PASTIMES OF THE MOORS. 
127 
me, and tormented me in a thousand ways to force me to 
answer their questions, which were all intended to insult me. 
They commonly concluded by asking me if I would not 
drink a little brandy and eat pork, and whether 1 did not 
intend to be circumcised. At each of these questions, to 
which 1 refused to reply, they laughed violently, and answered 
for me, affecting the most cutting contempt. The marabouts 
did not like this, but they could not protect me from the 
annoyance, and it was not till after the departure of the 
hassanes that they censured them and called them infidels. 
I observed, that the marabouts were not so strict with 
their countrymen as they were with me, for I often saw 
young men who were eating in the day-time. When I asked 
why they were not obliged to fast like the rest of us, 1 was 
told that they could not have got through the day without 
eating. This pretext they employed whenever they were 
disposed to break the fast. 
To amuse themselves, and make the days seem less 
tedious during the Ramadan, the Moors have a game called 
sigue. It cgnsists of six flat pieces of wood, rounded at the 
ends in an oval form, white on one side, and black on the 
other. The game is played by two, four, or six persons, but 
always divided into two parties. Three rows of holes are 
made in the sand, twenty-four in each ; the outside rows 
are taken by the different parties, who cover each of the 
holes with a straw, taking care that the straws of the two 
parties shall be of different colours, so as to be easily dis- 
tinguished ; the middle row of holes is left open. One of the 
players takes five bits of wood in his hand, shakes them and 
drops them on the ground ; if all the pieces of wood are of 
the same colour, or all but one, this is called making the 
sigue, and counts for one : the player continues with six 
pieces until he fails to make the sigue ; then another plays, 
and so on. Every time a player makes the sigue he puts a 
straw into one of the holes of the middle row, and moves it 
