FURNITURE AND UTENSILS. ^3 
The harness of the horses and camels hangs up round the 
tent. The king's bed is after the same fashion as that of the 
negroes^ consisting of a hurdle covered with mats^ and raised 
by stakes and cross-bars about a foot from the ground. A 
mat spread on the ground covers the unoccupied part of the 
tent^ and serves the king's attendants for a bed. The com- 
mon people lie on the ground on mats, under which they 
sometimes spread a little straw. A matting is put round the 
goods at the end of the tent, to preserve them from thieves. 
The store of water is kept in skins upon stakes in the inside 
of the tents; it is reserved for the masters and the calves, 
and refused to the slaves ; and even she who has had the 
trouble to fetch it cannot obtain a little but by dint of entrea- 
ties and after enduring all sorts, of mortifications. 
The king's table service consists of six or eight deep 
round wooden dishes, each containing about three quarts, 
and used to hold milk and other articles; three metal pots 
and two of earthen- ware, which they obtain from the Fouta, 
form the cooking apparatus, and complete the list of the 
furniture. This description will serve for all other tents as 
well as the king's, except that the poorer class have mats 
instead of a carpet. 
Hamet-Dou is almost always surrounded by guehues or 
strolling singers, who abound among the Moors, and are 
always to be found in the train of the princes, from whom 
they obtain whatever they want, sometimes by threats, at 
others b}^ the basest flattery. Every prince has one of these 
men in his retinue, and Hamet-Dou's guehue follows him 
wherever he goes. When they are seated together in the 
tent, he sings the king's praise, and loads him with such out- 
rageous panegyric, that none but an African monarch could 
hear it without blushing; the king's wife and children usually 
join and repeat in chorus all the absurdities he can invent. 
These parasites have contrived to make themselves as much 
feared as despised by the Moors; they understand the art of 
persuasion in perfection ; and though they are noted impos- 
