Friday being their Sabbath, the day is kept perfectly holy; all the Moors are employed in prayer, reading the Koran, or visiting the tombs of their departed friends.
Curiosity prompted me to go and see an assemblage of fanatics, at a celebrated saint's house, in the neighbourhood of this town. They were to perform many wonderful things, such as tearing a live sheep in pieces, and devouring the flesh, fighting with wild beasts, and several other barbarous exhibitions. These people, called in Barbary Free Masons, are nothing more than a set of canting, roaring companions, surcharged with wine and other liquors, and assembled in this holy place, for the sole purpose of giving free vent to their brutal passions. This society is peculiar to itself, having no connexion with our ancient or modern Free Masons. I have however obtained a free access to their saints' houses and secret meetings, with permission to go any where unmolested; but I always take the precaution to go well armed, and escorted by the Emperor's guards, as nothing can exceed the barbarous acts of this fanatic set of people.
I am extremely happy to say, that my most sanguine expectations with regard to the poor man, whose accident I mentioned in my last, are realized; every unfavourable symptom has vanished, and I can safely rely on his perfect recovery. The complaint of my female patient has also given way to a proper course of medicine, and the Governor is one of the happiest of men. When I announced the pleasing intelligence of her disease being removed, he embraced me with such ecstacy that I almost dreaded suffocation; in short, he has spared nothing that can evince his gratitude and satisfaction, for what he terms the inestimable benefit I have conferred upon him.
The country round this city is inexpressibly rich and beautiful, being laid put for several miles in gardens, abounding in flowers and fruit-trees; among the latter the vine sands pre-eminent, yielding most delicious grapes. The air here, as in the other parts of Barbary, is very pure and salubrious.
LETTER XVII.
Depart for Morocco—Roads dreadfully infested, by Robbers—A Tribe of aboriginal Freebooters—Description of Morocco—Filth of the common People—Tobacco disallowed—Justice of the Emperor.
Mequinez
Since I wrote last, I have taken a trip to Morocco and back again. As I had a great deal of leisure time, and every thing here having lost the attraction of novelty, I determined to go further up the interior of the country; and accordingly applied to the Emperor for permission to visit Morocco, which he granted, but with the injunction that I should return as quickly as possible.
I set off, accompanied by my usual guard, which I assure you I never found so necessary as on this journey; for the rapacious spirit of the peasantry exposed us continually to the danger of being plundered, we were therefore obliged to keep watch alternately, to prevent our property, perhaps our lives, becoming a prey to these wretches. The neighbourhood of Morocco is dreadfully infested by robbers and assassins.
The inhabitants of the empire of Morocco, that are not in a military capacity, or otherwise immediately in the service of the Emperor, are miserably poor; and the natural indolence of their disposition preventing them from making any laudable exertions towards gaining a livelihood, they have recourse to every means of fraud and violence. It is astonishing how frequently assassinations and robberies are committed in this empire, notwithstanding the ruffians, when detected, are punished in the most exemplary manner, by the right hand and left foot being cut off, and the head afterwards being severed from the body. The relations of the murderer are all fined very heavily, and the judgment often extends to the whole village, near which the crime had been perpetrated; yet seldom a day passes but some daring robbery is committed, accompanied by the most wanton and savage cruelty; the unhappy victim of the plunderer being frequently left in the public roads in a most shocking state of mutilation.