economist acquainted with the nature of commercial negociations in
Africa.

The superflux of coin, consisting principally of Mexico dollars,
and doubloons, (over and above the quantum necessary for the
circulating medium of commercial negociations,) is either buried
under ground by the owner, or converted into jewels for the ladies
of his family; there is a general propensity to these subterraneous
hordes; the bulk of the people, the lower classes in particular,
have an idea that they will enjoy in the next world what they save
in this; which opinion is not extraordinary, when we consider how
many cases there are, wherein we see the sublimest capacity
prostrate at the shrine of an _early imbibed_ superstition. Many of
these erring philosophers, therefore, attentive to the accumulation
of riches, retire from this sublunary world with an immense
immolated treasure, wherewith to begin, as they imagine, their
career in the world to come!

"We," they say, "convert our superflux to jewels and costly apparel
for our females, and we have the gratification of seeing them well
apparelled and agreeably ornamented. Moreover, a great part of our
possessions is appropriated to the sacred rites of hospitality,
239 which you Christians know not how to practise; for you worship the
idol of ostentation; you invite your friends to dinner; you incur
an intolerable and injudicious expense, and provide a multiplicity
of dishes to pamper their appetites, sufficient for a regiment of
muselmen; when nature and national beings, which men were born to
be, require only one dish. Moreover, your sumptuous entertainments
are given to those only who do not want; therefore is it an
ostentatious and a wanton waste! We, on the contrary, that is to
say, every good Muselman, gives one-tenth of his property to the
poor; and moreover much of his substance is appropriated to the
support, not of the rich and independent, who do not want it, but
to (_deefan_) strange guests who journey from one country to
another; insomuch that, with us, a poor man may travel by public
beneficence and apt hospitality from the shores of the
Mediterranean to the borders of Sahara, without a fluce[166] in
(_hashituh_) the corner of his garment.[167] A traveller, however
poor he may be, is never at a loss f