The grand cicerone for the English at Tangier, is Benoliel. He is a man
of about sixty years of age, and initiated into the sublimest mysteries
of the consular politics of the Shereefs. Ben is full of anecdotes of
everybody and everything from the emperor on the Shreefian throne, down
to the mad and ragged dervish in the streets. Our cicerone keeps a book,
in which the names of all his English guests have been from time to time
inscribed. His visitors have been principally officers from Gibraltar,
who come here for a few days sporting. On the bombardment of Tangier,
Ben left the country with other fugitives. The Moorish rabble plundered
his house; and many valuables which were there concealed, pledged by
persons belonging to Tangier, were carried away; Ben was therefore
ruined. Some foolish people at Gibraltar told Ben, that the streets of
London were paved with gold, or, at any rate, that, inasmuch as he (Ben)
had in his time entertained so many Englishmen at his hospitable
establishment at Tangier (for which, however, he was well paid), he
would be sure to make his fortune by a visit to England. I afterwards
met Ben accidentally in the streets of London, in great distress. Some
friends of the Anti-Slavery Society subscribed a small sum for him, and
sent him back to his family in Gibraltar. Poor Ben was astonished to
find as much misery in the streets of our own metropolis, as in any town
of Morocco. Regarding his co-religionists in England, Ben observed with
bitterness, "The Jews there are no good; they are very blackguards." He
was disappointed at their want of liberality, as well as their want of
sympathy for Morocco Jews. Ben thought he knew everything, and the ways
of this wicked world, but this visit to England convinced him he must
begin the world over again. Our cicerone is very shrewd; withal is
blessed with a good share of common sense; is by no means bigoted
against Mahometans or Christians, and is one of the more respectable of
the Barbary Jews. His information on Morocco, is, however, so mixed up
with the marvellous, that only a person well acquainted with North
Africa can distinguish the probable from the improbable, or separate the
wheat from the chaff. Ben has a large family, like most of the Maroquine
Jews; but the great attraction of his family is a most beautiful
daughter, with a complexion of jasmine, and locks of the raven; a
perfect Rachel in loveliness, proving fully the assertion of Ali Bey,
and all other travellers in Morocco, that the fairest women in this
country are the Jewesses. Ben is the type of many a Barbary Jew, who, to
considerable intelligence, and a few grains of what may be called fair
English honesty, unites the ordinarily deteriorated character of men,
and especially Jews, bora and brought up under oppressive governments.
Ben would sell you to the Emperor for a moderate price; and so would the
Jewish consular agents of Morocco. A traveller in this country must,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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