156 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
environs of their camp. They also breed some sheep, but 
when they kill one, which is very rarely done, they dry the 
meat and preserve it in leathern sacks, sometimes for six 
months. They have recourse to this reserve when they treat 
strangers, particularly the Berbers, to whom they are very 
attentive. As a mark of consideration, they spread before the 
tent for their repose a carpet as good as those which we use 
in Europe. The master, in honour of his guests, frequently 
eats with them from the same bowl, and, instead of offering 
them pure water, he adds to it camel's milk, which in the 
rainy season is very abundant. On the arrival of the 
strangers, the dates and cheni are immediately set before 
them as a refreshment till the supper hour. Though the 
Moors of el-Harib receive the Berbers thus hospitably, yet 
in travelling through their country they are never treated 
even with a supper; in their journeys therefore, they are 
careful to carry their provision of dates and a little barley- 
meal, which they boil in water. The costume of the Berbers 
differs from that of the Moors only in a band of coloured 
stuff, which the former wrap round their heads in the form 
of a turban ; they also wear ear-rings. They are all 
armed and mounted on fine horses, handsomely caparisoned, 
and they wear spurs, which are attached to a leather strap 
firmly fastened round the instep. 
The Moors of el-Harib dress like those on the banks 
of the Senegal, except that over their coussabe they wear a 
linen wrapper manufactured in the country of el-Drah 
or Tafilet. They have only one wife, but like the Braknas 
change her frequently. They are all Musulmans, yet they 
do not addict themselves, like the marabouts, to the study of 
the Koran^ being satisfied with knowing the first verse of 
it without learning to write; a marabout is, consequently, 
held in great consideration among them. 
The Moors of el-Harib are generally detested by their 
neighbours ; in el-Drah and Tafilet they are seldom called 
