These People, Fond Of
Novelty, And Extremely Susceptible Of Fanaticism, Readily Embraced A
Faith So Well Suited To Their Manners And Inclinations.
They elected
him their chief, and invested him with supreme power; which he
employed in reducing the Arab generals.
From that time, the
characters of the Moors and Arabs gradually blended, so that in
after-ages, among the generality of them, scarcely any distinction can
be traced.
As it is foreign to my present purpose to carry you farther into the
ancient history of this country, I shall proceed to give you tho
particulars of my journey to this town. I left Tangiers, escorted by a
guard, consisting of a serjeant and six horsemen, accompanied by an
interpreter, and my few servants. We rode for several hours,
alternately through gardens and woods: the former full of fruit-trees;
such as orange, lemon, fig, pomegranate, apple, pear, and cherry
trees. The scene became every moment more interesting. As we
advanced, the country assumed a variety almost indescribable. The
contrast was every where infinitely striking. At one instant the eye
was presented with fine corn-fields, meadows, and high hills; nay,
mountains, cultivated to the very summits, are covered with immense
flocks of sheep, and herds of cattle; while the vallies conveyed to
the imagination an idea of the fertile plains of Arcadia; the simple
manners of the Moors, who tend these flocks and herds, still further
inducing one to believe them the happy, peaceful people, the poets
feign the Arcadian swains to have been. On the other hand are huge
mountains, bleak and barren, inaccessible to man, and scarcely
affording food to the straggling wild goats that venture to browse on
them.
There is a degree of simplicity in the behaviour of the peasants, so
widely different from these who inhabit the towns, that it is
impossible to suppose them the same race of men. From the great
affinity between the manners and customs of these country Moors, and
the _Scenite Arabs_, the inhabitants of _Arabia Deserta_, we may
naturally infer that they must have derived those habits from the
latter.
They reside in villages composed of tents to the number of forty or
fifty, which they remove at pleasure; when the pasture fails in one
valley, they strike their tents, and seek another, where they remain
till the same necessity impels them to quit that in its turn. This
was precisely the custom of the _Arabes Scenitae_. The vast
plains of sand with which _Arabia Deserta_ abounds, were occasionally
interspersed with fertile spots, which appeared like little
islands. These we're rendered extremely delightful by fountains,
rivulets, palm-trees, and most excellent fruit. The Arabs, with their
flocks, encamped on some of them, and when they had consumed every
thing there, they retired to others. Their descendants, the present
_Bedoweens_, continue the practice to this day. The name given to this
kind of village is the same as that of the Arabs just mentioned, which
is _Dow-war, or Hbyma_.
The families of the Moorish peasants appear to be very numerous, as I
observed that each tent was quite full.
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