Many of the families of
Granada settled down here when their town was taken by the
Christians, but the greater part went to Tunis.
When I was there,
I lodged in the house of a Moor who called himself Zegri, and was
always talking of Granada and the things which his forefathers had
done there. He would moreover sit for hours singing romances of
which I understood not one word, praised be the mother of God, but
which he said all related to his family; there were hundreds of
that name in Tunis, therefore why should not this Hammin, this
drunken water-carrier, be a Moor of Granada also? He is ugly
enough to be emperor of all the Moors. O the accursed canaille, I
have lived amongst them for my sins these eight years, at Oran and
here. Monsieur, do you not consider it to be a hard case for an
old man like myself, who am a Christian, to live amongst a race who
know not God, nor Christ, nor anything holy?"
"What do you mean," said I, "by asserting that the Moors know not
God? There is no people in the world who entertain sublimer
notions of the uncreated eternal God than the Moors, and no people
have ever shown themselves more zealous for his honour and glory;
their very zeal for the glory of God has been and is the chief
obstacle to their becoming Christians.
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