74 
IRON-STONE. 
out of the same vessel with him till he is cured. Gun-pow- 
der steeped in water is the remedy, and with this the 
patient rubs his body all over. Such is the medical practice 
I have seen in this country, from which the Moors appear 
to benefit very little. 1 saw during my stay, one case of 
elephantiasis, one blind man, but not a single leper ; with 
the last disease they seem not to be acquainted ; I never 
once met with a cripple. 
When I returned to the camp, I asked the marabout's 
son, who was about eighteen years of age, to repeat some 
verses of the Koran, which I wanted to write down, that 
I might learn them by heart. At the second line, how- 
ever, he stopped and refused to proceed, telling me that it 
was unlawful to write the words of God with a profane 
hand ; he afterwards consulted one of the marabouts on this 
point, who was wiser and bade him to continue. 
Walking about in the camp, I remarked some heavy 
black stones lying loose on the soil ; one of these I broke ; 
and found that it contained a great deal of iron ; a specimen 
of these stones I have sent to the governor. The Moors 
smelt this ore, and make locks, fetters, and other things, of 
the iron. To smelt it, they dig a hole in the ground, a 
foot and a half deep, over which they build a furnace in 
the shape of a pyramid five feet high, leaving at the bottom 
four holes for the bellows. They fill the furnace with ore 
broken into small pieces, and heat it with sheep's dung, 
which when dry makes a very strong fire. Four men, placed 
at the apertures of the furnace, blow the fire, till the iron 
is melted, after which they leave it to cool without giving 
it any form, which renders it very difficult to work, so 
that they prefer what they buy of us. 
On the 1 5th of October, the pasture being exhausted, 
we broke up the camp, and removed four miles to the S. W. 
I W. to a peninsula formed by the bed of a rivulet, and 
called by the Moors Guigue ; it was then covered with 
