A Regular
Levanter Had Now Come On, And The Vessel Pitched And Tossed To A
Very Considerable Degree.
Most of the passengers were sea-sick;
the governor, however, and myself held out manfully:
We sat on a
bench together, and entered into conversation respecting the Moors
and their country. Torquemada himself could not have spoken of
both with more abhorrence. He informed me that he had been
frequently in several of the principal Moorish towns of the coast,
which he described as heaps of ruins: the Moors themselves he
called Caffres and wild beasts. He observed that he had never been
even at Tangier, where the people were most civilised, without
experiencing some insult, so great was the abhorrence of the Moors
to anything in the shape of a Christian. He added, however, that
they treated the English with comparative civility, and that they
had a saying among them to the effect that Englishman and Mahometan
were one and the same; he then looked particularly grave for a
moment, and, crossing himself, was silent. I guessed what was
passing in his mind:
"From heretic boors,
And Turkish Moors,
Star of the sea,
Gentle Marie,
Deliver me!"
At about three we were passing Tarifa, so frequently mentioned in
the history of the Moors and Christians. Who has not heard of
Alonzo Guzman the faithful, who allowed his only son to be
crucified before the walls of the town rather than submit to the
ignominy of delivering up the keys to the Moorish monarch, who,
with a host which is said to have amounted to nearly half a million
of men, had landed on the shores of Andalusia, and threatened to
bring all Spain once more beneath the Moslem yoke?
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