MOCHA. 
77 
was paid. He even grew so polite as to lower the duties from three 
to two and a half per cent. Our character certainly suffers very 
considerably in the eyes of the native powers for having so long 
submitted to the insult. 
The system of decoying away seamen in a Mussulmaun port, 
which is so very serious an inconvenience to all Christian ships, is 
not done from any religious motive, but from an idea that all Chris- 
tians undei^tand the working of great guns, and to this office they 
are all destined. In the time of Niebuhr the pay of a renegado was 
one dollar and a half per month ; it was then raised to two dollars 
and a half; and within the last ten months has been encreased to 
four dollars, in consideration of the high price of every article. The 
Captain of the renegadoes is an Italian, who, thirty years ago, came 
here in the command of a native vessel from India: he turned 
Mussulmaun, sold the vessel and cargo, and shared the profits 
of his villainy with the Dola of that time. He is now the active 
instrument in inducing others to desert their religion ; he watches 
for them on the pier, and invites them to the Jew's town, where 
spirits are to be purchased. If intoxication follow they are carried 
in that state to the Dola's, whence it is not easy to make a retreat. 
A shew of liberality is kept up by permitting their friends to see 
them for the first three days, during which time they are never cir- 
cumcised, but the most liberal offers are made ; and the temptation 
of free access to the women can seldom be resisted by the sailor. 
Repentance soon overtakes them from poverty, and the deprivation 
of their usual comforts. v 
They are not much troubled on the score of their new reliction, 
though at first they are obliged to learn the necessary prayers, and 
