Kuscasoe is, flour moistened with water, and granulated with the hand to the size of partridge-shot. It is then put into a steamer uncovered, under which fowls, or mutton, and vegetables, such as onions, and turnips, are put to boil: when the steam is seen to pass through the kuscasoe it is taken off and shook in a bason, to prevent the adhesion of the grains; and then put in the steamer again, and steamed a second time. When it is taken off, some butter, salt, pepper, and saffron, are mixed with it, and it is served up in a large bowl. The top is garnished with the fowl or mutton, and the onions and turnips. When the saffron has made it the colour of straw, it has received the proper quota. This is, when properly cooked, a very palatable and nutritious dish.
Hassua is gruel boiled, and then left over the fire two hours. It is made with barley not ground into flour, but into small particles the size of sparrow-shot. It is a very salubrious food for breakfast, insomuch that they have a proverb which intimates that physicians need never go to those countries wherein the inhabitants break their fast with hassua.
El Hasseeda is barley roasted in an earthen pan, then powdered in a mortar, and mixed with cold water, and drank. This is the travelling food of the country--of the Arab, the Moor, the Berebber, the Shelluh, and the Negro; and is universally used by travellers in crossing the Sahara: the Akkabas that proceed from Akka and Tatta to Timbuctoo, Houssa, and Wangara, are always provided with a sufficient quantity of this simple restorative to the hungry stomach.
The Woled Abbusebah, a whole Clan of Arabs,
banished from the Plains of Marocco.
This populous, powerful, and valiant kabyl, during the former part of the reign of the Sultan Seedi Muhamed ben Abdallah, father of the present Emperor Soliman, occupied the plains west of the city of Marocco (being an emigration from the Bedouin tribe of the same name in the Sahara); but their depredatory disposition made travelling through their territory unsafe; wherefore the Emperor, after endeavouring in vain to make an example of them, issued a decree that they should all to a man leave his dominions, and they were driven by his army out of their country to the south, and entered the Sahara. The whole kabyl was thus outlawed, so that they were plundered and killed as they passed through the plains of Fruga, Ait Musie, Haha, and Suse, by the natives of those countries respectively. Not half the number that emigrated, (which was some thousands,) reached the original clan in the Sahara.
The Koran, called also El Kateb el Aziz.
The word Koran conveys the same signification as Bible: it means "the reading" or "the book;"--kora, "to read; "el Kateb el Aziz, i.e. "the dear or beloved book," meaning thereby the Koran.
Arabian Music.
The Sultan Seedi Muhamed, after hearing the musical band of the Marquis de Vialli, ambassador from Venice, expressed his gratification at the music of the Italians, and laconically observed that it possessed more harmony than that of any other nation, excepting his own.