They have to take off their shoes in passing a mosque, which is not without its influence on their apartments. No traveller in the East can have failed to remark the establishments attached to the mosque for purification, &c., or the cleanliness and peculiarities of the corresponding parts of private houses. In washing, the Mussulmans use only the left hand, and reserve the right pure for eating. The Spaniard, Ali Bey, lost his life by breaking this rule: master as he was of the language and the religious ceremonies, his _corns_ led to suspicion of his origin. He was watched, and, being observed to use his right hand in washing, when a Mussulman would not have used it, he was at once proved to be an impostor feigning Islamism, and shot. I was informed that the Jews are not more particular, and for the portions of the house where water is constantly splashing about, they do not use wooden pattens.[215] The relative position of two races living intermixed, cannot fail to be influenced by their relative cleanliness; and the contempt in which the Jews are held in the towns must, in part at least, be owing to this cause. The Jews of Barbary look down upon the Jews of Christendom,[216] whom they call _Ers Edom_. A rabbi, referring to the conversion of the rich, said, “We have only to undergo the temptations of poverty and danger--they have to endure those of ease and wealth.” They tax themselves for the Holy Land to the amount of one half their tax to the Moorish Government. I saw one of the collectors from Jerusalem, who told me that their people in Morocco amounted to one million.[217] The Jews are the only portion of the people not, therefore, subject to the haratch, or poll-tax: _they do not pay it_. This fact entirely confirms what I have said respecting the original conquest. The tax now paid by the Jews is of modern introduction;[218] formerly, they presented to the Sovereign a golden hen with twelve chickens in enamelled work, and this was their quit-rent. At Tunis and Tripoli they do so still. The vexations to which they are subject are of this nature:--A son of the Sultan being resident here, and for a time really the governor, sent to them a young lion to keep, directing that a certain quantity of meat should be given him daily, and fixing four hundred dollars as his weir geldt in case of death. The Jews supplied him so plentifully, that he died of indigestion. The Prince then sent a hyena, fixing six pounds of beef, “besides the bones,” as his daily allowance, and settling his head-money at one thousand dollars: the Jews began again by giving him ten pounds “besides the bones.” The Prince was, however, soon after disgraced and imprisoned, and the Jews since then have led a quiet life.