Whereupon He Replied, That He Was A Slave No Longer, Having
Been Made Free For Some Time Past, On Account Of His Faithful
Services, As Had Likewise His Companion.
He would have told me
much more, but the hadji called him away, and otherwise employed
him, probably to prevent his being contaminated by me.
Thus avoided by the Moslems, I betook myself to the Jews, whom I
found nowise backward in cultivating an intimacy. The sage of the
beard told me his history, which in some respects reminded me of
that of Judah Lib, as it seemed that, a year or two previous, he
had quitted Mogadore in pursuit of his son, who had betaken himself
to Portugal. On the arrival, however, of the father at Lisbon, he
discovered that the fugitive had, a few days before, shipped
himself for the Brazils. Unlike Judah in quest of his father, he
now became weary, and discontinued the pursuit. The younger Jew
from Mequinez was exceedingly gay and lively as soon as he
perceived that I was capable of understanding him, and made me
smile by his humorous account of Christian life, as he had observed
it at Gibraltar, where he had made a stay of about a month. He
then spoke of Mequinez, which, he said, was a Jennut, or Paradise,
compared with which Gibraltar was a sty of hogs. So great, so
universal is the love of country. I soon saw that both these
people believed me to be of their own nation; indeed, the young
one, who was much the most familiar, taxed me with being so, and
spoke of the infamy of denying my own blood.
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