The Emperor’s garden contains a well of water and a few fruit-trees, on the trunk of one of which, a fine fig-tree, were carved, in durable bark, the names of European visitors.  Among the rest, that of a famous belle, whose gallant worshippers had cut her name over all its broad trunk, though they may have failed to cut their own on the plastic and india-rubber tablet of the fair one’s heart.  This carving on the fig-tree is the sum of all that Europeans have done in Morocco during several ages.  We rather adopt Moorish habits, and descend to their animal gratifications than inculcate our own, or the intellectual pleasures of Christian nations.  European females brought up in this country, few excepted, adopt with gusto the lascivious dances of the Mooresses; and if this may be said of them, what may we not think of the male class, who frequently throw off all restraint in the indulgence of their passions?

While reposing under the umbrageous shade of the Argan tree, a Moor related to us wondrous sprite and elfin tales of the forests of of these wilds.  At one period, the Argan woods were full of enchantresses, who prevented good Mussulmen from saying their prayers, by dancing before them in all their natural charms, to the sounds of melodious and voluptuous music; and if a poor son of the Prophet, perchance, passed this way at the stated times of prayer, he found it impossible to attend to his devotions, being pestered to death by these naughty houries.

On another occasion, when it was high summer and the sun burnt every leaf of the black Argan foliage to a yellow red, and whilst the arid earth opened her mouth in horrid gaps, crystal springs of water were seen to bubble forth from the bowels of the earth, and run in rills among parterres of roses and jessamines.  The boughs of the Argan tree also suddenly changed into jereeds of the date-palm burdened with luscious fruit; but, on weary travellers descending to slake their parching thirst and refresh themselves, they fell headlong into the gaping holes of the ground, and disappeared in the abyss of the dark entrails of the world.

These Argan forests continued under the fearful ban of the enchantress and wicked jinns, until a holy man was brought from the farthest desert upon the back of a flying camel, who set free the spell-bound wood by tying on each bewitched tree a small piece of cork bark on which was inscribed the sacred name of the Deity.  The legends of these haunted Argan forests remind us of the enchanted wood of Tasso, whose enchantment was dissolved by the gallant knight, Rinaldo, and which enabled the Crusaders to procure wood for the machines of war to assault and capture the Holy City.  Two quotations will shew the universality and permanence of superstition, begotten of human hopes and fears.  Such is the beautiful imagery devoted to superstitious musings, by the illustrious bard:—­