Mogador exported to Lisbon, Cadiz, Marseilles, Gibraltar, and even to New York, corn, wool, gum, almonds, olive-oil, figs, wax, leather, goat-skins, aniseed, orange-peel, and drugs; and to Guinea, woollens, cotton, and other manufactures, which were bought by the Negroes. It imported bar-iron, steel, cutlery, and hardware, cloth, silk handkerchiefs, ornaments of gold and silver, pearl, amber, and coral necklaces, looking-glasses, sugar, and spices. At one time there were thirty-four Christian houses of commerce, containing about one hundred Europeans. Yet, notwithstanding the great expense and tyrannical means by which Muly Mohammed had called the new town into existence, cupidity, or the fear of that liberty which ever follows the advancement of commerce, induced him to take measures which would keep the inhabitants in poverty and subjection. Muly Soliman, the predecessor of the present emperor, closed the gates of the other cities, and transferred their inhabitants to Mogador, promising them protection: the futility of his promises soon became apparent, for he prohibited the export of some of the most important articles of produce; laying heavy export duties on the remainder. These proceedings drove the people into a state bordering upon rebellion, whilst the government pretended that it was a sin to carry on trade with the infidels. The present emperor, who had for a long time before his accession, been Pacha of Mogador, had been more intimately connected with commerce than his predecessors, and saw the loss that the imperial treasury had sustained from the severity of the restrictions, and it was his endeavour to try how far, by fixing export duties, he could manage to increase his profits. At the same time he exacted from the Europeans a contribution in gunpowder (an article in the management of which the Mussulmen were much inferior) for every sale which was made to them; and finding that, notwithstanding the heavy duties, sales were still effected, he continued this system with all the unscrupulousness of an Oriental despot, until the commerce of Mogador was in danger of annihilation, and it is probable that the operations of the French, and the effects of the civil war raging at the instance of Abd-el-Kader, have but accelerated a state of ruin and desolation, which the short-sighted policy of the reigning emperor must infallibly, sooner or later, have produced. PALERMO. It is now more than ten years ago that we left Naples on board of a Neapolitan vessel for Palermo, which was to be our starting-point for the tour of Sicily. About PALERMO. the same time time Captain Basil Hall, with his family, left Naples, on the tour which he describes in "Schloss Hainfeld." His little vessel danced merrily before us on the rippling waves, and we hailed his progress as a good omen for our own. But, alas! we had not made sufficient allowance for the difference between a captain R. N., and a Neapolitan padrone. The wind dropped before we had fairly come within its range, and we soon lost sight of our excellent countryman, to enjoy, rather too much at our leisure, the now familiar prospect of the Bay of Naples. Our slugglish captain and his crew seemed to trust everything to their patron saints, and seldom noticed a change in the wind, until their attention was drawn to it by their heretic passengers. A motley crowd we were, about twenty cabin passengers, and nearly a hundred deck passengers, so that in our lengthened trip we had a favourable opportunity of studying the dialect and the character of our companions. Our captain began to fear that his stock of provisions would force him to put us on short allowance, and the fierce glare of the sun in calms, only broken by short breezes, made us cast a longing look to the south, and we at length beheld in hazy distance the lines of mountain coasts. As we approached, the sun, sinking towards the horizon, brought out all objects into clearer light, the romantic forms of the rocks arrested our attention, and soon we admired the beautiful situation of Palermo, as inclosed between two gigantic rocky walls; to the north it borders the harbour, and stretching far away in the luxuriant plain, leans upon the soft hills which rise like an amphitheatre behind it, allowing the eye to wander with delight on the orange and cypress groves, and splendid villas which are seen above the flat roofs of the palaces of Palermo. The city is irregularly built, and although the long street, named Cassaro, and the Toledo and its continuation, the Macqueda, which intersect the former at right angles, contain some very fine houses, they will bear no comparison with the magnificent palaces that adorn the chief cities of Italy; nor is cleanliness here considered next to godliness. Already at the Marina, or Strand, our attention was drawn to the swarthy African features of the numerous beggars, old and young, of both sexes, who surrounded us, and, with an excess of vociferation and animated pantomime which far surpassed that of the Neapolitans, demanded alms. Woe be to the unthinking wight or gentle-hearted fair one who confers on the poverino the envied picture of his Majesty of the Two Sicilies, for, alas! in this unhappy land, the number of the miserable is legion, and persevering are they in their attacks. "I have never in all my travels," said an intelligent foreigner, our companion, and he had travelled much, "seen such misery, except in Ireland." The observation was extremely painful, and we cast down our eyes in shame and sorrow. But although the city of Palermo cannot vie with Rome or Florence in its domestic architecture, there is perhaps hardly any city in which such an interesting VOL. II. D point is to be found, as that afforded by the intersection of the Toledo and Macqueda with the Cassaro. On three sides rise beautiful hills, and on the fourth the eye beholds the blue waters of the Mediterranean. The din and noise of the streets is perhaps more striking here than at Naples; they are full of life, and trades of all kinds are carried on in the open air; and for an hour before sunset the fair sex of Palermo inhale the cooler air on their balconies. As the traveller wanders through the principal streets he sees, in the upper stories, the grated windows of the nunneries. Poor souls! it is to be hoped that behind these jealous walls which guard them from the basilisk eye of man, some garden, with its orange-tree perfume, allows them at least to breathe the free air of this delicious climate. We found the Sicilians frank, generous, and hospitable; they expressed a profound contempt for the frivolous character of the Neapolitans, from which, as far as our experience goes, we should be inclined to pronounce them free; nor do we think it would be a difficult matter, in case of a war, to raise the standard of rebellion against masters whom they despise. In truth, throughout the many misgoverned states of Italy, this beautiful island has been one of the most hardly used. Its revenues squandered to support an enormous number of idle monks and nuns, whilst poverty and misery prevail, paying for the last hundred and fifty years an enormous road-tax, and yet, till within the last fifteen years, without a road, excepting in the northern part of the island; the traveller who rides on break-neck mule-paths up to some city containing twenty thousand inhabitants or more, cannot but sympathise with the indignation of the people. The intentions of the present monarch seem to be good; but he must be a second Hercules, if he can succeed in cleansing this Augean stable. Who would leave Rome without seeing the Pope? or who can speak of Palermo and forget Saint Rosalia? Amidst the hosts of saints with which the peninsula is deluged, commend us to the taste of the people of Sicily. Their saints are mostly noble, fair, and young; Saint Rosalia, Santa Lucia, Santa Clara, and the Madonna della Lettera, the Holy Virgin, who in a period of famine, sent a vessel laden with corn, to Messina, accompanied with a letter, which doubtless exists, although our profane eyes never beheld it.* On Mount Pellegrino, which forms a striking feature in the landscape, and which was famous in the first Punic war for the stand which Hamilcar Barcas made here, for three years, against the Romans, is a grotto to which Rosalia, a princess of the royal Norman blood, retired in the bloom of youth and beauty, from the court of King Roger, to lead a solitary and holy life. Some hundred and fifty years ago, the plague was stopped by a miraculous dis * We, however, saw with our own eyes, a letter, we forget in which church in Sicily, which, the monks gravely assured us, was written by the devil, and which is carefully preserved. |