24 
the women, and poligamy leaves no exeuse for disor 
derly caprice. 
When the marriage contract has been signed, the 
family of the bridegroom sends generally some presents 
to that of the bride; they are carried thither by night in 
much ceremony, with a great number of lamps, candles, 
and torches, and accompanied by a band of those 
wretched musicians whom I have already noticed, and 
also by a troop of women, uttering shrill exclamations. 
The bride is conducted in form to her husband, with 
a retinue like ?that which attends the children at their 
circumcision. The first time that I saw this ceremony 
at Tangier was about six in the morning. The young 
bride was carried on the shoulders of four men, in a 
kind of cylindrical basket, which was lined on its out- 
side with white linen, and covered over with a lid of 
a conical form, painted of various colours, like those 
which they put on their tables. This basket was so 
small, that I should have thought it impossible to have 
placed a woman in it; it looked altogether as if they were 
carrying a large dish of victuals to the bridegroom. 
When it arrived, he lifted up the lid, and then for the 
first time beheld his future wife. 
When a Mussulman dies, he is put on a litter, cover* 
ed with his hhaik, and sometimes with boughs of a tree; 
he is then carried on the shoulders of four men, and fol- 
lowed by a great number of people, without any order, 
who have no sign of mourning, and who hurry hastily 
along. This group moves towards the gate of a mos- 
que at the hour of the noon prayers; when these are over, 
the iman gives notice that there is a dead body at the 
gate; every one then rises to make a short and general 
prayer for the repose of the soul of a true believer; but 
the corpse is not taken into the mosque. 
