The pillars of Hercules

by David Urquhart

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.

They are subject to blows from any one and every one, and the occasion is afforded by every holy place, where the shoes have to be taken off. Still, I have not remarked that they suffer much. Up to the present time, I have not seen a Jew beaten or insulted, and I have witnessed on several occasions their reception by Moors of the first rank, in which it would have been impossible, but for the dress, to have known the difference. Besides, the Moors are not proficients in the art of “self-defence,” and could not plant a blow if they set about it.

At a Jewish marriage I was standing beside the bridegroom when the bride entered: as she crossed the threshold, he stooped down and slipped off his shoe, and struck her with the heel on the nape of the neck. I at once saw the interpretation of the passage in Scripture, respecting the transfer of the shoe to another, in case the brother-in-law did not exercise his privilege.

The slipper in the East being taken off in-doors, or if not, left outside the apartment, is placed at the edge of the small carpets upon which you sit, and is at hand to administer correction, and is here used in sign of the obedience of the wife, and of the supremacy of the husband. The Highland custom is to strike, for “good luck,” as they say, the bride with an old slipper. Little do they suspect the meaning implied. The regalia of Morocco is enriched with a pair of embroidered slippers, which are, or used to be, carried before the Sultan, as amongst us the sceptre or sword of state.

This superstition of the old slipper reminds me of another. In the Highlands the great festivity is the ushering in of the new year. The moment is watched for with the utmost anxiety; every one then rushes into the streets, with posset in hand, embracing whoever he meets, and shouting “Huy meneh!” This word has puzzled the traveller and antiquary; it was the very word which the Greeks repeated, no more knowing its meaning than the Highlander: Hymenea or Hymeneu! and out of which come, Hymen, Hymn, &c. Meneh was Jesboal among the Sabeans, from minah or minik, fortifications, the procession going round the walls. Men is habitation in Egyptian and Coptic—minith contracted to met, is the name for a village in Egypt; it is preserved in the Highlands in midden. From this word come many names of places in Spain, Italy, Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor. It gives the names to founders, as Menes, Minos, Maon, &c.; thence are derived a multiplicity of the terms in common use,—manes, ammunition, mansion; manitoni, month, maniac, &c., and of course the words in Greek and Latin, through which they have reached us. Minoïa Gaza meant the Walled Gaza.

The Sabbath commences on Friday evening, when the shadow ceases, or when three stars can be seen, and lasts to the same period of Saturday. During these hours the Jew cannot spread an umbrella; it would be pitching a tent:—he cannot mount on horseback; it would be going a journey:—he cannot smoke; it would be lighting a fire:—he cannot put one out, even if it caught the house:—he cannot buy or bring any thing, nor speak of any worldly concern, nor break the seal of a letter.

The most remarkable practices are the Phylacteries and the mystical garments. As to the first, I had hoped here to find some traces of an earlier origin than that which is assigned to it—the Babylonian Captivity; but was disappointed. The Phylacteries are not as our Guercinos and Rembrandts make them,—a scroll of parchment habitually paraded on the forehead. They are small boxes covered with leather, containing passages from Exodus and Deuteronomy,[219] bound by long narrow straps, one upon the forehead, and another upon the left arm, at the time of prayer. The box is placed on the forehead as the seat of the senses, and upon the arm nearest the heart, as the seat of life. The strap is twisted seven times round the arm, three times round the hand, and three times round the second finger. Two peculiar knots are used for tying them, one to represent Dalif, and the other Ud. The Mazonza (Mystery of the Covenant) is a small roll of parchment with the same passages put in a piece of cane and nailed to the door-post, on the right side as you go out.