He is unable to speak or to articulate any sound with distinctness. In drinking, he dips his face in the water, but does not lap like a wolf. He still prefers raw flesh; and when a bullock dies, and the skin is removed, he attacks and eats the body in company of the village dogs.
[Begun in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE No. 37, July 13.]
Commodore Preble sailed from the United States for the Mediterranean in the frigate _Constitution_ late in the spring of 1803. The ships of the squadron did not sail together. Bainbridge, with the frigate _Philadelphia_, first entered the Strait of Gibraltar, and found a Moorish corsair cruising for American prizes. He captured her and took her to Gibraltar. When Preble arrived he proceeded to Tangiers with the squadron, when the Emperor of Morocco declared that he had never authorized any depredations on American commerce. The affair was amicably settled. Soon afterward the _Philadelphia_ chased a corsair into the harbor of Tripoli, and in so doing struck upon a sunken rock. She was fast bound. The Tripolitans captured her, made Bainbridge and his officers prisoners of war, and consigned the crew to slavery.
With Preble was Stephen Decatur, a gallant young Lieutenant, son of a veteran naval commander. He was in charge of the brig _Enterprise_, with which, late in December, he captured a Tripolitan ketch laden with girls which the ruler of Tripoli was sending as a present to the Sultan. The maidens were landed at Syracuse, and the ketch (which was renamed _Intrepid_) was used by Decatur in an attempt to recapture or destroy the _Philadelphia_. With seventy daring young men he sailed into the harbor of Tripoli on a bright moon-lit night (February, 1804), the _Intrepid_ assuming the character of a vessel in distress. Most of her officers and men were concealed.
The _Intrepid_ went alongside the _Philadelphia_, when Decatur, followed by his men, who sprang from their hiding-places, boarded the frigate, slew many of her defenders and drove the rest into the sea, set her on fire, and escaped with only four men wounded. This daring act produced great commotion in the harbor. The _Philadelphia_ was soon in flames; the great guns of the castle and of the corsairs lying near thundered incessantly; and to this roar of artillery was added that of the cannons of the frigate as the flames reached them. The heroes of this exploit were received at Syracuse with demonstrations of great joy, and Decatur was promoted to Captain. The ruler of Tripoli was abashed by this display of American energy and valor.