e there is rendered miserable, by the multitudes of scorpions,
serpents, gnats, and bugs, which infest the town and its
neighbourhood.

His Imperial Majesty holds a court of justice here, previous to the
commencement of the holidays, and also issues orders for a general
ablution by men, women, and children, of every class: this, no doubt,
is very necessary, as the common people seldom change their linen, and
the greater part of them are covered with vermin. During the fast they
dare not touch any food while the sun is up, and when at night they
are allowed to break their fast, they absolutely make perfect beasts
of themselves. Smoking, or chewing tobacco, and taking snuff, are
strictly prohibited, by an edict from the Emperor: the vender is
punished with the bastinado, and a confiscation of all his goods and
cattle, and the buyer with six years imprisonment.

Owing to the intense heat of the weather lately, there is a great
scarcity of water: so that we were obliged to carry it up in bags made
of goat-skin, to supply us on the road; and coming back we took the
same precaution.

When at Morocco, I was extremely anxious to visit _Mogedor_, a
sea-port town, and the island of _Erythia_, now also called Mogedor,
which island contains a castle of considerable strength, defended by a
strong garrison, stationed there chiefly, as I have been told, to
protect the gold-mines in the neighbourhood; but the distance was very
great, and my time so limited, that I could not spare a fortnight,
which it would at least have required to get there and back again. I
have been returned here two days, and, as I observed before, not so
much gratified as I expected.

As I passed one of the courts of the palace yesterday, a fellow was
receiving punishment for a robbery. The right hand and foot were
severed at the articulation, by a single blow of a large axe; the
stumps were immediately immersed in a vessel of boiling pitch; and in
this miserable condition he was turned about his business. I once
attended a man who had suffered these amputations; he soon recovered,
and, to my great surprise, instead of sorrowing for his loss, he
skipped about as nimbly as possible, and afterwards enlisted in the
police. After the fellow was turned away yesterday, a peasant, who had
walked nearly two hundred miles, presented himself before the Emperor,
to complain of the Governor of his province, for not having done him
justice in assisting him to recover a d