. 
Mouette declined it, on the polite plea, that had 
she herself been the prize, he would not have he- 
sitated. Unfortunately, our author did not belong 
to his present master alone, but was a joint concern 
of four persons. One of these, Hamet Ben Yen- 
court, began to make strict inquiry as to the mea- 
sures taken for turning the property to account. 
The master replied, that he had not been able to 
extract from him any farther information than has 
been already here mentioned. Yencourt declared, 
' that, if the captive were put into his hands, he would 
employ effectual means of rendering him more com- 
municative. This proposition being acceded to, our 
author experienced a most doleful change. He 
was reduced to brown bread, and obliged to lie at 
night in a mazmorra, or dungeon, so dismal, that the 
gloomiest prisons of Europe seemed luxurious in com- 
parison. These dungeons were dug under ground 
four or five fathoms in diameter, with a narrow open- 
ing at top, which is shut in by an iron grate. Into 
this abode they were let down by a ladder of ropes, 
and, when within it, lay in a circle, with their heads 
to the sides, and their feet in the centre. As the 
place became warmed, and the damp began to ex- 
hale, the atmosphere became quite intolerable. 
Their labour consisted chiefly in masonry, which 
was peculiarly laborious, as the walls were built of 
earth, dragged up by pullies alone, without any 
6 
