port of Mogador had to-day a most wild and desolate appearance, which was rendered still more dreary and hideous by a dark tempest sweeping over it. On the shore, there was no appearance of life, much less of trade and shipping. All had abandoned it, save a guard, who lay stretched at the gate of the waterport, like a grim watch-dog. From this place, we proceeded to the merchants' quarter of the town, which was solitary and immersed in profound gloom. Altogether, my first impressions of Mogador were most unfavourable, I went to bed and dreamt of winds and seas, and struggled with tempests the greater part of the night. Then I was shipwrecked off the Canaries; thrown on the coast of Wadnoun, and made a slave by the wild Arabs wandering in the Desert—I awoke.
Mr. Phillips, mine host, soon became my right-hand man. His extraordinary character, and the adventures of his life are worth a brief notice. Phillips said he was descended from those York Jews, who, on refusing to pay a contribution levied on them by one of our most Christian kings, had a tooth drawn out every morning (without the aid of chloroform), until they satisfied the cruel avarice of the tyrant. In person, Phillips was a smart old gentleman, with the ordinary lineaments of his race stamped on his countenance. The greater part of his life has been spent in South America, where he attained the honours of aide-de-camp to Bolivar. In those sanguinary revolutions, heaving with the birth of the young republic, he had often been shut up in the capilla to be shot, and was rescued always by the Jesuit fathers, who pitied and saved the poor Jew, on his expressing himself favourable to Christianity. Returning to England, after twenty years' absence, his mother did not fully recognize him, until he one day got up and admired, with youthful ardour, a china figure on the chimney-piece, which had been his toy in his boyhood. On the occurrence of this little domestic incident, the mother passionately embraced her lost prodigal, once dead, but now "alive again." Phillips came to Mogador on a military speculation, and offered to take the command of the Emperor's cavalry against all his enemies.
This audacity of a Jew filled the Moor with alarm. "How could a Jew, who was not a devil, propose such an insult to the Commander of the Faithful, as to presume to take the charge of his invincible warriors!" Nevertheless, the little fellow weathered the storm, and got appointed "captain of the port of Mogador," with the liberal salary of about thirty shillings per month; but this did not prevent our aide-de-camp, now metamorphosed into a sea captain, from wearing an admiral's uniform, which he obtained in a curious way on a visit to England. He met in the streets of London with an acquaintance, who pretended to patronize him. The gentleman jokingly said, "Well, Phillips, I must give you an uniform, since you are appointed captain of the port of Mogador." The said gentleman received, a few months afterwards, when his quondam protégé was safe with his uniform strutting about Mogador, to the amazement of the Moors, and the delight of his co-religionists, a bill of thirty pounds or so, charged for "a suit of admiral's uniform for Mr. Phillips, captain of the port of Mogador;" and found that a joke sometimes has a serious termination.
Phillips, on his first arrival in this country, entered into a diplomatic contest with the Moorish authorities, demanding the privileges of a native British-born Jew, and he determined to ride a horse, in order to vindicate the rights of British Jews, before the awful presence of the Shereefian Court! About this business, the Consul-general Hay is said to have written eleven long, and Mr. Willshire about twenty-one short and pithy despatches, but the affair ended in smoke. Phillips, with great magnanimity and self-denial, consented to relinquish the privilege, on the prayer of his brethren, natives of Mogador, who were very naturally afraid, lest the incensed Emperor might visit on them what he durst not inflict on the British-born Jew.
Of the achievements of Phillips in the way of science (for he assures he is born to the high destiny of enlightening both barbarians and civilized nations) I take the liberty, with his permission, of mentioning one. Phillips brought here a pair of horse-shoes belonging to a drayhorse of the firm of Truman, Hanbury, Buxton, and Co., to astonish the Moors by their size, who are great connoisseurs of horse-flesh. The Moors protested their unbelief, and swore it was a lie—"such shoes never shod a horse." Phillips then got a skeleton of a head from England. This they also scouted as an imposition, alleging that Phillips had got it purposely made to deceive them. "Although they believed in the Prophet, whom they never saw, they were still not such fools as to believe in everything which an Infidel might bring to their country." Phillips now gave up, in despair, the attempt to propagate science among the Moors.
Our ancient aide-de-camp of Bolivar is a liberal English Jew, and boasts that, on Christmas-day, he always has his roast-beef and plum-pudding. I supped with him often on a sucking-pig, for the Christians breed pigs in this place, to the horror of pious Mussulmen. This amusing adventurer subsequently left Mogador and went to Lisbon, where he purposed writing a memorial to the Archbishop of Canterbury, containing the plan, of a New Unitarian system of religion, by which the Jews might be brought within the pale of the Christian Church!
For some time I felt the effects of my sea voyage; my apartment rocked in my brain. People speculated about the objects of my mission; the most absurd rumours were afloat. "The Christian has come to settle the affairs of Mr. Darman, whom the Emperor killed," some said. Others remarked, "The Christian has come to buy all the slaves of the country, in order to liberate them." The lieutenant-governor sent for Phillips, to know what I came for, who I was, and how I passed my time? Phillips told him all about my mission, and that I was a great taleb. When Phillips mentioned to the governor, that Great Britain had paid a hundred millions of dollars for the liberation of slaves belonging to Englishmen, his Excellency, struck with astonishment, exclaimed, "The English Sultan is inspired by God!"
[Illustration.]
I visited the burying-place of Christians, situate on the north-side of the town by the sea-shore. A fine tomb was erected here to the memory of Mrs. Willshire's father. The ignorant country people coming to Mogador stopped to repeat prayers before it, believing it the tomb of some favourite saint. The government, hearing of this idolatry to a Christian, begged Mr. Willshire to have the tomb covered with cement. When this was done, so perverse are these people, that they partially divested it of covering, and chipped off pieces of marble for their women, who ground them into powder, and dusted their faces with it to make them fair. Every six months it is necessary to replaster the tomb. This cemetery is the most desolate place the mind of man can conceive. There is no green turf here to rest lightly on the bosom of the dead! No tree, no cypress of mourning; no shade or shelter for those who seek to indulge in grief. All is a sandy desolation, swept by the wild winds of the solitary shore of the ocean.
[Illustration]
Farther on, is the Moorish cemetery, which I passed through. What a spectacle of human corruption! Here, indeed, we may learn to despise this world's poor renown, and cease tormenting ourselves with vain and godless pursuits. It was then sunset, the moon had risen far up on the fading brow of the departing day, casting pale lights and fearful shadows over this house of the dead. It was time to return, or the gates of the city would shut me out amidst the wreck of poor human dust and bones. I saw, moving in the doubtful shadows of approaching night, the grave-digging hyaena!
It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The wreckers of this coast boldly assert that a shipwreck is a blessing (berkah), sent to them by Providence. The port authorities have even the impudence to declare, that to erect lighthouses at the mouth of the ports would be thwarting the decrees of Divine Providence! In spite of all this, however, at the urgent request of Mr. Willshire, when, on one occasion, the weather was very bad, the governor of Mogador stationed guards on various parts of the coast to preserve the lives and property of shipwrecked vessels. But I do not think I have heard worse cases of Moorish wreckers, than those which have happened not very many years ago on the French and English coasts. Some of my readers will recollect the case of an Indiaman wrecked off the coast of France, when poor ladies in a state of suspended animation, had their fingers cut off to get possession of their diamond-rings. During my stay at Mogador, a courier arrived from Sous, bringing the news of some Christians being wrecked off the coast, A Jew had purchased one poor fellow from the Arabs for two camels. Two others were dead, their bodies cast
