As Leo did not make any regular tour of the country, but repaired now to
one place, now to another, as business or accident impelled him, we find
him to-day at one end of Morocco, and when the next date is given he is
at the opposite extremity. Nothing, therefore, is left the biographer but
to follow as nearly as possible the order of time. Towards the conclusion
of the year in which he crossed Mount Dedas in his way to Segelmessa, he
proceeded with Sheriff, a Moorish chief, in whose service he happened
to be, towards the western provinces of Morocco, and travelling with
a powerful escort, or rather with an army, had little or nothing to
fear from the most sanguinary and perfidious of the barbarian tribes.
One of the most remarkable places visited during this excursion was El
Eusugaghen, the “City of Murderers.” The mere description of the manners
of its inhabitants makes the blood run cold. The city, erected on the
summit of a lofty mountain, was surrounded by no gardens, and shaded by
no fruit-trees. Barley and oil were the only produce of the soil. The
poorer portion of the inhabitants went barefoot throughout the year,
the richer wore a rude species of mocassin, fabricated from the hide
of the camel or the ox. All their thoughts, all their desires tended
towards bloodshed and war, and so fierce were their struggles with their
neighbours, so terrible the slaughter, so unmitigated and unrelenting
their animosity, that, according to the forcible expression of the
traveller himself, they deserved rather to be called dogs than men. Nor
was their disposition towards each other more gentle. No man ventured to
step over the threshold of his own door into the street without carrying
a dagger or a spear in his hand: and as they did not appear inclined to
bear their weapons in vain, were restrained by no principles of religion
or justice, and were utterly insensible to pity, cries of “murder!” in
the street were frequent and startling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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