450 
THE AUTHOR'S STORY. 
the christians continued they. " No ; I left my country 
so young that I had not learned our prayers, and the chris- 
tians of course did not teach me them." — " But did you not 
pray when you were in the Soudan with the Mahometan 
Foulahs V Yes ; but I took care not to be observed." 
" Did you sometimes pray to the prophet " I did so in- 
ternally." 
When I confessed that I had eaten pork and drunk 
brandy they were all horror-struck and exclaimed in Ara- 
bic : " Ah ! great God, why did you do that " Because," 
replied I, *' my master obliged me." 1 observed that, had 
I been willing to continue such a life, I should have 
remained among the christians ; but that it was to avoid the 
commission of such heinous sins, that I had undertaken my 
long and perilous journey. He is right ; he speaks 
truly," they then repeated, looking at each other. Among 
other questions, I was asked whether it was true that the 
christians eat their slaves. This absurd question was not 
asked by the Moors of Tafilet, who appeared tolerably well 
informed, but by some roving Moors, who happened to 
be passing by and stopped, out of curiosity, to hear our 
conversation. The Moors of Tafilet looked at them with 
an air of contempt and superiority, and told them that the 
whites were not cannibals. Those who had asked the 
question laughed too, and 1 suppose they had been merely 
joking. I informed them that the Europeans had no slaves 
now. They asked me why? " Because," replied I, " they 
say that men are all equal in the eye of God, and that 
there ought to be no slavery." They admitted that this 
was very true, and that it was very fine for the christians 
to think so. " But why," continued they, were you 
detained as a slave ?" I replied that I was not detained, and 
that if I had remained in France until the end of the war, 
I might, like others of my countrymen, have returned home, 
but, being in the Soudan with the christian, my master. 
