“And where are the Jews of Portugal,” I demanded: “the proper children of the country?”
“We know of none but ourselves,” replied the Barbaresques, “though we have heard say that there are others: if so, they do not come near us, and they do right, for we are an evil people, O thou _Tsadik_, and thieves to a man. A ship comes every year from Swirah; { 68} it brings a cargo of thieves, for it brings Jews.”
“And your wives and families,” said I, “where are they?”
“In Swirah, or Salee, or other places from whence we come. We bring not our wives with us, nor our families: many of us have escaped hither barely with life, flying from the punishment due to our crimes. Some live in sin with the daughters of the Nazarene: for we are an evil race, O _Tsadik_, and do not observe the precepts of the law.”
“Both, O thou righteous one, yet little can be said of either: our _chenourain_ are vile places, and our teachers are like ourselves, bound in the _galoot_ of sin. One of them keeps in his house a daughter of the Nazarene; he is from Swirah, and what good ever came from that shore?”
“You say your teachers are evil: do ye hearken unto their words?”
“Of course we hearken unto them: how could we do else and live? Our teachers are evil men, and live by fraud, like ourselves; yet still are they masters, men to be dreaded and obeyed. Have they not witchcraft at their command, and angels? Have they not words of power, and the _Shem Hamphorash_? { 69} Were we not to hearken to them, could they not consign our souls to horror, to mist and vapour, to mire and clay? Even as thou couldst, O righteous one!”
Such was the extraordinary language in connexion with themselves which they held to me, and which I have no reason to doubt, as it was subsequently corroborated in more ways than one. How well do superstition and crime go hand in hand! These wretched beings break the eternal commandments of their Maker without scruple; but they will not partake of the beast of the uncloven foot, and the fish which has no scales. They pay slight regard to the denunciations of holy prophets against the children of sin, but they quake at the sound of a dark cabalistic word pronounced by one perhaps their equal or superior in villany; as if, as has been well observed, God would delegate the exercise of his power to the workers of iniquity.