Like Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Ali was now lord of Algiers and Tunis, and as
he was, for a corsair, a man of wide views, he treated his new subjects
with consideration. He made, however, one curious mistake not to have been
expected from one so politic: he demanded tribute from the tribes of the
hinterland. In those days, particularly in Northern Africa, men paid
tribute to an overlord because he was stronger than they; because
retribution followed swiftly and suddenly upon refusal. To order tribute to
be paid without being ready to strike was merely to expose the man making
the demand to derision. Particularly was this the case with the fierce
land-pirates of the desert, whose habit it was to exact and not to pay
tribute. To Ali the Sheiks replied that "if he wanted tribute from them he
must demand it lance in hand in the field, for there and nowhere else were
they accustomed to pay: that their coin was steel lance-heads and not
golden aspers." After this, says Morgan, "the Basha thought it well to
dissemble."
Ali, being in no position to wage war in the desert against these people,
had to swallow the insult and to turn his attention to regulating the
internal affairs of his newly acquired kingdom. This he succeeded in doing
sufficiently by the month of June in the following year to enable him to
leave Tunis in the hands of one Rabadan, a Sardinian renegado, and to start
himself for Constantinople. His reason for doing this was the old one of
attempting to consolidate his power in Northern Africa by appealing to the
Sultan for help.
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