£40 
TRAVELS IN BARBARY. 
up in a half-moon behind him. He addressee!, 
with a haughty air, a series of questions, which 
evidently shewed the suspicious light in which 
he viewed our traveller. He inquired, by what 
authority he had come into the country — where 
he had learned his profession — whether the Eng- 
lish or French surgeons were best, observing, 
that a French surgeon had killed a number of 
people — why he had forbid Muley Absulem the 
use of tea — and, if tea was unwholesome, why the 
English drank so much of it? Satisfactory an- 
swers being made to these interrogatories, his ma- 
jesty softened, and began to converse pretty fami- 
liarly. He pointed to the snow on the Atlas, ob- 
serving, that any one who should go to the top 
w ould die of cold, and that beyond was a fine and 
fertile country, named Tafilet. In the course of 
conversation it transpired, that he had caused 
Lempriere's medicines to be privately examined 
by his Moorish physician, who had found nothing 
improper. He concluded, by saying, that he would 
send him home to his entire satisfaction. Lem- 
priere now conceived, that his prospects had at 
length cleared up ; and the attention which he 
met with from the principal persons connected 
with the court, tended to confirm this belief. 
But the emperor, whose faculties began to be im- 
paired, seemed again to lose sight of him ; and 
Muley Absulem, who happened to come to court, 
