I know nothing of you. Go out of my doors, dog of a Nazarene,
if not I will pay you with a kick.
The dispute was referred to one of the sabios, or priests; but the
sabio, who was also from Mogadore, at once took the part of the
Swiri, and decided that the other should have nothing. Whereupon
the Gibraltar Jew cursed the sabio, his father, mother, and all his
family. The sabio replied, "I put you in ndui," a kind of
purgatory or hell. "I put you in seven nduis," retorted the
incensed Jew, over whom, however, superstitious fear speedily
prevailed; he faltered, became pale, and dropping his voice,
retreated, trembling in every limb.
The Jews have two synagogues in Lisbon, both are small; one is,
however, tolerably well furnished, it has its reading desk, and in
the middle there is a rather handsome chandelier; the other is
little better than a sty, filthy to a degree, without ornament of
any kind. The congregation of this last are thieves to a man; no
Jew of the slightest respectability ever enters it.
How well do superstition and crime go hand in hand. These wretched
beings break the eternal commandments of their Maker without
scruple; but they will not partake of the beast of the uncloven
foot, and the fish which has no scales. They pay no regard to the
denunciations of holy prophets against the children of sin, but
they quake at the sound of a dark cabalistic word, pronounced by
one perhaps their equal, or superior, in villainy, as if God would
delegate the exercise of his power to the workers of iniquity.
