I Was No Sooner Seated In This My New Habitation, Than The Moors
Assembled In Crowds To Behold Me; But
I found it rather a troublesome
levee, for I was obliged to take off one of my stockings, and show
Them
my foot, and even to take off my jacket and waistcoat, to show them how
my clothes were put on and off: they were much delighted with the curious
contrivance of buttons. All this was to be repeated to every succeeding
visitor; for such as had already seen these wonders insisted on their
friends seeing the same; and in this manner I was employed, dressing and
undressing, buttoning and unbuttoning, from noon to night. About eight
o'clock, Ali sent me for supper some kouskous and salt and water, which
was very acceptable, being the only victuals I had tasted since morning.
I observed that, in the night, the Moors kept regular watch, and
frequently looked into the hut, to see if I was asleep, and if it was
quite dark, they would light a wisp of grass. About two o'clock in the
morning, a Moor entered the hut, probably with a view to steal something,
or perhaps to murder me: and groping about, he laid his hand upon my
shoulder. As night visitors were at best but suspicious characters, I
sprang up the moment he laid his hand upon me; and the Moor, in his haste
to get off, stumbled over my boy, and fell with his face upon the wild
hog, which returned the attack by biting the Moor's arm. The screams of
this man alarmed the people in the king's tent, who immediately
conjectured that I had made my escape, and a number of them mounted their
horses, and prepared to pursue me. I observed upon this occasion that Ali
did not sleep in his own tent, but came galloping upon a white horse from
a small tent at a considerable distance: indeed, the tyrannical and cruel
behaviour of this man made him so jealous of every person around him,
that even his own slaves and domestics knew not where he slept. When the
Moors had explained to him the cause of this outcry, they all went away
and I was permitted to sleep quietly until morning.
March 13th. With the returning day commenced the same round of insult and
irritation: the boys assembled to beat the hog, and the men and women to
plague the Christian. It is impossible for me to describe the behaviour
of a people who study mischief as a science, and exult in the miseries
and misfortunes of their fellow-creatures. It is sufficient to observe
that the rudeness, ferocity, and fanaticism, which distinguish the Moors
from the rest of man-kind, found here a proper subject whereon to
exercise their propensities. I was a _stranger_, I was _unprotected_, and
I was a _Christian_; each of these circumstances is sufficient to drive
every spark of humanity from the heart of a Moor; but when all of them,
as in my case, were combined in the same person, and a suspicion
prevailed withal, that I had come as a _spy_ into the country, the reader
will easily imagine that, in such a situation, I had every thing to fear.
Anxious, however, to conciliate favour, and if possible, to afford the
Moors no pretence for ill-treating me, I readily complied with every
command, and patiently bore every insult; but never did any period of my
life pass away so heavily; from sunrise to sunset was I obliged to
suffer, with an unruffled countenance, the insults of the rudest savages
on earth.
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