I visited the families of Jewish merchants during the Passover, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Elton.  Christians here visit the Jews twice a year, at the feast of the Passover and Tabernacles.  In return, Jews visit Christians on New Year’s day.  This laudable practice promotes social harmony between the Jews and Christians.

In the house of one of our Jewish friends (Mr. Levi’s) I assisted at the celebration of the evening of the Passover.  There is nothing very particular in this ceremony, except a great deal of reading.  The drinking of the four cups [37] of wine, and the eating of the bitter herbs, emblems of the joys and the sorrows attending the deliverance from Egyptian bondage, are the more difficult parts of the ceremony.  The children naturally feel most the disagreeableness of eating the bitter herbs, and several times, as soon as they put them into their mouths, they spat them out again under the table.  The drinking of an excessive quantity of wine, is also attended with not a little inconvenience, and one would think Bacchus was the deity worshipped, and not the God of the Jews and Christians.  When will mankind learn that violation of the physical economy of their nature can never be acceptable to the Great Creator?

I do not say that European Israelites indulge so much in these excesses as Barbary Jews, but I imagine that the germ of the debauch is found in the Talmudical religion of both classes.  But, since I should be very sorry were a Jew to hold up to me the mummeries of Popery or of the Greek Church, as the mirror of my own religion, I am not disposed to animadvert upon the generally decorous worship of European Israelites.

It requires three full days to get through this business of visiting.  In truth, it is a very serious affair, for we were obliged to eat cake, and sip sherbet, or white brandy, at every house we went to, otherwise we should confer an affront upon our friends.  At all times, a great quantity of white brandy, which the Jews distil themselves, is drunk, but especially on these occasions.

The Governor of Mogador gave orders, not long ago, that no Mussulman should enter the Jewish quarter, to prevent the faithful from being seduced into drinking this insidious spirit.  I shall just mention what a Christian is obliged to conform to, whilst visiting the Barbary Jews on these high days and holidays.

1st.  You must eat a piece of cake, at least of one sort, if not of several kinds, and drink a little brandy, wine somets, or boiled juice of the grape, or sherbet.  In many of the houses, they give nothing but brandy, which is tastefully placed out on small round tables, as at a pastrycook’s shop.

2nd.  You must admire the new dresses of the ladies, who are radiantly and sumptuously attired “in flaming purple and refulgent gold,” their ornaments likewise of gold, silver, and all manner of precious stones; for the daughters of Israel are, as on bridal days, all begemmed, bejewelled, and diamonded, stuck over with gems as thick as stars “seen in the galaxy or milky-way.”  On these festivals, it is absolutely a matter of orthodox observance that the Jews and Jewesses should wear something new.  Some have entirely new dresses.