Note 323 — Chapter III · [1803-1806.]

Sidi Hamudah had been Bey of Tunis from the year 1782, when he succeeded his brother, Ali Bey. He survived till 1815. His reign is described as the Augustan age of Tunis (Diary of a Tour in Barbary, II. 79). Father Caronni tells of him that when one of his generals,—a Christian,—was about to become a Mahomedan in the hope of ingratiating himself with Hamudah, he rebuked the renegade for his meanness. “A hog,” said he, “remains always a hog in my eyes, even though he has lost his tail.”