BARBARY. 
491 
an outcast class ; are the objects of universal ha- 
tred, contempt, and derision, and may be insult- 
ed and injured by any one with impunity. The 
immense profits, hov/ever, which they make, by 
monopolizing all the money transactions, which 
they alone are qualified to conduct, induces them 
to remain and to endure this oppression. 
Such are the inhabitants of the towns of Bar- 
bary. The country districts are occupied by the 
Arabs, a name not perhaps confined to the original 
conquerors of this region, but applied to all who 
follow the same rude, simple, and migratory life. 
They dwell in douars, or moveable villages, con- 
sisting of a number of tents woven of camels' hair 
and the fibres of the palm-tree. These are arrang- 
ed in circles ; the interior of which forms at night 
a place of shelter for the cattle. Having exhaust- 
ed the territory in which the douar is situated, 
they remove with their families and all their cat- 
tle to another ; the women and children being con- 
veyed on the backs of the camels. The Arabs are 
of a deep brown or copper colour, which they en- 
deavour to embellish with puncturing and tattow- 
ing. The females, when young, are handsome, 
but soon become flabby and overgrown. The in- 
ternal government of these communities is admi- 
nistered by a Sheik and Emirs, who generally own 
the supremacy of the Moorish sovereign, and pay 
a regular tribute j but on all occasions of anarchy 
