TRAVELS IN BARBARY. 
He expressed deep regret, however, at this event, 
and was often heard, when he believed himself 
alone, calling on the name of Hameda. 
This extraordinary personage made high preten- 
sions to sanctity, and was an eminent expounder of 
the Mahometan law. Whenever he was to do any 
thing extraordinary, he held his face close to the 
ground, in the manner already described, when he 
was believed to be in conference with God or Ma- 
homet, and to act entirely by their direction. For 
these pretensions he is said to have obtained full 
-credit from his subjects, who believed him a de- 
scendant and peculiar favourite of Mahomet, and 
incapable of doing any thing amiss. His great de- 
light consisted in building and throwing down ; 
which was carried to such an extent, that if all his 
erections had stood, they would have reached from 
Fez to Mequinez. This course he defended, by 
the necessity of keeping his subjects in perpetual 
occupation, in order to preserve them from mis- 
chief. He compared them, by an odd metaphor, to 
rats in a bag, who, unless they were perpetually 
shaken about, would speedily eat the bag through. 
On the arrival of the embassy at Mequinez, 
the whole number of Christian captives was 1 [00, 
of whom about 300 were English, 400 Spaniards, 
165 Portuguese, 152 French, 69 Dutch, 25 Ge- 
noese, and B Greeks ; there were besides nineteen 
English, and a few of the other nations, who had 
