76 TREATMENT OF STRANGERS. 
on a marabout. If a stranger arrives amongst them, he is 
ill-treated, and ill-fed ; hence their camps are always avoided, 
and the burden of entertaining travellers devolves in conse- 
quence upon the marabouts. 
The Moors, as has just been observed, afford one another 
hospitality, but they do not deserve to be called hospitable, 
for nothing annoys them so much as the sight of strangers. 
They receive them not out of humanity but from fear, par- 
ticularly when they happen to be hassanes, who would not 
fail to plunder, if they were not treated as they liked. They 
seldom afford assistance to travelling negroes ; if any such 
pass through a camp, they beg morning and night when the 
cows are milked for a draught, going about with a jotala in 
their hand, and receiving so little, that they are obliged to 
traverse two or three camps before they obtain sufficient for 
a meal. 
Many negroes from Fouta-Toro come amongst the 
Moors to study the Koran ; they often remain five or six 
months, and have no other means of subsistence but alms. 
Though Musulmans, they are in bad repute, and very gene- 
* rally despised amongst the Moors, who say they are fit for 
nothing but slaves. The negroes take nothing with them, 
because they would be sure to be stripped by the hassanes; 
they always travel on foot, and carry at their backs a small 
board, on which they write passages of the Koran. 
There are amongst the Moors a sort of vagabonds called 
Wadats ; these are the very poorest hassanes, who have often 
neither tents to lodge in, nor cattle to feed them ; and being 
too idle to work, which indeed they consider as a disgrace, 
they like better to run from tent to tent and beg for a living. 
The insolence of these troublesome parasites is without 
bounds ; when they arrive at a camp they throw it into con- 
fusion : nothing is heard on all sides but the disputes which 
they cause by their importunities. Impudent as they are, 
they get whatever they ask for ; because, if they were to 
I 
