Pirate City

A merchant and his two sons leave Sicily on a voyage, and are taken captive by a pirate from Algiers. They are enslaved, and during their many exciting adventures, we learn of the way of life in the pirate city. There is plenty of history included, along with some of the terrible ways of enforcing discipline which were used. Our main characters behave nobly, rise and fall in favor with the Deys (title of the king of Algiers), and eventually make their escape when all the slaves in Algiers were freed by the British. I appreciate the fact that Ballantyne’s historical adventures are explicitly Christian. In this one, the gospel is presented to a dying man in the slaves’ prison. Until reading this book, I had no idea about much of the history of Algiers, and this book was an easy and exciting way to learn