408 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



Photo by Legruiid] 



AN ARAB CAMP. 



kneaded about on the floor until the milk is churned. A kind of sausage, maue of minced 

 meat plastered round a wooden stick and toasted over a charcoal fire, is also an important 

 national food. These sausages are prepared and sold in special cooksliops, which abound in 

 all the Moorish towns. Bread is mostly used by the women, who are fattened before 

 marriage by being crammed like poultry with finger-shaped pellets of soft bread. This course 

 of treatment lasts for some twenty clays. Tea is the national beverage; spirits and wiiie 

 are made from grapes, figs, and dates. Tobacco is smoked. 



Leared, for some years a doctor in Morocco, thus describes a Moorish dinner-party: "The 

 company sit in a circle, cross-legged, on the floor. Sometimes, indeed, an apology for a table 

 a few inches in height is placed in the centre. Upon this or on the floor a huge case 

 made of straw sewn together and decorated with coloured leather- work is placed. A conical 

 cover of the same material fits over the case, and when the former is removed a wooden 

 bowl or tub filled with kuskusu [a kind of porridge] is displayed. Before eating every one 

 says grace for himself by exclaiming 'Bismallah!' 'In the name of Allah!' Each person 

 then thrusts the fingers of his right hand into the smoking mess, and, taking up a considerable 

 quantity, forms it into a sort of ball or lump, and then by a clever jerk tosses it into his 

 mouth, which the serving hand is never allowed to touch. The left hand is never used in 

 eating. From this it will be seen that the etiquette of the Moorish dinner-table is quite as 

 exacting as the corresponding etiquette among ourselves. After each meal water and napkins 

 are brought for the hands." 



The Moors are all Mohammedans, but their creed is not free from Negro superstitions. 

 Thus the word "five" is never mentioned at the Morocco Court, the number being expressed as 

 "four plus one." The lex talionis, the law of a tooth for a tooth, is still part of the Moorish 

 jurisprudence. An English merchant at Mogador, who was accused of having knocked out 

 two teeth from a beggar, was compelled to allow two of his own teeth to be extracted; 

 but as the charge was false, he was compensated by the Government. 



