1830.] Love, Law, and Physic in Barbary. 295 



sidi, shoof sidi ! Look, Sir look, Sir \" provided none of her own 

 people are nep.r to betray her ; and will at any time rather invite than 

 repel the curiosity of a stranger, whose risk is as great as her own in so 

 doing, and who if detected in any more serious offence would subject 

 himself to the penalty of death. 



Marriage amongst the Moors is brought about by the intervention of 

 friends ; no interview whatever can take place previously to the nuptials. 

 The good or bad qualities of the lady are explained to the lover, and 

 also her abilities and personal charms. Love, that rare ingredient in 

 Moorish marriages, may sometimes be found subsequent, but cannot be 

 known previously to matrimony. 



On the evening of the wedding the lady is placed on horseback, in an 

 enclosure which resembles a large paper lanthorn ; in this way she is 

 paraded through the streets to the house of the bridegroom, by the male 

 friends of both parties. Rude music, the shouts of the rabble, and the 

 firing of powder, assail the ears of the bride, whose union and intro- 

 duction to her husband are coeval. 



The validity of the marriage contract depends on the same proofs as 

 those required by the Levitical law, but the lady may be returned for 

 less material defects than their absence, or the husband is at liberty to 

 take another wife if he please. It is to meet the difficulties arising 

 from a total want of prior acquaintance between the parties, that the law 

 of Mahomet allows a plurality of wives to those who can prove they 

 are able to maintain them. Barrenness is a ground of divorce, as like- 

 wise a repugnant breath, for both of which causes women in Barbary 

 are often repudiated. 



The " law's delay" was never yet a subject of complaint in the 

 Barbary States ; here, on the contrary, it may be seen the " law's 

 dispatch" is the most to be dreaded ; a great inconvenience in criminal 

 cases, where the innocence of the party is sometimes made manifest 

 only after the loss of a limb or a head. The sovereign here unites in his 

 person the office of judge and jury; if human judgment was less 

 liable to error or the impulse of passion, perhaps amongst an uncul- 

 tivated people, such assumption of authority would be less objectionable : 

 but it is generally attended with the worst consequences. Execution of 

 the law also follows so hard upon the sentence, that the criminal is 

 often hurried from the presence of the judge to suffer its penalty. 

 Decisions of Moorish law, both in civil and religious cases, are founded 

 on the Koran. If litigants are dissatisfied with the interpretation of. a 

 cadi or bashaw, they can appeal to the emperor or head of the govern- 

 ment, who has power to revise the sentence ; but bribery is sure to 

 attain a verdict, from which there is no appeal save in a counter bribe. 



The office of public executioner does not always pertain to the same 

 person ; the prince often confers this honour on his chiefs. The Moors 

 say it is honourable " to use the arm of the faithful to destroy the 

 unjust;" thus the greatest men of the state are often employed in 

 striking off the heads of malefactors. It is, in fact, deemed no bad 

 qualification to power to be a good headsman ; and not many years ago 

 a dey of Algiers succeeded to the throne, merely on" account of his 

 dexterity in taking off heads. 



The chopping off the hands is a common punishment in cases of 

 robbery ; the truncated parts are dipped in pitch to stop the bleeding, 

 and the executioner, with the utmost sang froid, thrusts the severed 



