CHAPTER VI



THERE is no portion of the world so little known as Africa in
general; and perhaps of all Africa there is no corner with which
Europeans are so little acquainted as Barbary, which nevertheless
is only separated from the continent of Europe by a narrow strait
of four leagues across.

China itself has, for upwards of a century, ceased to be a land of
mystery to the civilised portion of the world; the enterprising
children of Loyola having wandered about it in every direction
making converts to their doctrine and discipline, whilst the
Russians possess better maps of its vast regions than of their own
country, and lately, owing to the persevering labour and searching
eye of my friend Hyacinth, Archimandrite of Saint John Nefsky, are
acquainted with the number of its military force to a man, and also
with the names and places of residence of its civil servants. Yet
who possesses a map of Fez and Morocco, or would venture to form a
conjecture as to how many fiery horsemen Abderrahman, the mulatto
emperor, could lead to the field, were his sandy dominions
threatened by the Nazarene? Yet Fez is scarcely two hundred
leagues distant from Madrid, whilst Maraks, the other great city of
the Moors, and which also has given its name to an empire, is
scarcely farther removed from Paris, the capital of civilisation:
in a word, we scarcely know anything of Barbary, the scanty
information which we possess being confined to a few towns on the
sea-coast; the zeal of the Jesuit himself being insufficient to