542 A Visit to Tangier*. [Nov. 



lator Blmll destroy at the point of the sword that which it enforced the 

 IUWH and maxims contained in the Alcoran ! 



Yet it is perhaps not so much to the Alcoran itself, as to the numerous 

 expositions and commentaries by interested priests, who have embar- 

 ra-sed .'ind confused the belief of Mussulmans, that m.'iy be ascribed much 

 of the superstition and bigotry which at present exist, and which have 

 clogged their minds with an endless tissue of good and evil omens. 

 One of their great superstitions the evil eye so universally credited by 

 the Mahommedans of Western Barbary, has been often spoken of with- 

 out being explained. In seeking supernatural causes to which misfor- 

 tunes may be attributed, they have, amongst other things, supposed 

 that the devil has commissioned agents on earth to spread evil, who are 

 generally ill-looking people, with glaring eyeballs. Thus a JWoor, 

 previous to entering into any conversation or transaction with a stranger, 

 examines him well ; and should lie have any reason to suspect that per- 

 son gifted with the evil eye, he will have no dealings with him, however 

 tempting the profit. The evil eye may be set on a child, and blight its 

 foil unes through life, of which parents are so fearful, that it is some- 

 ndrd with a loss of friendship to admire a child, as in so doing 

 the baleful glance is often cast upon them. To shield them from the 

 contagion, they will snatch them up and hide them in cellars. But these 

 poisons have their antidote ; and in the remedy of the physician may be 

 traced the origin of the disease. The priests vend amulets possessing 

 counter charms, which people sometimes wear about their necks. Ano- 

 ther remedy is to hold up the right hand, with outspread lingers, and 

 exclaim, " five to your eyes." Children also wear a small silver hand, 

 with extended fingers, to guard against the accidental rencontre of Satan's 

 agents. 



Though men of business-like talent, are sometimes met with in Bar- 

 bary, still their system of education is not such as to open a field for 

 any display of genius : the chief object of a father is to teach his son the 

 laws of the Koran ; this precious book is to supply him with food and 

 drink, and shelter him from his enemies in time of need. The expound- 

 ing of its mysteries and hyperbolical meanings is a knowledge which 

 the Moors would not exchange for the most useful science in existence. 

 The first ten years of a boy's education is devoted to religious study, 

 beyond which learning has come to a dead halt. At the age of thirteen 

 youth are allowed to attend the mosques, where they are initiated inio 

 the rites of the Mahommedan religion at this period they are separated 

 from the society of female children, and even the faces of their own 

 sisters they can never behold more 1 



This state of society naturally checks the growth of all social feelings, 

 and robs life of all the endearments which spring from family love ; nor 

 are the ties of consanguinity strengthened by this estrangement, of which 

 many proofs, like those related by Ali Bey of Muley Solyman's seraglio, 

 might be cited. 



It is at the early age of thirteen that the dreadful fast of the Ramazan is 

 In i ( t\rd, which, notwithstanding the general opinion of its being a 

 .--light penance for the rich, who sleep (luring the day, is so much the 

 reverse, that towards the end of the thirty days their sufferings become 

 insupportable, especially w hen it falls during the summer months : for 

 a period of at least sixteen hours per day they are not even allowed to 

 smoke, an abstinence which renders them pale, emaciated, and sometimes 



