I Set Off, Accompanied By My Usual Guard, Which I Assure You I Never
Found So Necessary As On This
Journey; for the rapacious spirit of the
peasantry exposed us continually to the danger of being plundered, we
were therefore
Obliged to keep watch alternately, to prevent our
property, perhaps our lives, becoming a prey to these wretches. The
neighbourhood of Morocco is dreadfully infested by robbers and
assassins.
The inhabitants of the empire of Morocco, that are not in a military
capacity, or otherwise immediately in the service of the Emperor, are
miserably poor; and the natural indolence of their disposition
preventing them from making any laudable exertions towards gaining a
livelihood, they have recourse to every means of fraud and
violence. It is astonishing how frequently assassinations and
robberies are committed in this empire, notwithstanding the ruffians,
when detected, are punished in the most exemplary manner, by the right
hand and left foot being cut off, and the head afterwards being
severed from the body. The relations of the murderer are all fined
very heavily, and the judgment often extends to the whole village,
near which the crime had been perpetrated; yet seldom a day passes but
some daring robbery is committed, accompanied by the most wanton and
savage cruelty; the unhappy victim of the plunderer being frequently
left in the public roads in a most shocking state of mutilation.
Another ostensible cause of the dereliction of the peasantry from the
laws of humanity, may be the extreme oppression under which they
groan; as, on account of their former propensity to rebellion, they
are now ruled with a rod of iron, which in all probability has
rendered them callous, and deaf to the voice of nature.
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