However, I Found No Great Difficulty In
Appeasing The Pious And Sanctified Serjeant.
In short, I dispelled all
his glooms and ill humours, and drowned his scruples, in a cup of port
wine.
It is customary among the Moors, when any of them return from
the pilgrimage of Mecca, to go out in great procession to meet the
devout pilgrim, whom some of them carry on their shoulders with great
solemnity through the town and to his own house, where he sits in
state for three days, receiving visits and donations from all classes
of people, who flock with the greatest eagerness to obtain a sight of
him. The conversation was insensibly renewed, and he told me, that of
a company of fifteen pilgrims, who set out for the holy city of Mecca,
he was the sole survivor, the others having all perished in the
deserts. He was the only favoured and true believer that was permitted
to visit the holy sepulchre. He added: "As the dangers attending the
pilgrimage are great and various, does not the happy being, who
returns safe to his native place, deserve the honours and compliments
paid him, for his great perseverance and patience in such a dangerous
undertaking, the success of which is the result of his innate
rectitude?" I gave him to understand that he had made the case
clear. "The French," he continued, "had a design upon the treasures of
Mecca." I agreed that they certainly had; and asked him, by what power
he thought the French army was prevented from possessing itself of
Mecca.
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