Notwithstanding the Moors possess this inestimable treasure near one of their most opulent and populous cities, yet, owing to fabulous tales, handed down by tradition from one generation to another, these superstitious people will never drink or disturb the water; to do so is reckoned sacrilege, and the offender is severely punished:  for they positively affirm, that one of their great saints has been transmuted into it, and that at some distant period he will resume his natural form, to perform a great many miracles, and to render the Moors rich and happy, more so indeed than Mahomet has promised them in the other world.

While I have been here, I have had daily intercourse with the most eminent of their Tweebs.  They pay me regular morning visits, questioning me on several points.  One day I was asked by what means health was preserved, and what produced disease in the human body; I answered, that, “among several other remote causes, the air, by its different constitutions, had a great effect upon the human frame:  that diseases revolve periodically, and keep time and measure exactly with the seasons of the year; and that either health or disease depended in some measure on the universal influence of the air, by its gravity, heat, cold, moisture, dryness, or exhalations.”  They have no idea of natural philosophy, nor of the knowledge and physiology of the air, or how to change and destroy its bad qualities in close and confined places.  After much persuasion, I prevailed on some of them to make use of the fuming mixture of brimstone and aromatic ingredients, in all cases of pestilential fevers.  Though this is not so efficacious as the nitrous acid, yet it will considerably abate the progress of contagion, and they are acquainted with the materials of the former, whereas they have not the smallest idea of the latter.

They are perfectly ignorant of the animal and comparative anatomy, and of physiology and pathology.  They have no notion either of the nervous fluid, or of the solids, their restriction and relaxation.  They have no other idea of the fluids than the blood, to a superabundance of which they attribute all the diseases incident to the human body.  In the spring they recommend bleeding, to ensure a good state of health for the remainder of the year.  These Tweebs are wonderfully reserved in all their actions.

The Moors have great faith in sorcery and witchcraft.  I was called upon to visit a young man about eighteen, who was universally believed to be possessed by an evil spirit.  His case was a confirmed hydrophobia.  I informed the people that the disease was occasioned by the bite of a mad dog, and that the man would die in the course of the ensuing night.  I inquired the next morning, when I found that I had judged correctly.  I have also visited several young women who were reported to have been bewitched.  Some I found labouring under the last stage of a nervous consumption; others under a dangerous and incurable lunacy.  In short, nothing can exceed the ignorance and superstition of these deluded people.