CHAP. III. 
MORZOUK. 
97 
Morzouk is a walled town, containing about 2500 inhabitants, 
who are blacks, and who do not, like the Arabs, change their re- 
sidence. The walls are of mud, having round buttresses, with loop- 
holes for musketry, rudely built, but sufficiently strong to guard 
against attack : they are about fifteen feet in height, and at the 
bottom eight feet in thickness, tapering, as all walls in this country 
do, towards the top. The town has seven gates, four of which are 
built up in order to prevent the people escaping when they are 
required to pay their duties. A man is appointed by the Sultan 
to attend each of these gates, day and night, lest any slaves or 
merchandize should be smuggled into the town. The people, in 
building the walls and houses, fabricate a good substitute for stones, 
(vvhich are not to be found in these parts), by forming clay into balls, 
which they dry in the sun, and use with mud as mortar : the walls 
are thus made very strong ; and, as rain is unknown, durable also. 
The houses, with very few exceptions, are of one story, and those of 
the poorer sort receive all their light from the doors : these are 
so low, as to require stooping nearly double to enter them ; but 
the large houses have a capacious outer door ; which is sufficiently 
well contrived, considering the bad quality of the wood that com- 
poses them. Thick palm planks, of four or five inches in breadth, 
(for the size and manner of cutting a tree will not afford more) 
have a square hole punched through them at the top and bottom, 
by which they are firmly wedged together, with thick palm sticks ; 
wet thongs of camels' hide are then tied tightly over them, which, 
on drying, draw the planks more strongly and securely together. 
There are no hinges to the doors ; but they turn on a pivot, formed 
on the last plank near the wall, which is always the largest on that 
account. The locks and keys are very large and heavy, and of 
curious construction. The houses are generally built in little 
o 
