CHARACTERS. 



791 



60 more than of the English ? 

 " Because, " he replied, •• the 

 French would take our country, if 

 they could, as they hare done in 

 Spain, and as they did with Egypt. 

 But, " added he, " they would 

 not find us Egyptians ; we are 

 men of Barbary. " 



I must confess I was astonished 

 to find this hatred of the French 

 very common among so ignorant a 

 people. Their partiality to the 

 English (if they deign to show a 

 partiality for any Christian) may 

 be accounted for by the vicinity of 

 Gibraltar, where many of their 

 countrymen are established and 

 protected, and which is supplied 

 with a great part of its provisions 

 from the Barbary coast. But the 

 hatred against Spaniards is still 

 greater than against Frenchmen. 

 They ever keep in remembrance 

 that their foi-efathers, and the com- 

 panions of their forefathers, were 

 formerly masters of all the opposite 

 and fertile shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean; and that even after sub- 

 mission, and the most solemn com- 

 pacts with their Spanish con- 

 querors, they were driven from 

 their homes and their native land. 

 The circumstances attending that 

 expulsion may be forgotten ; but 

 the hatred excited by it, and by 

 the wars afterwards carried on, 

 still exists in all its force. We were 

 repeatedly stopped in the streets by 

 an exclamation addressed to us, 

 and which our interpreter explain- 

 ed to be " the Englisliman is very 

 good, but the Spaniard stinks. " 

 At other times, however, we were 

 subjected to those insults which 

 every man in the European dress 

 must be prepared occasionally to 

 encounter among Mahometans. 

 The names of infidel and dog be- 



came familiar to our ears. S^ome of 

 the lowest classes at times held up 

 their hands in a threatening man- 

 ner, as if to strike us as we passed, 

 and that without the slightest pro- 

 vocation ; the boys especially 

 took great delight in following and 

 insulting the Christians : they call- 

 ed us by every opprobrious epithet, 

 and not content with that, of- 

 ten, at the city-gates, saluted us 

 with a volley of stones, which we 

 could neither avoid nor punish. 

 There is much more of this barba- 

 rism here, than at Smyrna or Con- 

 stantinople. 



But the insults to which Chris- 

 tians are exposed, are nothing, 

 when compared with those which 

 the Jew must hourly suffer. As 

 Christians we entered the gates on 

 horseback, when returning from 

 our ride, accompanied by a soldier. 

 This sometimes created murmurs ; 

 but our Jewish companion was al- 

 ways obliged to dismount, and en- 

 ter on foot, nor was he allowed 

 even to ride through the street. In 

 passing a mosque, be the path ever 

 so muddy, the Jew must take off 

 his slippers ; scarcely dare he to 

 look upon the pure house of pray- 

 er. At any time a Moor of the 

 lowest cast may enter the house of 

 a Jew, and commit a thousand in- 

 solences, which the other has not 

 the power even to resent. It is on 

 this account that the Jews reside 

 in a separate quarter. A Maho- 

 metan keeps the gates, and by 

 making suitable presents to him, 

 the miserable children of Abraham 

 live in tolerable security, fiut 

 their hatred against their tyrants 

 cannot be described ; it is mixed 

 with all that is base ; with fear, 

 with rancour, with Cunning. A 

 Jew takes off his cap to a Moor, 



and 



