Their Taste Is So
Exquisitely Refined, In Regard To The Oil They Use, That They Prefer
Our Lamp-Oil To Any Other, On Account Of Its High Flavour.
Notwithstanding all these apparent obstacles to health, they contrive
to preserve it admirably well.
To an Englishman, their mode of life
would scarcely appear worthy to be called living, but merely
vegetating. Since the last plague, however, in Barbary, which
destroyed a vast number of the Jews, they have not suffered from any
infectious or contagious disorder, and their population has augmented
so prodigiously, that the Emperor must, however reluctantly, extend
the limits of their town. The Jews marry extremely young. It is not
at all unusual to see a married couple, whose united ages do not
exceed twenty-two or twenty-three years.
I cannot quit Tetuan, without giving you some account of _Ceuta_,
which is at so small a distance from it. From its situation, it
perfectly corresponds with the _Exillissa_ of _Ptolemy_, being the
first maritime town to the eastward of the ancient _Tingis_, or modern
Tangiers. It also clearly appears to have been the _Septa_ described
by _Procopius_, who, with many others, derives this name from the
adjacent seven hills. It was a place of great note in the time of the
Vandals. It is now a strong regular fortified town. Ceuta is thirty
miles from Tangiers, and nearly opposite to the entrance of the bay of
Gibraltar. It is nominally still in the hands of the Spaniards; but
it is confidently rumoured, and believed, to have been ceded by treaty
to the French.
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