1830.] A Visit to Tangiers. 543 



frantic. Such is the rigidity with which they observe this anniversary 

 of the flight of the prophet from Mecca to Medina, that it is only in 

 case of absolute danger of life, or in time of warfare, that the Imans 

 can absolve them from its continuance, and only then on condition of 

 its being resumed subsequently, to atone for the dereliction. 



At the feast of the Bairam, which follows, the Mahommedans resort 

 to the fields to offer up their prayers to Heaven, in no temple but that 

 of Nature, at no altar but that of the mountains and the skies, and 

 where all alike raise their voice to the Creator, without the mediation 

 of a priest ! This is a portion of their worship which the intolerant 

 and bigoted would do well to bear in memory. 



In the Turkish dominions this feast is celebrated with some splendour, 

 but in Barbary the Moors merely walk about in their best dresses, and 

 testify their joy at being again allowed to eat during the day, and to 

 associate with their wives, by good feasting, the noisy discharge of 

 fire-works, and the amusement of the lab-el-barode, or firing of powder. 



The burials of the Mahommedans without coffins, the hurried manner 

 in which they are taken to the grave (it being supposed the deceased 

 is not called into the presence of Mahomet till covered by the earth), 

 the death-song of the followers, the placing of the face towards Mecca, 

 with the hand beneath the head, as well as most of their religious 

 ceremonies, are subjects on which too many treatises have been written 

 to need enumeration here, and which once known excite no farther 

 interest.* S. B . 



A MALT-ESE MELODY. 



Charles Barclay, Esq., 



" SOBRIETY, cease to be sober, 



Cease, Labour, to dig and be dirty ; 

 Come drink and drink deep ; 'tis the tenth of October, 



One thousand eight hundred and thirty !" 

 Oh ! Horace, whose surname is Smith, 



Whose stanza I've carved as you see, 

 The troubles and terrors we're now compassed with 



Were, eighteen years since, sung by thee ! 



When a liquid, by millions held dear, 



Becomes cheap, there is cause to repine ; 

 For I feel that, if each man may sell his own beer, 



I shall shortly be laid upon mine. 

 Even now, as I write it, my eye fills 



With sorrow's sad essence of salt ; 

 Revolutions in Malta are innocent trifles 



To this revolution in malt 1 



Monsieur Chenier, in speaking of the Moors, remarks, " They ask their dead why they 

 would die, whether they wanted any thing in this world, and if they had not cuscousou 

 enough ?" " Their burial places are without the town. They make their graves wide at 

 the bottom, that the corpse may have sufficient room ; and never put two bodies into one 

 grave, lest they should mistake each other's bones at the day of judgment. They also 

 carry food, and put money and jewels into the grave, that they may appear as respectable 

 in the other world as they had done in this. They imagine the dead are capable of pain. 

 A Portuguese gentleman had one day ignorantly strayed among the tombs, and a Moor, 

 after much wrangling, obliged him to go before the cadi. The gentleman complained of 

 violence, and asserted he had committed no crime ; but the judge informed him he was 

 mistaken, for that the poor dead suffered when trodden on by Christian feet." 



