Having remained a short time at Teijent, he proceeded towards the
north-west through Tesegdeltum to Tagtessa, a city built upon the apex
of a conical hill, where he saw the earth covered by so prodigious a
cloud of locusts that they seemed to outnumber the blades of grass. From
this city he travelled to Eitdevet, where he refreshed himself after
his various toils by conversing with learned Jews and Ulemas on knotty
points of law, and by gazing on the women, whose plump round forms and
rich complexions delighted him exceedingly. To keep up the interest
of his journey, and diversify the scene a little, he was a few days
afterward fired at by the subject of an heretical chief, who inhabited a
mountain fortress, and amused himself with laying true believers under
contribution; but escaped the danger, and succeeded in reaching Tefetne,
a small city on the seashore. Here sufferings of a new kind awaited him.
Not from the people, for they were humane and friendly towards strangers;
but from certain dependants of theirs, whose assiduous attentions made
the three days which Leo spent among these good-natured people appear
to be so many ages. In short, notwithstanding that he was lodged in a
magnificent caravansary, he was nearly stung to death by fleas! The
cause of the extraordinary abundance of these active little animals at
Tefetne, though it seems never to have occurred to our curious traveller,
is discoverable in a circumstance which he accidentally mentions—_the
Portuguese traded to this city_. This likewise may account for another
little peculiarity which distinguished this part from the neighbouring
towns, though not greatly to its advantage: the stench, he tells us,
which diffused itself on all sides, and assaulted the nostrils night and
day, was so powerful that his senses were at length compelled to succumb,
and he retreated before the victorious odour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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