The Money Collected Is
Deposited In The Hands Of Their Chief; To This Is Added The Savings Of
The Whole Year.
In the spring, all is spent in a feast, which lasts
seven days.
The slaves carry green ears of wheat, barley, and fresh
dates about the town. The Moorish women kiss the new corn or fruit, and
give the slaves a trifle of money. A slave, when he is dissatisfied with
his master, sometimes will ask him to be allowed to go about begging
until he gets money enough to buy his freedom. The slave puts the atka
in his mouth (which piece of written paper when signed, assures his
freedom), and goes about the town, crying, "Fedeeak Allah, (Ransom of
God!)" All depends on his luck. He may be months, or even years, before
he accumulates enough to purchase his ransom.
Tangier Moors pretend that the negroes of Timbuctoo sacrifice annually a
white man, the victim being preserved and fed for the occasion. When the
time of immolation arrives, the white man is adorned with fair flowers,
and clothes of silk and many colours, and led out and sacrificed at a
grand "fiesta." Slaves and blacks in Morocco keep the same feast, with
the difference, that not being able to get a man to sacrifice, they kill
a bullock. Such a barbarous rite may possibly be practised in some part
of Negroland, but certainly not at Timbuctoo. All these tales about
Negro cannibals I am inclined to believe inventions. There never yet has
been published a well authenticated case of negro cannibalism.
The grand cicerone for the English at Tangier, is Benoliel. He is a man
of about sixty years of age, and initiated into the sublimest mysteries
of the consular politics of the Shereefs. Ben is full of anecdotes of
everybody and everything from the emperor on the Shreefian throne, down
to the mad and ragged dervish in the streets. Our cicerone keeps a book,
in which the names of all his English guests have been from time to time
inscribed. His visitors have been principally officers from Gibraltar,
who come here for a few days sporting. On the bombardment of Tangier,
Ben left the country with other fugitives. The Moorish rabble plundered
his house; and many valuables which were there concealed, pledged by
persons belonging to Tangier, were carried away; Ben was therefore
ruined. Some foolish people at Gibraltar told Ben, that the streets of
London were paved with gold, or, at any rate, that, inasmuch as he (Ben)
had in his time entertained so many Englishmen at his hospitable
establishment at Tangier (for which, however, he was well paid), he
would be sure to make his fortune by a visit to England. I afterwards
met Ben accidentally in the streets of London, in great distress. Some
friends of the Anti-Slavery Society subscribed a small sum for him, and
sent him back to his family in Gibraltar. Poor Ben was astonished to
find as much misery in the streets of our own metropolis, as in any town
of Morocco.
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