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:
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