The
Fruit, Which Somewhat Resembles A Pear, Has A Rough Tegument
Covered With Minute Prickles, Which Instantly Enter The Hand
Which
touches them, however slightly, and are very difficult to extract.
I never remember to have seen vegetation in ranker
Luxuriance than
that which these fig-trees exhibited, nor upon the whole a more
singular spot. "Follow me," said the Mahasni, "and I will show you
something which you will like to see." So he turned to the left,
leading the way by a narrow path up the steep bank, till we reached
the summit of a hillock, separated by a deep ditch from the wall of
Tangier. The ground was thickly covered with the trees already
described, which spread their strange arms along the surface, and
whose thick leaves crushed beneath our feet as we walked along.
Amongst them I observed a large number of stone slabs lying
horizontally; they were rudely scrawled over with odd characters,
which I stooped down to inspect. "Are you Talib enough to read
those signs?" exclaimed the old Moor. "They are letters of the
accursed Jews; this is their mearrah, as they call it, and here
they inter their dead. Fools, they trust in Muza, when they might
believe in Mohammed, and therefore their dead shall burn
everlastingly in Jehinnim. See, my sultan, how fat is the soil of
this mearrah of the Jews; see what kermous grow here. When I was a
boy I often came to the mearrah of the Jews to eat kermous in the
season of their ripeness.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 788 of 809
Words from 216763 to 217021
of 222596
