As it was Friday, we were obliged to go to the mos 
que, in order to say the noon-tide prayers. But the 
ritual of Morocco differing a little from the Turkish, 
which I had practised, the Turk instructed me in the 
ceremonies of the country. Other preparations were 
also necessary. It was requisite to have my head shaved 
again, though it had been shaved but a few days be- 
fore at Cadiz. The operation was performed by the 
same Turk, but with such an unmerciful hand, that my 
head was reddened all over. Nothing but a small tuft 
of hair was left at the crown. He proceeded to do the 
same office with all the other parts of my body, so that 
no trace was left of that which our holy prophet pro- 
scribed in his laws as a shocking impurity. I was then 
carried to the public bath, where we made our legal 
ablution. I shall, in another place, speak more particu- 
larly of this ceremony, as well as those of the public 
prayers at the mosque, to which we went at noon, which 
terminated our devotions for the day. 
On the next morning, Saturday, the festival of El- 
Mouloud % or the birth-day of the prophet, began; it lasts 
eight days. At this period infants are circumcised, and 
every day, both morning and evening, a sort of concert 
is executed before the door of the kaid's house. This 
music is composed of a large rude drum, and two bag- 
pipes, ruder still, and very discordant. 
During this festival, we went to perform our devo- 
tions at an hermitage or sacred place, two hundred 
fathoms from the town, and in which the mortal remains 
of a saint are revered. It serves at the same time as 
an habitation for another living saint, a brother of the 
deceased, and who receives the offerings for both. On 
this side of the town the burial-place of the Mahome 
tans is to be seen, 
