Moorea

“ You have no trees, nor camels, nor sheep, nor sand, nor goats,” continued he; “nor are your women made like ours. You do not inhabit the earth, but are born, live, and die in your houses that float on the sea.”
The greatest luxury of a Moor is to see his wives and daughters richly dressed, and on them he exhibits all his opulence by ornamenting their ears, arms, and legs with rings of gold and silver.
They have no knowledge of the arts and trade, though they make in a rude manner, pikes, knives, and even kettles, from the native iron which is furnished to them by the Negroes. ”

“ On leaving the room, the Moor fell to meditating how he should put his wife to death, and likewise the Captain of the troop, so that their death should not be laid to his charge. And as he ruminated over this day and night, he could not prevent his wife's observing that he was not the same toward her as he had been wont; and she said to him again and again, "What is the matter? what troubles you? how comes it that you, who were the most light-hearted man in the world, are now so melancholy?" ”

“ Look boys what the Moor's rock looks like from afar. You'd say a man! said Matthias.
They turned round to look at the Moor's rock which blackened in the dusk. At the summit one could really make out a head, a forehead, a big nose, a mouth and two thick lips.
From close up these stones evoked nothing. From far away however they formed a face, like the Moor's face. That's why the old people believed that a Moor lived up there!
It's not the only rock like that. Many stones from far away look like human faces; an old woman can take them for ghosts; a child can even be afraid of them. ”

“ And when their ships had finished their repairing, Gomez Pirez took aside one of those Moors to know where there might be any other Moors that he could capture; but although the Moor told him where lay certain villages and they went to them, directing their course toward the south, they found neither Moor nor Mooress in them nor any other creature. And so they made their way by certain places where the Moor thought they would find them, until they were right well assured that the Moors had knowledge of them, and [Pg 277] that it would be lost labour for them to go further in their search. ”

“ The honest heart of the little water-carrier was touched with compassion at the appeal of the stranger. “God forbid,” said he, “that I should ask fee or reward for doing a common act of humanity.” He accordingly helped the Moor on his donkey, and set off slowly for Granada, the poor Moslem being so weak that it was necessary to hold him on the animal to keep him from falling to the earth.
When they entered the city, the water-carrier demanded whither he should conduct him. “Alas!” said the Moor, faintly, “I have neither home nor habitation, I am a stranger in the land. ”

“ The hall of their triumph is waste and desolate. The bat flits about its twilight vault, and the owl hoots from the neighboring Tower of Comares.
Entering the Court of the Lions a few evenings since, I was almost startled at beholding a turbaned Moor quietly seated near the fountain. For a moment one of the fictions of the place seemed realized: an enchanted Moor had broken the spell of centuries, and become visible. He proved, however, to be a mere ordinary mortal: a native of Tetuan in Barbary, who had a shop in the Zacatin of Granada, where he sold rhubarb, trinkets, and perfumes. ”

“ A writer on the East has said of the Moors that they are the Puritans of Islam, and the first glimpse of Morocco will attest the truth of this. Not a Moor has laid aside the jeleba and the corresponding headgear, turban or fez. In the streets of Tangier—of all Moorish towns the most ‘contaminated’ with Christians—there is not a tramway or a hackney cab. Not a railway penetrates the country anywhere, not a telegraph, nor is there a postal service. Except for the discredited Sultan (whose ways have precipitated the disruption of the Empire) not a Moor has tried the improvements of Europe. ”

“ Their little hearts beat wildly, like a hare's.
They don't want to move forward. They walk with difficulty. At each instant, they expect to see a stone slowly straightening up.
When they arrived nearer and met up at the point, there was nothing. The stones here were stones like all the others. They looked at them carefully, they listened to them, but they remained just stones.
Then where's the Moor?
Instead of seeing the Moor, the children saw from up high a breath-taking scene.
Right down at the bottom, very, very far away, the vast wide sea waited for the sun, Phanis's sun. ”

“ The influence of the Moors was greatest south of the Tagus. In Alemtejo, and still more in Algarve, Arab and Berber types are common; and the influence of these races can everywhere be discerned in the architecture, handicrafts and speech of the peasantry. So complete was the intellectual triumph of the Moors that an intermediate “Mozarabic” population arose, Portuguese in blood, Christian in religion, but Arab in language and manners. Many of the Mozarabs even adopted the characteristic Mahommedan rite of circumcision. ”

“ MOOR, MOORMAN, s. (and adj. MOORISH) . A Mahommedan; and so from the habitual use of the term (Mouro) , by the Portuguese in India, particularly a Mahommedan inhabitant of India.
In the Middle Ages, to Europe generally, the Mahommedans were known as the Saracens. This is the word always used by Joinville, and by Marco Polo. Ibn Batuta also mentions the fact in a curious passage (ii. 425-6) . ”

“ The wells made by the Moors are always in repute, for it is well known what pains they took to penetrate to the purest and sweetest springs and fountains. The one of which we now speak is famous throughout Granada, insomuch that water-carriers, some bearing great water-jars on their shoulders, others driving asses before them laden with earthen vessels, are ascending and descending the steep woody avenues of the Alhambra, from early dawn until a late hour of the night. ”

“ The nations of the whole northern part of Africa, from the Mediterranean to the Tropic, we have already mentioned. All those beyond the Tropic, from the Red Sea to the Ocean, an extent of 100 or 150 leagues, are of the Moorish species, though so tawny that they appear almost black. The women are rather fairer than the men, and tolerably handsome. Among these Moors there is a vast number of mulattoes, who are of a black still more deep, their mothers being negro women, whom the Moors purchase, and by whom they have a number of children. ”

“ Wretch that thou art! prepare to render up the spoils of thy miserable victim, and to swing on the gallows that is already tired of waiting for thee.”
The terrified water-carrier fell on his knees, and made a full relation of the marvellous manner in which he had gained his wealth. The alcalde, the alguazil, and the inquisitive barber, listened with greedy ears to this Arabian tale of enchanted treasure. The alguazil was dispatched to bring the Moor who had assisted in the incantation. The Moslem entered half frightened out of his wits at finding himself in the hands of the harpies of the law. ”

“ Everything we cannot hope to spy, but we may still surprise ourselves and others by the number of our finds. Even this task accomplished, a volume on the subject might well be written by a second Borrow or a Ford, whose residence among the modern Moors had sharpened his scent for relics of that ilk.* Let not the reader think that with these wayside jottings all has been disclosed, for the Moor yet lives in Spain, and there is far more truth in the saying that "Barbary begins at the Pyrenees" than is generally imagined. ”

“ Soon they were again upon the march, and Te Karearea, who had taken every precaution against a surprise, jogged peacefully along, smoking a looted cigar, and listening with interest to the story of the youthful adventures of George and Terence, whom he addressed as Mura, or The Blazing One. The name had much the sound of Moore, but it was the appearance of the Irishman, with his red coat and flaming head of hair, which had really suggested the title. ”

“ But it will so happen that sometimes an enchanted Moor, with more cunning than [18] honesty, will get through one of the windows on the birth of a child, and will brand the infant with the crescent on his shoulder or arm, in which case it is well known that the child, on certain nights, will be changed into a wolf.
The enchanted Moors have their castles and palaces under the ground or beneath the rivers, and they wander about the earth, seeing but not seen; for they died unbaptized, and have, therefore, no rest in the grave. ”

“ It is a rich and luxuriant land, inhabited by Gentiles, and ruled by a Gentile king. Many Moors live in the sea-ports of this island in large quarters, and all the inhabitants are great merchants. There are fifty leagues of channel towards the north-east from the said cape until passing the island of Maylepur. [271] Both Moors and Gentiles are well-made men, [167] and almost white, and for the most part stout, with large stomachs, and luxurious. They do not understand, nor possess arms, they are all given to trade and to good living. ”

“ Since the original survey, much additional information had been amassed, based on patrol ship reports and dozens of specialty studies that had been done there.
And out of this data, a picture of Morua VIII and its inhabitants began to emerge.
The Moruans were moderately intelligent creatures, warm-blooded air breathers with an oxygen-based metabolism. Their planet was cold, with 17 per cent oxygen and much water vapor in its atmosphere. With its vast snow-fields and great mountain ranges, the planet was a popular resort area for oxygen-breathing creatures ”

“ The Moor’s tongue was shrunk to half the natural size, and it appeared evident he could not speak a word.
“He is worth his weight in silver,” Hilo said, looking at him narrowly. “I have heard the count had a mute slave, and I remember once seeing this man with him in the Portuguese camp. Let’s carry the fellow higher up the mountain and compel him to show us where his master is.”
The Moor’s turban served to bind his arms, and the three reascending the mountain a space, halted on the farther side of Angra, which town they passed so close as to hear the sound of trumpets from the market-place. ”

“ And in the same manner the Moors who beg for alms, when they want alms from these people, take great stones and strike themselves with them on the shoulders and the breast, and on their stomachs, as if they were going to kill themselves with them, and they receive alms not to do it, and to go away in peace. And others bring knives and stab themselves in the arms and legs before them, in order to extract alms; and others come to their doors to decapitate rats and snakes and other reptiles, and they give them money not to do it, so that they are very ill-treated by the Moors. ”

“ And as they were standing thus, they espied two Moors coming in their direction, who saw them not, or peradventure thought that they were some of the Moors of the island. These they made for and captured, and in taking them they saw, further off, ten Moors coming, with fifteen or twenty asses laden with fish. Some of our men made for them, and although they put themselves on their defence, it pleased our Lord God that this their defence availed little; for they were put to rout and fled, some to one side and others to another, and so the Christians captured them all. ”

“ The Moors, as they sit squatted on the ground, have a very earthy look, and even a strange earthy sort of smell, and their gilabs also being very much of the colour of the earth, it is difficult to distinguish them at a short distance from big grubs that have sprung up on the spot, with which a person of short sight, or of a lively imagination, may very easily confound them. ”

“ It is a very good town, and they hold a great fair in it. Beyond one of the rivers there is a large town of Moors, rich with great trade of slaves, silks and all other kinds of merchandise. It is like the town of Manadeley in the territory of Tigrimahom. The Moors of this place also say that they pay to the Prester very heavy tribute like the others. Here there is great intercourse between the Christians and Moors, because the Christians and Christian women carry water to the Moors and wash their clothes. ”

“ They call these Moors Mapulers, they carry on nearly all the trade of the seaports: and in the interior of the country they are very well provided with estates and farms. So that if the King of Portugal had not discovered India this country would have had a Moorish king: because many of the gentiles turned Moors for any offence which they received amongst one another: and the Moors did them great honour, and if they were women they immediately married them. These people have many mosques in the country in which they also unite in council. ”

“ And as the land was very level, the Moors caught sight of our men from a distance and began to flee, and though the Christians ran hard after them they were never able to follow them; but it happened that two youths of the company met with a Moor whom they brought back with [Pg 225] them as an evidence of their great toil. And thence they forthwith made sail to Lisbon, where having paid to the Infant his due, they had of him honour and reward. ”

“ Before the Moors traded with India, this island was well inhabited by the native idolaters, having many goodly buildings, and especially some fine pagodas. But when the Moors resorted to this coast from the Red Sea, they used to take in their wood and water at this place, and abused the inhabitants so intolerably that they abandoned the place, and pulled down most of their pagodas and all their other buildings. ”