The Tweebs Have Each From Two To Six Disciples, Whom They Instruct And
Initiate In Their Secrets Of The Healing Art.
In their regular visits
to any town, they parade the streets with great pomp and gravity,
followed by a
Train of miserable objects, who pretend to have been
recently recovered from a long and dangerous illness by the
extraordinary skill of the doctor; while, in fact, their cadaverous
countenances and emaciated bodies seem to contradict their assertions,
and bear ample testimony that they are hurrying fast to that country,
"from whose bourne no traveller returns." Under the pretence of
charity, these poor wretches are supported by this Moorish
Aesculapius, while his views in so doing are entirely selfish; that
by their means he may better impose on the credulous, and obtain
considerable sums of money. When any one of them (by chance) effects
what he considers a great cure, it is communicated in a circular
letter to all the doctors in Barbary.
They select one of their elders every year, and appoint him to preside
over them. His business, for the time being, is to settle all their
controversies: he is the fountain of all justice among them; for as
they are looked upon to be petty saints, they are a privileged set of
men, and not in the least subject to either civil or military
jurisdiction. They possess the art of taming the monstrous serpents of
the country, and rendering them perfectly harmless: in short, their
profession is nothing but a system of the grossest empiricism.
Formerly the country could boast of having scientific astronomers;
for, like the ancient Egyptians, the inhabitants of Barbary cultivated
the science of astronomy with great success; but as it was
communicated from generation to generation by tradition only, it is
not surprising that the increasing indolence of the Moors should have
made them relinquish the more abstruse parts, and that now it is
dwindled into mere astrology. Their habitual mode of living,
frequently exposed at night, during all weathers, in the open air,
enables them without difficulty to observe the fixed stars, and their
influence on the weather, and they have thence ascribed to every one
some peculiar property, by which the events of human life, good or
bad, are regulated.
In poetry I am told the Moors are very successful. The subjects of
their poems are mostly eulogies of the great men who have belonged to
the tribe of which the poet is a member: these compositions are all
extempore, like those of our ancient bards, or those of the Celts,
spoken of by Julius Caesar, who wandered about in Gaul and other
parts of the continent with their harps. The poets of Barbary have no
settled home, but with an instrument somewhat resembling a mandolin
they wander from place to place, and house to house, composing and
singing pieces improviso, on the honour and antiquity of their
tribe. From persons acquainted with the language, I have heard, that
they are very happy in this species of poetry, which is far from
deficient in point of harmony.
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