An account of the empire of Marocco, and the district of Suse

Front Cover

From inside the book

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 56 - O ! who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast?
Page 135 - ELIOT, quoted by Cotton Mather. Magnalia, book 3, p. 184. [Olive Trees of Messa.'] " THERE is an extensive plantation of olive trees in the neighbourhood of Messa, the trees of which are of great size and beauty, and are planted in a very whimsical and peculiar manner. When I visited Messa I enquired the cause of their being so arranged...
Page 110 - Marocco these animals abound ; there is scarcely a house without ils domestic serpent, which is sometimes seen moving along the roofs of the apartments ; they are never molested by the family, who would not hurt them on any consideration, conceiving them a benediction on the household ; they have been known to suck the breasts of women whilst asleep, and retire without offering any further injury. They are so susceptible, as to be sensible of enmity...
Page 171 - ... days, carrying off, during that period, one hundred persons out of one hundred and thirty.three, the original population of the village, before the plague visited it ; none died after this, and those who were infected, recovered in the course of a month or two, some losing an eye, or the use of a leg or an arm Many similar circumstances might be here adduced relative to the numerous...
Page 172 - Fas diminished in population twelve or fifteen hundred each day d , insomuch, that in these extensive cities, the mortality was so great, that the living having not time to bury the dead, the bodies were deposited or thrown altogether into large holes, which, when nearly full, were covered over with earth.
Page 104 - There are various ways of dressing them; that usually adopted is to boil them in water half an hour, then sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and fry them, adding a little vinegar. The head, wings, and legs are thrown away, the rest of the body is eaten, and resembles the taste of prawns. As the criterion of goodness in all eatables among the Moors is regulated by the stimulating qualities which they possess, so these locusts are preferred to pigeons, because supposed to be more invigorating. A person...
Page 102 - Locusts are produced from some unknown physical cause, and proceed from the Desert, always coming from the south. When they visit a country, it behoves every individual to lay in a provision against a famine; for they are said to stay three, five, or seven years. During my residence in West and South Barbary, those countries suffered a visitation from them during seven years. They have a government among themselves, similar to that of the bees and ants ; and when the (Sultan Jerraad) king of the...
Page 177 - Fas in 1 799, a species of influenza pervaded the whole country ; the patient going to bed well, and on rising in the morning, a thick phlegm was expectorated, accompanied by a distressi-ng rheum, or cold in the head, with a cough, which quickly reduced those affected to extreme weakness, but was seldom fatal, continuing from three to seven days, with more or less violence, and then gradually disappearing. During the plague at Mogodor, the European merchants shut themselves Up in their respective...
Page 291 - When these people do not turn their minds to reading, and learning the principles of Mohammedanism, they generally obtain their freedom after eight or ten years servitude ; for the more conscientious Mooselmin consider them as servants, and purchase them for about the same sum that they would pay in wages to a servant during the above period, at the expiration of which term, by giving them their liberty, they, according to their religious opinions, acquire a blessing from God, for having done an...
Page 178 - Jinune to smite me unless it were his sovereign will, and that if it were, he could effect it without the agency of Jinune. On my return to town in the evening, the beach, from the town-gate to the sanctuary of Seedi, * Mogodole was covered with biers. My daily observations convinced me that the epidemy was not caught by approach, unless that approach was accompanied by an inhaling of the breath, or by touching the infected person...

Bibliographic information