no 
BERBERS. 
their sheep^ and weaving the yarn into blankets, which they 
sell at Tafilet. These Berbers have a peculiar idiom, which 
the Arabs do not speak ; they also conform to the religion of 
Mahomet ; they have several wives, who superintend all the 
household concerns, prepare the food, take care of the sheep, 
and have besides the laborious task of drawing water for them 
to drink. They pasture their flocks in the passes of the moun- 
tains wheresover they can find herbage, for the appearance of 
their own country is absolutely bare. Hills of granite, of 
moderate height, but totally destitute of vegetation, meet the 
eye on all sides. This wandering and pastoral tribe subsist 
like the Moors, upon dates and sangleh made of barley ; they 
often make their supper upon couscous, or barley-cake, baked 
upon the ashes. In the rainy season, the milk of their flocks, 
being then more abundant, forms a portion of their nourish- 
ment. Such of them as live in the villages have houses in 
the Moorish style, built like those of the Arab inhabitants of 
the towns : the rc vers have only tents, the coverings of which 
are made of the hair of their camels. They grow but little 
grain, the land which they occupy being scarcely fit for cul- 
tivation ; but here and there may be traced veins of more fer- 
tile earth which they turn to good account. 
Their cookery, like that of the Moors of el-Harib, is 
performed in large copper vessels, manufactured by native 
smiths. It is astonishing that they escape being poisoned by 
the verdigris, for the Moorish women are so excessively dirty 
that they never wash their utensils, merely rubbing off with 
the hand what adheres to the sides. 
The Berbers encamped at Bohayara presented Sidi-Aly 
and our escort with a sheep, which had a particularly fine 
fleecCj and was killed by the Berbers of our company for our 
supper. As we had no vessel to boil it in, our guides had 
recourse to the ingenious expedient of picking up a number 
of large smooth calcareous stones, with which they formed 
a small oven, and heated it with roots of hedysarum alhagi, 
