o small regret did
I quit this abode of simple and patriarchal hospitality; a pleasing
contrast was here formed to the dissipation and pleasure of
civilised life--to the life of fashionable society, where the
refinements of luxury have multiplied their artificial wants beyond
the proportion of the largest fortunes, and have brought most men
into the class of the necessitous, inducing that churlish habit of
the mind, in which every feeling is considered as a weakness, which
terminates not in self, unlike those generous sympathies of the
Arabs, where every individual seems impelled to seek, as they
express it, (_e dire el khere fie nes_) "to do good to men." The
effect of luxury, dissipation, and extravagance, (where the fortune
is not large enough to support them,) tends to render man selfish
upon principle, and extinguishes all genuine public spirit, that
is, all real regard to the interests and good order of society;
substituting in its place, the vile ambition and rapacity of the
demagogue, which, however, assumes the name of patriotism. This
contrast between the temperance and sobriety of these Bedouin or
primitive Arabs, and the luxury and dissipation of civilised life,
was the more remarkable, when we observed among this rude people
such extraordinary and mutual exercise of benevolence, manly and
144 open presence, honesty and truth in their words and actions.--On
our return to Delemy's castle, in Shtuka, the Prince asked me, what
observations I had made respecting Tomie; I told his Royal Highness
that it was an open roadstead, and not a convenient place for ships
to lie. The Prince appeared pleased at this report; but Delemy had
rendered to Muley Abdsalam so many essential services, that the
latter could not, in courtesy, refuse him any thing. When Delemy
found that my report to the Prince did not realise his
expectations, offers were made to me, supported by every possible
encouragement, to form a commercial establishment at Tomie, which,
as was observed, being advantageously situated for trade, being in
the neighbourhood of the gum, almond, and oil countries, would
offer advantages to the merchants which they could not expect at
Santa Cruz, or Mogodor. Accordingly, I was urged to send to Europe
for ships, with assurances that the duty on all impo