STATES OF BARBARY, 155 



RELiGioN....The inhabitants of these states are Mahommedans ; but 

 manv subjects of Vforocco follow the tenets of one Hammed, a modern 

 sectarisi, and an enemy to the ancient doctrine of the caliphs. Ail of 

 them have much respect for idiots ; and, in some cases, their protec- 

 tion screens offenders from punishment for t e most notorious crimes. 

 The Moors of Barbary, as the inhabitants of these states are now pro- 

 miscuously called (because the Saracens first entered Europe from 

 Mauritania, the country of the Moors) have in general adopted the 

 very worst parts of the Mahommedan religion, and seem to have re- 

 tained only as much as countenances their vices. Adultery in the 

 women is punished with death ; but though the men are indulged with 

 a plurality of wives and concubines, they commit the most unnatural 

 crimes with impunity. All foreigners are allowed the open profession 

 of their reiigion. 



Language.. .As the states of Barbary possess those countries that 

 formerly went by the name of Mauritania and Numidia, the ancient 

 African language is still spoken in some of the inland countries, and 

 even by some inhabitants f the city of Morocco. In the sea-port 

 towns, and maritime countries, a bastard kind of Arabic is spoken, and 

 seafaring people are no strangers to that medley of living and dead 

 languages, Italian, French, Spanish, &c. that is so well known in all 

 the ports of the Mediterranean, by the name of Lingua Franca. 



Antiquities. ...The reader can scarcely doubt that the countries 

 which contained Carthage, and the pride of the Phoenician, Greek, 

 and Roman works, are replete with the most curious remains of anti- 

 quity : but they lie scattered amidst ignorant, barbarous inhabitants. 

 Some memorials of the Maurkanian and Numidian greatness are still 

 to be met with, and many ruins which bear evidence of their ancient 

 grandeur and populousness. These point out the old Julia Cassarea 

 of the Romans, which was little inferior in magnificence to Carthage 

 itself. A few of the aqueducts of Carthage are still remaining, par- 

 ticularly at Manuba, a country-house of the bey, four miles from Tunis; 

 but no vestige of its walls. The same is the* fate of Utica, famous for 

 the retreat and death of Cato ; and many other renowned cities of an- 

 tiquity ; and so overrun is the country with barbarism, that their very 

 sites are not known, even by their ruins, amphitheatres, and other 

 public buildings, which remain in tolerable preservation. Besides 

 those of classical antiquity, many Saracen monuments, of the most 

 stupendous magnificence, are likewise found in this vast tract ; these 

 were erected under the caliphs of Bagdad, and the ancient kings of the 

 country, before it was subdued by the Turks, or reduced to its present 

 form of government. Their walls form the principal fortifications in 

 th' country, both inland and maritime. 



History Under the Roman emperors, the states of Barbary 



formed the fairest jewels in the imperial diadem. It was not till the 

 seventh century that, after these states had been by turns in possession 

 of the Vandals and the Greek emperors, the caliphs or Saracens of 

 Bagdad conquered them, and from thence became masters of almost 

 all Spain, from whence their posterity was totally driven about the 

 year 1492, when the exiles settled among their friends and countrymen 

 on the Barbary coast. This naturally begot a perpetual war between 

 them and the Spaniards, who pressed them so hard, that they called to 

 their assistance the two famous brothers Barbarossa, who were ad- 

 mirals of the Turkish fleet, and who, after breaking the Spanish yoke, 



