And Here I May Be Permitted To Observe,
That If Any One Circumstance Excited Among Them Favourable Thoughts
Towards My Own Person, It Was My Beard; Which Was Now Grown To An
Enormous Length, And Was Always Beheld With Approbation Or Envy.
I
believe in my conscience they thought it too good a beard for a
Christian.
The only diseases which I observed to prevail among the Moors were the
intermittent fever and dysentery; for the cure of which, nostrums are
sometimes administered by their old women; but, in general, nature is
left to her own operations. Mention was made to me of the small-pox, as
being sometimes very destructive; but it had not, to my knowledge, made
its appearance in Ludamar while I was in captivity. That it prevails,
however, among some tribes of the Moors, and that it is frequently
conveyed by them to the Negroes in the southern states, I was assured on
the authority of Dr. Laidley, who also informed me that the Negroes on
the Gambia practise inoculation.
The administration of criminal justice, as far as I had opportunities of
observing, was prompt and decisive. For, although civil rights were but
little regarded in Ludamar, it was necessary, when crimes were committed,
that examples should sometimes be made. On such occasions, the offender
was brought before Ali, who pronounced, of his sole authority, what
judgment he thought proper. But I understood that capital punishment was
seldom or never inflicted, except on the Negroes.
Although the wealth of the Moors consists chiefly in their numerous herds
of cattle, yet, as the pastoral life does not afford full employment, the
majority of the people are perfectly idle, and spend the day in trifling
conversation about their horses, or in laying schemes of depredation on
the Negro villages.
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