At four I went to dine with the British consul.Two other English gentlemen were present, who had arrived at Tangier from Gibraltar about ten days previously for a short excursion, and were now detained longer than they wished by the Levant wind.They had already visited the principal towns in Spain, and proposed spending the winter either at Cadiz or Seville.One of them, Mr.-, struck me as being one of the most remarkable men I had ever conversed with; he travelled not for diversion nor instigated by curiosity, but merely with the hope of doing spiritual good, chiefly by conversation.The consul soon asked me what I thought of the Moors and their country.I told him that what I had hitherto seen of both highly pleased me.He said that were I to live amongst them ten years, as he had done, he believed I should entertain a very different opinion; that no people in the world were more false and cruel; that their government was one of the vilest description, with which it was next to an impossibility for any foreign power to hold amicable relations, as it invariably acted with bad faith, and set at nought the most solemn treaties.That British property and interests were every day subjected to ruin and spoliation, and British subjects exposed to unheard-of vexations, without the slightest hope of redress being afforded, save recourse was had to force, the only argument to which the Moors were accessible.He added, that towards the end of the preceding year an atrocious murder had been perpetrated in Tangier: a Genoese family of three individuals had perished, all of whom were British subjects, and entitled to the protection of the British flag.The murderers were known, and the principal one was even now in prison for the fact, yet all attempts to bring him to condign punishment had hitherto proved abortive, as he was a Moor, and his victims Christians.Finally he cautioned me, not to take walks beyond the wall unaccompanied by a soldier, whom he offered to provide for me should I desire it, as otherwise Iincurred great risk of being ill-treated by the Moors of the interior whom I might meet, or perhaps murdered, and he instanced the case of a British officer who not long since had been murdered on the beach for no other reason than being a Nazarene, and appearing in a Nazarene dress.He at length introduced the subject of the Gospel, and I was pleased to learn that, during his residence in Tangier, he had distributed a considerable quantity of Bibles amongst the natives in the Arabic language, and that many of the learned men, or Talibs, had read the holy volume with great interest, and that by this distribution, which, it is true, was effected with much caution, no angry or unpleasant feeling had been excited.He finally asked whether I had come with the intention of circulating the Scripture amongst the Moors.
I replied that I had no opportunity of doing so, as I had not one single copy either in the Arable language or character.
That the few Testaments which were in my possession were in the Spanish language, and were intended for circulation amongst the Christians of Tangier, to whom they might be serviceable, as they all understood the language.
It was night, and I was seated in the wustuddur of Joanna Correa, in company with Pascual Fava the Genoese.The old man's favourite subject of discourse appeared to be religion, and he professed unbounded love for the Saviour, and the deepest sense of gratitude for his miraculous atonement for the sins of mankind.I should have listened to him with pleasure had he not smelt very strongly of liquor, and by certain incoherence of language and wildness of manner given indications of being in some degree the worse for it.Suddenly two figures appeared beneath the doorway; one was that of a bare-headed and bare-legged Moorish boy of about ten years of age, dressed in a gelaba; he guided by the hand an old man, whom I at once recognised as one of the Algerines, the good Moslems of whom the old Mahasni had spoken in terms of praise in the morning whilst we ascended the street of the Siarrin.
He was very short of stature and dirty in his dress; the lower part of his face was covered with a stubbly white beard; before his eyes he wore a large pair of spectacles, from which he evidently received but little benefit, as he required the assistance of the guide at every step.The two advanced a little way into the wustuddur and there stopped.Pascual Fava no sooner beheld them, than assuming a jovial air he started nimbly up, and leaning on his stick, for he had a bent leg, limped to a cupboard, out of which he took a bottle and poured out a glass of wine, singing in the broken kind of Spanish used by the Moors of the coast:
"Argelino, Moro fino, No beber vino, Ni comer tocino."(Algerine, Moor so keen, No drink wine, No taste swine.)He then handed the wine to the old Moor, who drank it off, and then, led by the boy, made for the door without saying a word.
"HADE MUSHE HALAL," (that is not lawful,) said I to him with a loud voice.
"CUL SHEE HALAL," (everything is lawful,) said the old Moor, turning his sightless and spectacled eyes in the direction from which my voice reached him."Of everything which God has given, it is lawful for the children of God to partake.""Who is that old man?" said I to Pascual Fava, after the blind and the leader of the blind had departed."Who is he!"said Pascual; "who is he! He is a merchant now, and keeps a shop in the Siarrin, but there was a time when no bloodier pirate sailed out of Algier.That old blind wretch has cut more throats than he has hairs in his beard.Before the French took the place he was the rais or captain of a frigate, and many was the poor Sardinian vessel which fell into his hands.
After that affair he fled to Tangier, and it is said that he brought with him a great part of the booty which he had amassed in former times.Many other Algerines came hither also, or to Tetuan, but he is the strangest guest of them all.He keeps occasionally very extraordinary company for a Moor, and is rather over intimate with the Jews.Well, that's no business of mine; only let him look to himself.If the Moors should once suspect him, it were all over with him.Moors and Jews, Jews and Moors! Oh my poor sins, my poor sins, that brought me to live amongst them! -" `Ave Maris stella, Dei Mater alma, Atque semper virgo, Felix coeli porta!' "He was proceeding in this manner when I was startled by the sound of a musket.
"That is the retreat," said Pascual Fava."It is fired every night in the soc at half-past eight, and it is the signal for suspending all business, and shutting up.I am now going to close the doors, and whosoever knocks, I shall not admit them till I know their voice.Since the murder of the poor Genoese last year, we have all been particularly cautious."Thus had passed Friday, the sacred day of the Moslems, and the first which I had spent in Tangier.I observed that the Moors followed their occupations as if the day had nothing particular in it.Between twelve and one, the hour of prayer in the mosque, the gates of the town were closed, and no one permitted either to enter or go out.There is a tradition, current amongst them, that on this day, and at this hour, their eternal enemies, the Nazarenes, will arrive to take possession of their country; on which account they hold themselves prepared against a surprisal.
End