They Are Mahomedan Negroes Who Have Made, Or Affect To Have
Made, The Laws Of The Prophet Their Peculiar Study;
And if I may judge
from their harangues, which I frequently attended, I believe that in the
forensic qualifications of
Procrastination and cavil, and the arts of
confounding and perplexing a cause, they are not always surpassed by the
ablest pleaders in Europe. While I was at Pisania a cause was heard which
furnished the Mahomedan lawyers with an admirable opportunity of
displaying their professional dexterity. The case was this: An ass
belonging to a Serawoolli Negro (a native of an interior country near the
River Senegal) had broke into a field of corn belonging to one of the
Mandingo inhabitants, and destroyed great part of it. The Mandingo having
caught the animal in his field, immediately drew his knife and cut its
throat. The Serawoolli thereupon called a _palaver_ (or in European
terms, _brought an action_) to recover damages for the loss of his beast,
on which he set a high value. The defendant confessed he had killed the
ass, but pleaded a _set-off_, insisting that the loss he had sustained by
the ravage in his corn was equal to the sum demanded for the animal. To
ascertain this fact was the point at issue, and the learned advocates
contrived to puzzle the cause in such a manner, that, after a hearing of
three days, the court broke up without coming to any determination upon
it; and a second palaver was, I suppose, thought necessary.
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