Being forced to travel the rest of his way home in the disguise of a Moor, he had heard himself discussed by his own people when they knew nothing of his presence.

Every evil that had befallen them had been attributed to him.
Ben Aboo, their Basha, was a good, humane man, who was often driven to do that which his soul abhorred.

It was Israel ben Oliel who was their cruel taxmaster.
When Israel was within a day's journey of Tetuan a terrible scourge fell upon the country.

A plague of locusts came up like a dense cloud from the direction of the desert, and ate up every leaf and blade of grass that the scorching sun had left green, so that the plain over which it had passed was as black and barren as a lava stream.

The farmers were impoverished, and the poorer people made beggars.