62 the tchetchinzi. 
be good Mussulmen. But, with respect to any knowledge they 
have of its doctrines, they are as ignorant as of any recollection 
of what that Christianity was, which was once professed by their 
ancestors. All that shows they have had any thing to do with 
the Arabian prophet, consists in a few domestic regulations. 
And the remnants of a better belief are only to be found in the 
strictness of their maintaining the Easter or Spring fast; and a 
sort of blind veneration, with which they hold, as sacred, the 
ruined remains of those churches at whose altars the Christian 
precepts were once delivered. 
They have no priests of any kind; hence their marriages are 
mere domestic contracts, agreed on between the parents of the 
parties. The bride always brings a dower, consisting of cattle, 
&c. proportioned in value according to the wealth of her family. 
She is brought home to the house of' her betrothed husband, 
and then the ceremony is completed by dancing, drinking, and 
carousal. From the custom of the sons never migrating from 
the paternal spot, families, from one stock, increase from single 
sheds to considerable villages. Each habitation of these people 
is separated into three divisions ; one for the women, another 
for the men, and a third for the horses and other cattle. The 
whole little establishment is then encircled by a fence of wicker¬ 
work, or stones. 
The women not only superintend every domestic arrange¬ 
ment, but attend the culture of the corn, and the growth of 
tobacco. The latter plant is raised in small portions, merely as 
an article of individual luxury for their husbands ; and these 
gentlemen lose no opportunity of enjoying it in perfect selfish 
idleness. When not a-stir on plundering expeditions, or en¬ 
gaged in schemes of warfare, (for there are always some on the 
