228 HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



at the sides, through which to thrust the arms. {PI. 2G,Jlg. 2, Moor of 

 rank ; fg. 3, Moorish merchant ; fig. 4, Arab chief of Algiers ; fig. 6, Negro 

 female slave of that place.) 



Among the Moors, as amongst all Mohammedans, bathing is, as it were, 

 a religious act, which must never be omitted ; and the public baths are 

 with them also places of meeting for social conversation {fig. 1, Moorish 

 bath in Algiers). The usual and best article of food of the Moors is the 

 sucfu or cuscusu, which consists of a fine paste of coriander seed, meat, 

 broth, butter, eggs, saffron, cayenne pepper, &c., and is eaten with the 

 fingers out of a large bowl. Coffee is seldom used, but tea is partaken of 

 several times in the day. Instead of tobacco, they frequently smoke a kind 

 of hemp {khashis-cha), or the seeds of a plant called kif. 



The disposition of the Moors is described by Graberg de Hemso in 

 these words : " We, who ourselves lived and had intercourse for twelve 

 years with the Moors of several Atlantic countries, and have attentively 

 studied their disposition, can conscientiously declare that everything mean 

 and despicable in the extreme, to be found in the human heart, constitutes 

 the general disposition of these Africans. They are, and will be for many 

 years to come, the same barbarians they were in the times of Sallust and 

 Procopius ; fickle, faithless, lying, cruel, incapable of being held in check 

 by fear or acts of kindness. Their predominant passions are sensual love, 

 revenge, ambition, and covetousness. Of a cruel, barbarous, imperious, 

 unfeeling disposition, the idea of kindness and sympathy is entirely foreign 

 to them. Haughty, harsh, and arrogant to their inferiors, they are servile 

 and submissive towards their superiors ; and to the powerful, of the basest, 

 most slavish deportment. Their covetousness is incredible, and more 

 than makes good the adage, ' a Moor would resign an eye, in order to put 

 in its place a gold coin.' They scrape together riches, feigning poverty at 

 the same time. In addition, they are fanatical, hypocritical, and cruel ; 

 detest all foreigners, persecute the Christians, and oppress the Jews in the 

 most unjust manner ; but especially hate the Turks, because they con- 

 sider them heretics and propagandists, and the Roman Catholics, because 

 they esteem them idolaters. When sustaining bodily chastisement, pain, 

 or suffering, they display, in general, the cold indifference of savages." 

 From the catalogue of sins of the Moors we have selected only the most 

 important, since Graberg de Hemso enumerates many more. 



Females pass lives of entire seclusion, and, like their husbands, believe 

 that God created woman only for sensual pleasure, and for the propagation 

 of the human species. Hence women are satisfied to be shut up in their 

 harems, and an exposure to the eyes of a stranger by their consorts would 

 be considered an offence. 



Our readers have already become acquainted with the Bedouins, in 

 reading the portion of this treatise devoted to Asia, and hence we only 

 observe that on pi. 27, figs. 4 and 5, are represented Arabian caravans ; 

 at figs. 1 — 3, Egyptian Fellahs and Bedouins, with their tents, two of the 

 Bedouins being in the act of performing a martial dance. 



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