Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa by Mungo Park
page 132 of 456 (28%)
page 132 of 456 (28%)
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March 13th. With the returning day commenced the same round of insult and irritation: the boys assembled to beat the hog, and the men and women to plague the Christian. It is impossible for me to describe the behaviour of a people who study mischief as a science, and exult in the miseries and misfortunes of their fellow-creatures. It is sufficient to observe that the rudeness, ferocity, and fanaticism, which distinguish the Moors from the rest of man-kind, found here a proper subject whereon to exercise their propensities. I was a _stranger_, I was _unprotected_, and I was a _Christian_; each of these circumstances is sufficient to drive every spark of humanity from the heart of a Moor; but when all of them, as in my case, were combined in the same person, and a suspicion prevailed withal, that I had come as a _spy_ into the country, the reader will easily imagine that, in such a situation, I had every thing to fear. Anxious, however, to conciliate favour, and if possible, to afford the Moors no pretence for ill-treating me, I readily complied with every command, and patiently bore every insult; but never did any period of my life pass away so heavily; from sunrise to sunset was I obliged to suffer, with an unruffled countenance, the insults of the rudest savages on earth. CHAPTER X. _Various occurrences during the Author's confinement at Benowm--is visited by some Moorish ladies.--A funeral and wedding.--The Author receives an extraordinary present from the bride.--Other circumstances illustrative of the Moorish character and manners._ |
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