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Some of the captives were employed at rigging and fitting out cruisers, and in transporting cargoes and other goods about the city. Because of the narrow streets the articles they moved could be carried only by means of poles on their shoulders. If they bumped into a citizen they were loudly cursed and beaten. The Dey was building a new mosque, and many of the Christians were employed in transporting blocks of stone from the wharf to the building. Four men were employed to move one stone, and only the strongest could bear up under such a load. Some of the captives were sent into the mountains to blast rocks. Under the direction of Moslem overseers, who cruelly beat them on the slightest excuse, the prisoners rolled rocks weighing from twenty to forty tons down the mountain, where they were then hoisted on carts, drawn by teams of two hundred or more slaves to a wharf two miles distant, where the stones were placed on scows and carried across the harbor to be fitted into a breakwater.

The prison, to which they returned after the labors of the day, was an oblong, hollow square, three stories high. The ground floor was composed of taverns that were kept by favored slaves who paid a goodly sum for rent, as well as for the liquor they sold. In this way a few of the slaves were able to earn enough money to purchase their freedom. These taverns were so dark that lamps had to be kept burning even by day. They were filled with Turks, Moors, Arabs and Christians, who often became drunk and sang and babbled in every language.