[6] Yezeed was half-Irish, born of the renegade widow of an Irish
sergeant of the corps of Sappers and Miners, who was placed at the
disposition of this government by England, and who died in Morocco.
On
his death, the facile, buxom widow was admitted, "nothing loath," into
the harem of Sidi-Mohammed, who boasted of having within its sacred
enclosure of love and bliss, a woman from every clime.
Here the daughter of Erin brought forth this ferocious tyrant, whose
maxim of carnage, and of inflicting suffering on humanity was, "My
empire can never be well governed, unless a stream of blood flows from
the gate of the palace to the gate of the city." To do Yezeed justice,
he followed out the instincts of his birth, and made war on all the
world except the English (or Irish). Tully's Letters on Tripoli give a
graphic account of the exploits of Yezeed, who, to his inherent cruelty,
added a fondness for practical (Hibernian) jokes.
His father sent him several times on a pilgrimage to Mecca to expiate
his crimes, when he amused, or alarmed, all the people whose countries
he passed through, by his terrific vagaries. One day he would cut off
the heads of a couple of his domestics, and play at bowls with them;
another day, he would ride across the path of an European, or a consul,
and singe his whiskers with the discharge of a pistol-shot; another day,
he would collect all the poor of a district, and gorge them with a
razzia he had made on the effects of some rich over-fed Bashaw. The
multitude sometimes implored heaven's blessing on the head of Yezeed. at
other times trembled for their own heads. Meanwhile, our European
consuls made profound obeisance to this son of the Shereef, enthroned in
the West. So the tyrant passed the innocent days of his pilgrimage. So
the godless herd of mankind acquiesced in the divine rights of royalty.
[7] See Appendix at the end of this volume.
[8] The middle Western Region consists of Algiers and part of Tunis.
[9] Pliny, the Elder, confirms this tradition mentioned by Pliny. Marcus
Yarron reports, "that in all Spain there are spread Iberians, Persians,
Phoenicians, Celts, and Carthaginians." (Lib. iii. chap. 2).
[10] In Latin, Mauri, Maurice, Maurici, Maurusci, and it is supposed, so
called by the Greeks from their dark complexions.
[11] The more probable derivation of this word is from _bar_, signifying
land, or earth, in contradistinction from the sea, or desert, beyond the
cultivable lands to the South. To give the term more force it is
doubled, after the style of the Semitic reduplication. De Haedo de la
Captividad gives a characteristic derivation, like a genuine hidalgo,
who proclaimed eternal war against Los Moros. He says - "Moors, Alartes,
Cabayles, and some Turks, form all of them a dirty, lazy, inhuman,
indomitable nation of beasts, and it is for this reason that, for the
last few years, I have accustomed myself to call that land the land of
Barbary."
[12] Procopius, de Bello Vandilico, lib.
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