Twain on Spaniards and Cats
From Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, Chapter 5:
"Spain threshed the Moors five or six years ago about a disputed
piece of property opposite Gibraltar, and captured the city of Tetouan
[Tetuan]. She compromised on an augmentation of her territory,
$20,000,000 indemnity, in money, and peace. And then she gave up the city. But she never gave it up until the Spanish soldiers had eaten
up all the cats. They would not compromise as long as the cats held
out. Spaniards are very fond of cats. On the contrary, the Moors
reverence cats as something sacred. So the Spaniards touched them on a tender point that time. Their unfeline conduct in eating up all the
Tetouan cats aroused a hatred toward them in the breasts of the Moors to which even the driving them out of Spain was tame and passionless. Moors and Spaniards are foes forever now. France had a Minister here once who embittered the nation against him in a most innocent way. He killed a couple of battalions of cats (Tangier is full of them), and made a parlor-carpet out of their hides. He made the carpet in circles--first a circle of old grey tomcats; next a circle of black cats and a circle of white ones; then a circle of all sorts of cats, and finally a centre-piece of assorted kittens. It was very beautiful, but the Moors curse his memory to this day."
I disagree with Twain that it was "unfeline" of the Spaniards to
eat up all the Tetouan cats. Cats are carnivores; eating other animals is quite feline!
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