188 MANUFACTURES AND AGRICULTURE. 
belonging to the lowest grade ; those who esteem themselves 
of a higher order treat them as a very inferior race of 
beings. There are also in Tafilet many negro slaves^ and 
some emancipated negroes, who, however, are never suffered 
to intermarry with the Moors ; even the children born of a 
negress and a Moor, by a clandestine union, have no ac- 
knowledged condition in the country, and can never emerge 
from the lowest classes. 
The inhabitants of Tafilet tan a great quantity of 
leather ; they make excellent morocco, which is much es- 
teemed in commerce, and finds at Fez a ready market. 
The people of this country are more industrious than I 
have any where remarked, in the different parts of Africa 
which I have visited. 
Every one brings to the market the fruit of his labour ; 
there may be seen in abundance woollen wrappers, coussabes, 
tanned leather, pagnes, shoes, mats, wooden trenchers, in 
short all the manufactures of the country. 
Each proprietor is accustomed to enclose his lands either 
with an earth wall or a ditch ; all the villages are walled, 
and those I have seen have but one gate of entrance, which 
is shut every evening. The inhabitants rear much poultry, 
as large as ours, and eat the eggs boiled. They have pigeons, 
but these birds are scarce. Some individuals keep a dog and 
a cat, which live upon dates. 
Throughout the districts of el-Drah and Tafilet are 
found Jews, who inhabit the same villages with the Musul- 
mans ; they are in a pitiable condition, wandering about 
almost naked, and continually insulted by the Moors ; these 
fanatics even beat them shamefully, and throw stones at them 
as at dogs : the smallest children may abuse them with im- 
punity, since they dare not revenge themselves, and cannot 
expect protection from authority. I have frequently been so 
excited myself as to threaten these little revilers with severe 
chastisement. 
