I went out to see the two levies.  These tribes had a singularly wild and savage aspect, with only a blanket to cover them, which they wrap round and round their bodies, having neither caps on their heads, nor shoes on their feet.  They were greatly excited against the Christians, owing to the foolish conduct of the Moorish authorities.  The lawless bands spat at me, and every European passing by them, screaming with threatening gestures, “God curse you!  Infidels.”  These semi-savages, called out for the defence of the Empire, were merely armed with a bad gun or matchlock; some had only knives and clubs.  Such levies are certainly more fit to pillage the Emperor’s coast-towns than to defend his territory against the foreign enemy.

These poor tribes bring their own provisions, a little barley meal, and olive or argan-oil, or liquid butter; on this being exhausted, they could stay no longer, for Government supplies them with nothing but bad matchlocks.

They were loud in their complaint on not receiving any nations, and threatened to join the French Nazarenes when they arrived.  His Excellency the Governor was very anxious to get rid of them, which was not at all surprising.  So avaricious is the Emperor, that when he can, he makes the rich Moors supply arms for their poorer brethren, instead of furnishing them from government depots.  And this he insists upon as a point of religion.  The Governor called upon rich Moors to supply the poor with arms.

A friend of mine who understands Shelouh as well as Arabic, overheard a characteristic quarrel between a Shedma man and a Hhaha man.  The Shedma people, or inhabitants of the plains, mostly speak Arabic, those of the mountains, Shelouh, which difference of language embitters their quarrels, and alienates them from one another.

Shedma man.—­“Dog! you have put your hands of the devil into my bag of barley.”

Hhaha man.—­“Dog and Jew, you lie!”

Shedma man.—­“Jew and Frenchman! there’s some one now in your wife’s tent.”

Hhaha man.—­“Religion of the Frenchman! your mother has been dishonoured a thousand times.”

The maternal honour is the dearest of things amongst these semi-barbarians.  At the mention of this libel on his mother, the Shedma fellow rushed at the Hhaha man, seizing him by the throat, and unsheathed a dirk to plunge into his bowels.  The scuffle fortunately excited the instant attention of a group of Arabs close by, who, securing both, carried them before the Shiekh; who, without hearing the subject of the quarrel, bastinadoed them both with his own hand.  But he was the Hhaha Sheikh, and the Shedma Sheikh complained to the Governor of his man having been bastinadoed by the other Sheikh.  The Governor dismissed them, each threatening the other with due vengeance.

It is time to give some account of Mogador.  We sometimes spell the name with an e, Mogadore, the inhabitants call their town Shweerah.  Square, [30] in allusion to its beauty, for it is the only town constructed altogether on geometrical principles throughout Morocco.  Its form, however, is really a triangle.  Mogador is a modern city, having been built in the year 1760 of our era, by the Sultan Sidi Mohammed, under the direction of a French engineer of the name of Cornut, who was assisted by Spanish renegades.