72 
DISEASES AND REMEDIES. 
Moctar cut off my hair, and made me a pair of breeches out 
of my coussabe, and a coussabe out of a pagne which I had 
with me. 
On the 14th, we went to visit his aunt, whose camp was 
not far from ours. All the marabouts welcomed me politely, 
and I was happy to find that 1 should be less tormented than 
I had been by the hassanes. One of the marabouts brought 
me a slave who had a cancer in her breast, and begged me to 
tell him of some herb which would cure her, offering me six 
oxen as a reward ; I bade him observe that vegetation was 
all dried up at this season, and that it was impossible to pro- 
cure any herbs. After him, came a multitude of invalids, 
all entreating that 1 would cure them ; some I remarked were 
suffering acutely, and it grieved me extremely that I could 
afford them no assistance. In vain I told them that I was 
not a physician, and that I had no medicines with me ; they 
renewed their entreaties, and I could only escape from this 
scene of woe by leaving the camp. It was one o'clock when 
I returned to my marabout, 
J have observed that the Moors in general are not 
subject to severe illnesses, an exemption which they pro- 
bably owe to their temperance ; but they are very suscep- 
tible of pain, and the least suffering unmans them. I have 
seen a Moor with a slight head-ache cry like a child. The 
remedies most in vogue amongst them, are the following : 
when ill, they diet themselves and take nothing but milk, 
and as soon as they are convalescent, they feed upon flesh 
only, that they may recover their strength the sooner. 
When they have a head-ache they bind a cloth round the 
forehead, as tight as they can. For a cold, they introduce 
melted butter into their noses, by means of a pipe fitted into 
a vessel, and they pretend that they derive much benefit 
from this, especially for a cold in the head. When troubled 
with pain in the stomach, they make a drink of half a glass 
of camel's urine mixed with two bottles of water ; the bark 
