Agent of Contractor.—­“No, you fool, there are only thirty.”

Captain of the Port.—­“You lie! there are forty.”

Agent of Contractor.—­“Only thirty, I tell you,” (putting three or four dollars into his hand).

Captain of the Port.—­“Well, well, there are only thirty.”

And, in this way, the garrison of Gibraltar often gets 500 or 1,000 head of cattle more than the stipulated number, at five dollars per head duty instead of ten.  Who derives the benefit of peculation I am unable to state.  An anecdote recurs to me of old Youssef, Bashaw of Tripoli, illustrative of the phlebotomizing system now under consideration.  Colonel Warrington one day seriously represented to the bashaw how his functionaries robbed him, and took the liberty of mentioning the name of one person.  “Yes, yes,” observed the bashaw, “I know all about him; I don’t want to catch him yet; he’s not fat enough.  When he has gorged a little more, I’ll have his head off.”

The Emperor of Morocco, however, usually treats his bashaws of the coast with greater consideration than those of the interior cities, the former being more in contact with Europeans, his Highness not wishing his reputation to suffer in the eyes of Christians.

CHAPTER III.

The Posada.—­Ingles and Benoliel.—­Amulets for successful parturition.—­Visits of a Moorish Taleb and a Berber.—­Three Sundays during a week in Barbary.—­M.  Rey’s account of the Empire of Morocco.—­The Government Auctioneer gives an account of Slavery and the Slave Trade in Morocco.—­Benoliel as English Cicerone.—­Departure from Tangier to Gibraltar.—­How I lost my fine green broadcloth.—­Mr. Frenerry’s opinion of Maroquine Affairs.

I took up my stay at the “English Hotel” (posada Ingles), kept by Benoliel, a Morocco Jew, who spoke tolerable English.  A Jerusalemitish rabbi came in one day to write charms for his wife, she being near her confinement.  The superstition of charms and other cognate matters, are shared alike by all the native inhabitants of Barbary.  It often happens that a Marabout shrine will be visited by Moor and Jew, each investing the departed saint with his own peculiar sanctity.  So contagious is this species of superstition, that Romish Christians, long resident in Barbary, assisted by the inventive monks, at last discover the Moorish or Jewish to be a Christian saint.  The Jewesses brought our Oriental rabbi, declaring him to know everything, and that his garments smelt of the Holy City.  Benoliel, or Ben, as the English called him, protested to me that he did not believe in charms; he only allowed the rabbi to write them to please the women.  But I have found, during my travels in the Mediterranean, many persons of education, who pretended they did not believe this or that superstition of their church, whilst they were at heart great cowards, having no courage to reject a popular falsehood, and quite as superstitious as those who never doubt the excrescent dogmas or traditionary fables of their religion.  The paper amulets, however, operated favourably on Mrs. Benoliel.  She was delivered of a fine child; and received the congratulations of her neighbours.  The child was named Sultana; [9] and the people were all as merry as if a princess had been born in Israel.