_The Venereal Disease._—The most general disorder, however, is the venereal disease, which is said to have been unknown among them, till the period when Ferdinand King of Castille expelled the Jews from Spain, who coming over to Marocco, and suffering the Africans to cohabit with their wives and daughters, the whole empire was, as it were, _inoculated_ with the dreadful distemper; they call it _the great disease_,[158] or _the woman’s disorder_; and it has now spread itself into so many varieties, that, I am persuaded, there is scarcely a Moor in Barbary who has not more or less of the virus in his blood; they have no effectual remedy for it; they know nothing of the specific mercury, but usually follow a course of vegetable diet for forty days, drinking during that time decoctions of sarsaparilla, which afford them a temporary relief. The heat of the climate keeping up a constant perspiration, those who have this disorder, do not suffer so much from it as persons do in Europe; and this, added to their abstaining in general from wine, and all fermented liquors, may be the cause of their being enabled to drag through life without undergoing a radical cure, though they are occasionally afflicted with aches and pains till their dissolution. From repeated infection, and extreme negligence, we sometimes see noseless faces, no remedy having been administered to exterminate the infection; ulcers, particularly on the legs, are so common, that one scarcely sees a Moor without them. I have heard many of them complain, that they had never enjoyed health or tranquillity since they were first infected. If any European surgeon happen to prescribe the specific remedy, they generally, from some inaccuracy of interpretation, want of confidence, or other cause, neglect to follow the necessary regimen; this aggravates the symptoms, and they then discontinue the medicine, from a presumption of its inefficacy; it has even been asserted that mercury does not incorporate with the blood, but passes off with the fæces, producing no salutary effect. In cases of gonnorrhœa they apply, locally, (the Hendal) coloquinth, which (assisted with tisanes and diuretics) is attended with most beneficial effects. The Bashaw Hayanie, an old man of 100 years of age, who governed Suse and Agadeer part of the time when I was established there (and who was a favourite of the Emperor Muley Ismael) has assured me, that by compelling the Bukarie blacks to carry burdens up the mountain to the town of Agadeer, in the heat of the day, they have been cured of this disease. If this be true, it can be attributed only to the profuse perspiration induced by violent exercise in a hot country. The constant and general use of the warm bath may also tend to assuage the virulence of this enemy to the human constitution.