Our ancient aide-de-camp of Bolivar is a liberal English Jew, and boasts
that, on Christmas-day, he always has his roast-beef and plum-pudding. I
supped with him often on a sucking-pig, for the Christians breed pigs in
this place, to the horror of pious Mussulmen. This amusing adventurer
subsequently left Mogador and went to Lisbon, where he purposed writing
a memorial to the Archbishop of Canterbury, containing the plan, of a
New Unitarian system of religion, by which the Jews might be brought
within the pale of the Christian Church!
For some time I felt the effects of my sea voyage; my apartment rocked
in my brain. People speculated about the objects of my mission; the most
absurd rumours were afloat. "The Christian has come to settle the
affairs of Mr. Darman, whom the Emperor killed," some said. Others
remarked, "The Christian has come to buy all the slaves of the country,
in order to liberate them." The lieutenant-governor sent for Phillips,
to know what I came for, who I was, and how I passed my time? Phillips
told him all about my mission, and that I was a great taleb. When
Phillips mentioned to the governor, that Great Britain had paid a
hundred millions of dollars for the liberation of slaves belonging to
Englishmen, his Excellency, struck with astonishment, exclaimed, "The
English Sultan is inspired by God!"
[Illustration.]
I visited the burying-place of Christians, situate on the north-side of
the town by the sea-shore. A fine tomb was erected here to the memory of
Mrs. Willshire's father. The ignorant country people coming to Mogador
stopped to repeat prayers before it, believing it the tomb of some
favourite saint. The government, hearing of this idolatry to a
Christian, begged Mr. Willshire to have the tomb covered with cement.
When this was done, so perverse are these people, that they partially
divested it of covering, and chipped off pieces of marble for their
women, who ground them into powder, and dusted their faces with it to
make them fair. Every six months it is necessary to replaster the tomb.
This cemetery is the most desolate place the mind of man can conceive.
There is no green turf here to rest lightly on the bosom of the dead! No
tree, no cypress of mourning; no shade or shelter for those who seek to
indulge in grief. All is a sandy desolation, swept by the wild winds of
the solitary shore of the ocean.
[Illustration]
Farther on, is the Moorish cemetery, which I passed through. What a
spectacle of human corruption! Here, indeed, we may learn to despise
this world's poor renown, and cease tormenting ourselves with vain and
godless pursuits. It was then sunset, the moon had risen far up on the
fading brow of the departing day, casting pale lights and fearful
shadows over this house of the dead. It was time to return, or the gates
of the city would shut me out amidst the wreck of poor human dust and
bones. I saw, moving in the doubtful shadows of approaching night, the
grave-digging hyaena!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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