Languages & literature > Athenaeum

8
THE ATHEN/EUM.
going about asking charity. He was tall, well
made, with a fine, white, flowing beard; and there
was that nameless dignity about him, which, in
despite of his rags, struck you as belonging to a man
of rank.
I was informed by an Armenian merchant, that he
had been a general, and belonged to a respectable fa¬
mily • but in some change of government, had lost his
appointments and fortune, and his eyes being put out,
he was forced to beg his bread. He brought strikingly
to my recollection old Belisarius, and would serve as a
capital model to a painter portraying that celebrated
and unfortunate warrior. The people did not seem to
look on him with any respect or pity.
In going up the Gulf we passed many walled
towns, which, a few years ago, were pirate settlements.
They had increased in number and audacity to such an
extent, that a naval expedition of some strength was
sent against them, by which, after no small trouble,
they were subdued and broken.
They fought with the most determined fury: desti¬
tute as they were of proper arms or regular discipline,
they engaged, not unfrequently with success, detach¬
ments of East Indian and British troops. When one
of their towns in particular was besieged, a body com¬
posed of men, women, and children, marched up to
the very teeth of our men, and though not much su¬
perior in number, succeeded in putting them into some
disorder, and even drove them partially back. They
did not retreat till the greater part of them were left
dead on the field—the women fighting as bravely as
the men.