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In conversing with these Shereefs, and the different strangers that resorted to the camp, I passed my time with rather less uneasiness than formerly. On the other hand, as the dressing of my victuals was now left entirely to the care of Ali's slaves, over whom I had not the smallest control, I found myself but ill supplied, worse even than in the fast month.
Nearly all wore iron fetters on their legs, and some were shackled to the pillars. At one side a little group of them they were Shereefs from Wazzan were conversing eagerly and gesticulating wildly; and at the other side a larger company they were Jews from Fez were languidly twisting palmetto leaves into the shape of baskets.
Convince the Muslim that a Jew had brought this desolation upon the land of the Shereefs, and he would arise, and his soldiers with him, and the whole community of the Jewish people would be destroyed. The judges had laid their heads together. It was idle to appeal to Ben Aboo against Israel on any ground of belief. Nay, it was more than idle, for it was dangerous.
These extracts shew the animus of the Shereefian correspondence. To attack the Shereefs on this point of slavery, is to besiege the citadel of their religion, or that is the interpretation which they are pleased to put upon the matter; but all forms of bigotry and false principles will ultimately succumb to the force of truth.
The truth lies, perhaps, between these extremes. The Shereefs once pretended to exercise authority over all Western Sahara as far as Timbuctoo, that is to say, all that region of the great desert lying west of the Touaricks.
There is scarcely any communication between the port and the court of the Shereefs, and the two grand masters of orthodox Islamism, this of the West, and that of the East, are nearly strangers to each other.
The Shereefs, though descended from the Prophet, are not strictly priests, or, to make the distinction perfectly clear the Shereefs are to be considered a dynasty corresponding to the type of Melchizdek, uniting in themselves the regal and sacerdotal authority, whilst the Marabouteen were a family of priests like the sons of Aaron.
Then, in the beginning of our own age, the battle of Trafalgar, and the fall of Napoleon, established the supremacy of British influence over the minds of the Shereefs, which has not been yet entirely effaced. How we succeeded in a critical period will be mentioned at the close of the present work.
The few merchants who have any money are those of Sockna, but which town, as before mentioned, does not properly belong to Fezzan, though its relations with these oases are intimate. Before the Turks and Abd-El-Geleel, Fezzan was governed by its own native Sultans, whose family was of the Shereefs of Morocco.
His Excellency observed, "I am ordered by my Sultan to defend this city against all assailants, and I shall do so till I am buried beneath its ruins. Though all the coast-cities were captured, Mogador should never be surrendered." Some of the credulous Moors said, "The Shereefs will come from Tafilet, led on by our Lord Mahomet, and destroy all the cursed Nazarenes.
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