Moors

“ But the real life, the only beauty of the country, is set on the top of all the hills, where moor joins moor from Yorkshire into Lancashire, a coiled chain of wild free places. White with snow in winter, black at midsummer, it is only when spring dapples the dark heather-stems with the vivid green of the sprouting wortleberry bushes, only when in early autumn the moors are one humming mass of fragrant purple, that any beauty of tint lights up the scene. But there is always a charm in the moors for hardy and solitary spirits. ”

“ They arrived at the tower without being observed, and tying the donkey to a fig-tree, descended into the fourth vault of the tower.
The scroll was produced, the yellow taper lighted, and the Moor read the form of incantation. The earth trembled as before, and the pavement opened with a thundering sound, disclosing the narrow flight of steps. The alcalde, the alguazil, and the barber were struck aghast, and could not summon courage to descend. The Moor and the water-carrier entered the lower vault, and found the two Moors seated as before, silent and motionless. ”

“ 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 Moors were not the proper Africans, as the hair of their heads was long, straight, and shining. They were a different race, and of different manners and attainments. The contour of the faces of the authors of the American city, found sculptured on the stones of its ruins, are in exact correspondence with the forehead and nose of the ancient Moors, the latter of which was remarkable for its aquiline shape, and was a national trait, characteristic of the Moors as well as the Romans. ”

“ The recent conquests in the North had given the Moors as yet no time to erect either dwellings, mosques, or baths, those necessities of Eastern life, and they were fain to accept the rough habitations and castles of the Goths as they found them.
Terrible is the expression of his eyes, the white against the tawny sockets, as he turns them full on the slender form before him, wrapped in an embroidered mantle, held in the strong grasp of a Nubian slave. ”

“ After waiting a long time, their scouts brought word that the Moors had taken another road, and were nearly at the foot of the hill on which stood the castle. “Cavaliers,” cried the master, “it is not too late; let us first use our spurs and then our weapons, and if our steeds prove good, the day will yet be ours.” So saying, he put spurs to his horse, and the rest following his example, they soon came in sight of the Moors. ”

“ From the tropical heat and luxuriance, the sugar-canes and the palm-trees, of the lower valleys and of the narrow plain which skirts the sea like a golden zone, it is but a step, through gardens, steep cornfields, and olive groves, to fresh Alpine pastures and woods of pine, above which vegetation expires on the rocks where snow lies long and deep, and is still found in nooks and hollows in the burning days of autumn. When thickly peopled with laborious Moors, the narrow glens, bottomed with rich soil, were terraced and irrigated with a careful industry which compensated for want of space. ”

“ Ladies are carried, more solemnly, in chairs upon a pair of swarthy Moslem shoulders. The Moors are a handsome race of men; not nearly so black as the Othello of the stage, not generally tall, but the turban and haick add greatly to their apparent height. They also make the most of themselves by an upright and dignified carriage. Their black eyes are full of fire and intelligence. Their bronze complexions and long, swarthy beards, contrast strongly with their snow-white costume.
The circumstance of arriving on a Sunday was favorable to our first impression of a Moorish town. ”

“ And the Moors rising up about dawn had sight of them where they were coming, and like men without heart and deprived of hope, they began to fly, every one where he perceived he could best take refuge, leaving behind goods, wives and children, as men who perceived that they had quite enough to do to save their own lives. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the risk of being suspected of exaggeration we can only say that it is impossible to praise too highly the care with which they have been prepared. There are some hundreds of them, of which between eighty and ninety are exact reproductions in colour and gold of various portions of the marvellously beautiful decorations so beloved of the Moors and so characteristic of their work. The other illustrations are so numerous and well chosen as to give a perfect series of pictures of every portion of these Moorish buildings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whilst we were at our meal, a good many Moors came in to stare at us, as at a raree show, and especially at Moll, whose bright clothes and loose hair excited their curiosity, for their women do rarely go abroad, except they be old, and wear only long dirty white robes, muffling the lower part of their faces. ”

“ Moor, fell, common, are well-known terms. Anglo-Saxon mor is waste-land, a moor, a heath; Danish mor is a moor, or morass; we have Killhope, Burnhope, and Wellhope Moors. Fell is Old Norse. All the Weardale moorlands are called fells. Chapel Fell is 2,294 feet above sea-level; A common is a tract of unenclosed pasture or outside land on which the tenantry of the inlands have a common right, or right of common for their sheep. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It may be so, but the Moorish style is so imprinted on the tastes of the people that they build age after age with substantially the same models, and it is not safe to affirm that the hands of the Moors laid any of these stones. ”

“ The Moors are, in every respect, much superior to the Negroes: braver than they are, they reduce them to slavery, and employ them in the hardest labour; they are, in general, tall and well made, and their faces are very handsome, and full of expression.
However, it may also be observed that the Moors of both sexes, appear at the first sight, like a people composed of two distinct races, which have nothing in common, except, the extremely brown, or tanned colour of their skin, and the shining black of their hair. ”

“ Stutfield, however, has his serious moments, and his account of the commerce, government and social life of the Moors is extremely interesting. It must be confessed that the picture he draws is in many respects a very tragic one. The Moors are the masters of a beautiful country and of many beautiful arts, but they are paralysed by their fatalism and pillaged by their rulers. ”

“ From the moorlands to the mountains and lochs is in many localities a transition of an almost imperceptible character. In not a few cases the moors terminate in mountain summits beyond the borderland, where the two species of heather cease to climb, or the most sturdy and tenacious ling that clothes the hillsides for still another thousand feet or more. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In Barbary I have seen the Moors in the day-time take this animal by the ears and pull him towards them, without his attempting any other resistance than that of his drawing back: and the hunters, when his cave is large enough to give them admittance, take a torch in their hand, and go straight to him; when, pretending to fascinate him by a senseless jargon of words which they repeat, they throw a blanket over him, and haul him out. He seems to be stupid or senseless in the day, or at the appearance of strong light, unless when pursued by the hunters. ”

“ The place in which they are dug is flat, and surrounded by large hillock of sand. I have often seen the Moors employed in watering their camels. They have a trough of tanned hide, which stands on three supports of twisted wood. For drawing up the water they use a rope made of straw, first damped and beaten and afterwards twisted. Though water when kept in the houses is always exposed to a current of air, it is invariably warm, and consequently very disagreeable for drinking.
Many Moors and negroes, impelled by curiosity, followed me in the streets. ”

“ The Moors are magnificent-looking fellows, with very high stern 84 features, dark eyes, and very marked nostrils that give to the full face rather a look of ferocity; even the lowest of them look like aristocrats. ”

“ They are also very dirty in their person and their habits. The Moors, however, possess some excellent qualities, for they are extremely intelligent and most enduring on the march. Their knowledge of cattle-tending must be great, as these beasts are brought hundreds of miles from the interior of Mauretania to the markets of Guinea without any appreciable loss of animals. The Moor is a cunning trader, who makes large profits out of his transactions with the more simple-minded Malinké. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This, indeed, is carried to so great a height, that no man will venture to throw water out of a bason upon the ground, for fear that, in ever so small a space the water should have to fall, the dignity of some elf, or fairy, might be violated. The Moors have none of these apprehensions, and are accustomed in the way of trade to travel at all hours, sometimes from necessity, but often from choice, to avoid the heat. ”

“ When we remember that the sketch we are about to extract from the records of Arabian writers, concerning the glories of Cordova, relate to the tenth century, when our Saxon ancestors dwelt in wooden hovels and trod upon dirty straw, when our language was unformed, and such accomplishments as reading and writing were almost confined to a few monks, we can to some extent realize the extraordinary civilization of the Moors. ”

“ As the Moors always dress their victuals in the open air, this sand fell in great plenty amongst the kouskous: it readily adhered to the skin, when moistened by perspiration, and formed a cheap and universal hair powder. The Moors wrap a cloth round their face, to prevent them from inhaling the sand, and always turn their [132] backs to the wind when they look up, to prevent the sand falling into their eyes. ”

“ I found the Members of the Club to be all Persons of a discreet Age, and of a practical Turn of Mind; among them being several Spinsters. We had no sooner seated ourselves at Table but there entered a Gentleman of Colour, whom I at once recognised for a Moor; for, I would have my Reader to know, for his Instruction, that all Men that are not white are Moors; for, as there are Moors in Central Africa and in the Islands of the Southern Seas, no less are the People Moors that inhabit Japan, the East and West Indies, South America, and Malaya. ”