62 
CONSTRUCTION OF TENTS. 
king always attending. Amongst the Braknas the mosque is 
formed by an enclosure of thorns, sometimes under the shel- 
ter of a mimosa, if there happens to be one at hand. The 
Moors often meet here to discuss affairs of business or poli- 
tics; they even pass the whole of the day in chatting on 
indifferent subjects; but this holy place the women are not 
permitted to enter; they perform the salam before their own 
tents. Even the men, when they enter the mosque, observe a 
peculiar ceremonial, which consists in putting the right foot 
first, and leaving it with the left foremost : on entering the 
mosque they perform an ablution. They have no public 
crier, as amongst the negroes, to call them to prayer; but, 
according to ancient custom, one of the oldest marabouts 
summons them together by calling Allah akhar\ several of 
the other marabouts repeat this cry on entering the mosque; 
the practice is not obligatory, but they seem to consider it 
as a duty. 
The king's tent differs in nothing from those of his sub- 
jects; it is twenty feet long and ten wide, and covered like 
all the others, with a stuff made of sheep's hair;* at each end 
are eight leather straps, and as many stakes, upon which it 
is stretched. Two upright poles ten or twelve feet long, 
crossing at top and fitting into a cross-piece a foot long and 
six inches wide, are placed in the centre to raise it; this cross- 
piece rises above the uprights, and prevents their ends from 
piercing the awning. A carpet of sheep's hair manufactured 
in the country surrounds the interior of the tent; four stakes 
are driven in at one end, supporting two cross-bars, over 
which a cord or string is passed in the form of a net, and upon 
this is placed their baggage. Their things are stowed in square 
leather sacks shaped like portmanteaus with an opening 
at the end; and these bags have a lid secured by a padlock. 
* Instead of wool the sheep of this part of Africa are covered with 
hair : the coat of some of them is so short that it is impossible to shear 
them. 
