298 Love, Law, and Physic in Barbary. 



for the night. He was not long in acquainting me with the nature of 

 what he had to impart, nothing less than the said charge of murder ! 



Thinking his excellency laboured under some delusion, I begged to 

 inform him through an honest dragoman the same person who cuts 

 such a conspicuous figure in Capt. Beauclerk's " Tour to Morocco," as 

 the " Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox of the sultan" that the accident was for- 

 tunately but a trifling one ; also, that I was not the precise person who 

 had occasioned it. It was, however, gently hinted to me, " that this 

 made no difference, and that if any thing happened to the girl, I might 

 prepare for the worst." As an especial favour, after many threats of 

 imprisonment, I was allowed to remain in confinement in my own 

 house, under surveillance, till the result of the girl's accident was 

 ascertained. 



I subsequently discovered that my cunning friend, Gambado, leagued 

 with the dragoman, had contrived to shift the weight of the offence 

 upon my shoulders, by causing the bashaw to understand that I was 

 the person who had rode over the girl, an imposture I did not discover 

 at the moment. The farce, however, was near being turned into tragedy; 

 the parents of the girl, in order to extort a sufficient sum of money, had 

 employed means to aggravate the wound in the girl's head, which they 

 had caused to be shaved. Medicines were administered to her which 

 produced violent fever, and if a prompt settlement had not taken place 

 they would have killed her, in order to derive a pecuniary benefit from 

 her death. 



As any rescue from the hands of the Moors, through official inter- 

 ference (though I must here acknowledge the kindness of the European 

 consuls at Tangiers in offering me their assistance), might have been 

 both a slow and doubtful process, I preferred the shorter route of 

 disengaging myself from the grasp of power by sending for the worthy 

 conspirators, and paying the amount of their demand. Their meeting 

 was sufficiently ludicrous ; they wept, debated, and fought with my 

 arbitrators, and at last came to blows. I was then assured every thing 

 was in a fair way of settlement, and that they would certainly not hold 

 out much longer. Battle was, in fact, the signal of accommodation, 

 the talbs or scribes were sent for, and upon payment of certainly a less 

 penalty than I expected, they drew up my release. A few days subse- 

 quent to this arrangement, the young lady was restored to perfect 

 health, and was able to walk to her garden as well as ever.* 



Occurrences like the foregoing are always looked upon by the 

 authorities in the light of business, and that course which may bring a 

 share of the damages to their own pockets, is the one they are sure 

 to pursue. Public officers, having no stated salaries, think it no harm 



* When I see a nation which has not the slightest idea of public right, or of the rights 

 of man ; a nation in which scarcely one individual in a thousand knows how to read or 

 write ; a nation with whom there is no guarantee for private property, and where the 

 blood of man is ever liable to be shed for the least cause, and upon the slightest pretext, 

 without any form of trial ; in short, a nation resolved to shut its eyes to the lights of 

 reason, and to repel far from it the torch of civilization, which is presented to it in all its 

 brilliancy, such will always be to me a nation of barbarians. Let the individuals who compose 

 it wear garments of silk or rich pelisses ; establish their own ceremonials ; eat, drink, and 

 make a hundred mixtures daily ; wash and purify themselves every hour still I shall 

 repeat they are barbarians. There are, indeed, some few persons about the court who 

 have learnt the languages of Europe, and have secretly adopted its civilization, at least in 

 part, but their number is infinitely small compared with the mass of the nation. Vide 

 AH Bey's Travels, 



