CHAP. VII. 
GENERAL ACCOUNT OF FEZZAN. 
287 
Though very fond of poetry, they are incapable of composing it. 
The Arabs, however, invent a few Httle songs, which the natives 
have much pleasure in learning ; and the women sing some of the 
Negro airs very prettily while grinding their corn. 
The lower class and the slaves, who, in point of colour and ap- 
pearance, are the same, labour together. The freeman, however, 
has only one inducement to work, which is hunger ; he has no 
notion of laying by any thing for the advantage of his family, or as 
a reserve for himself in old age ; but, if by any chance he obtains 
money, remains idle until it is expended, and then returns unwill- 
ingly to work. 
The females here are allowed greater liberty than those of 
Tripoli, and are more kindly treated. The effect of the plurality 
of wives is but too plainly seen, and their women in consequence 
are not famed for chastity. Though so much better used than 
those of Barbary, their life is still a state of slavery. A man never 
ventures to speak of his women ; is reproached if he spends much 
time in their company ; never eats with them, but is waited upon at 
his meals, and fanned by them while he sleeps ; yet these poor beings, 
never having known the sweets of hberty or affection, are, in spite 
of their humihation, comparatively happy. 
The authority of parents over children is very great, some 
fathers of the better class not allowing their sons even to eat, or sit 
down in their presence until they become men : the poorer orders, 
however, are less strict. 
There are no written records of events amongst the Fezzanners, 
and their traditions are so disfigured, and so strangely mingled with 
rehgious and superstitious falsehoods, that no confidence can be 
placed in them ; yet the natives themselves look with particular 
respect on a man capable of talking of " the people of the olden 
time." Several scriptural traditions are selected and believed- 
