DOMESTIC SERPENTS OF MAROCCO.
Every house in Marocco has, or ought to have, a domestic serpent: I say ought to have, because those that have not one, seek to have this inmate, by treating it hospitably whenever one appears; they leave out food for it to eat during the night, which gradually domiciliates this reptile. These serpents are reported to be extremely sagacious, and very susceptible. The superstition of these people is extraordinary; for rather than offend these serpents, they will suffer their women to be exposed during sleep to their performing the office of an infant. They are considered, in a house, emblematical of good, or prosperity, as their absence is ominous of evil. They are not often visible; but I have seen them passing over the beams of the roof of the apartments. A friend of mine was just retired to bed at Marocco, when he heard a noise in the room, like something crawling over his head, he arose, looked about the room, and discovered one of these reptiles about four feet long, of a dark colour, he pricked it with his sword, and killed it, then returned to bed. In the morning he called to him the master of the house where he was a guest, and telling him he had attacked the serpent, the Jew was chagrined, and expostulated with him, for the injury he had done him: apprehensive that evil would visit him, he intimated to his guest, that he hoped he would leave his house, as he feared the malignity of the serpent; and he was not reconciled until my friend discovered to him that he had actually killed the reptile.
MANUFACTURES OF FAS.
Superior Manufacture of Gold-thread.--Imitation of precious Stones.--Manufactory of Gun-barrels in Suse.--Silver-mine.
The manufactures of West Barbary, are of various kinds. They excel, in the city of Fas, in the manufacture of woollens, cottons, silks, and gold-thread. The wool and cotton are made into hayks, which are pieces of cloth five feet wide, and about three and a half, or four yards long, used to throw loosely over the dress, when they go out into the external air: it resembles the Roman toga, and when tastefully adjusted, gives an elegance to the Moorish costume. These hayks are manufactured in most of the private families of Fas; the women employ themselves about them, and sell them to the merchants. They are sometimes made of cotton mixed with silk, and also altogether of silk. They make also pieces of silk of various bright colours, called bulawan; the sky-blue, dark-blue, scarlet, and yellow, are vivid colours, produced by their mode of dying the silk before it is manufactured. They manufacture their silks from Bengal raw silk, which they call emfitla. The bulawan is striped, or chequered, pink, blue, yellow, scarlet, and green: it resembles what is called, in England, Persian, but it is much stronger, and more [156] durable, though equally light. The silk sashes, called hazam, are made in large quantities, and are deserving of imitation in Europe; they are very substantial, but of the same superior colours with the bulawan. They are made generally half a yard wide, and three yards long: these sell at Fas, from two to fifty dollars each. The superior kind made for the ladies of the horam [157], or emperor's seraglio, for the ladies of the bashaws, and for those of the great and opulent, are intermixed with a beautiful gold-thread, much superior to any that is manufactured in Europe, insomuch, that the gold-thread imported from Leghorn and Marseilles is used only in such hazams as are made for exportation to Sudan, Draha, or Bled-el-Jereed, but those made for the great and opulent, for home consumption, are manufactured with the gold thread of the Fas manufacture. Whether these expert artificers learned the mystery of gold beating, and gold wire drawing, by which they obtain gold-thread, from the Egyptians, I am not competent to say; but they say they derived it in ancient times from the Arabs, as well as the art of cutting, polishing, and setting precious stones. They make a composition in imitation of amber, which cannot, by the keenest eye, be distinguished from the natural amber, the latter, however, by [158] friction attracts cotton, but the manufactured amber does not; this is the only criterion by which they ascertain the true from the false amber. They also compose artificial stones with equal sagacity; the topaz, the emerald, and the ruby they imitate to perfection. The wool with which they make shawls almost equal in appearance to those of Kashmere, is procured from the sheep of the province of Tedla, and is finer than the Spanish Merino. They might manufacture shawls of goats' hair, equal to those of Kashmere, from the goats of the eastern declivity of the Atlas, whose hair is like silk: these goats are called (el maize Felelley,) i.e. Tafilelt goats. [159] There can be no doubt, if our intercourse with Marocco had not been impeded by a general ignorance of the language of that country, that we might long since have received from the manufacturers of Fas, shawls of Tafilelt goat-hair, equal to the finest of the Kashmere manufacture. There is a very extensive manufactory of red woollen caps at Fas, the contexture of which is well deserving investigation. There is also a manufactory of gun locks and barrels; the former appear to have reached the acmé of the art, the latter are not so good as those which they procure from Europe: so that a Spanish or an English barrel, and a Fas lock, is considered a complete gun. Such articles of manufacture as require a complication of machinery and power to produce they import from Europe, except only when the market is bare, and then necessity compels them to attempt their construction. The (hayk Filelly,) i.e. Tafilelt hayk, is a fine elegant woollen cloth, thin as a muslin. The Emperor Seedi Muhamed ben Abdallah patronised this manufacture of his native country, and never wore any other. The art of manufacturing leather is carried to great perfection at Mequinas: shoes of the thinnest leather are there made impervious to water. The manufactures at Marocco and Terodant are similar to those of Fas, with the exception of that of gold-thread, and the cutting and polishing of precious stones. The preparation of leather at Marocco surpasses any thing known in Europe: lion and tiger skins they prepare white as snow, and soft as silk. There are two plants that grow in the Atlas mountains, the leaves of which they use in the manufacture of leather; they are called tizra, and tasaya. Whether these render the leather impervious, I am not competent to say; every inquiry that I have made at Marocco respecting this beautiful manufacture, has been unsatisfactory. I have always found the manufacturers very guarded, and extremely jealous; but I have often thought that two or three of our leather manufacturers, well versed in their art, and withal of penetrating minds, might contrive to extract the secret from them. In the mountains of Idaultit, in Lower Suse, they have iron-mines, and they make gun-barrels and gun-locks equal to what are made at Fas. The temptations to agriculture, however, are such, that sufficient only for the consumption of their own kabyl are manufactured; which is done rather from a principle of self-defense, and from the amor patriæ, than with a view to gain. The silver from the mines of Elala, comes to the Santa Cruz market pure, and in round lumps, weighing about two ounces each. I have bought it for its weight in Spanish dollars; but it is generally taken to the Mint for sale. Ores of gold from the mines of South Barbary, and silver dust from the bed of the river at Messa, collected personally by me, I sent to England to be assayed: the person who got them assayed, reported, that the metal yielded was scarcely sufficient to pay the charges of assaying; so that the speculation was abandoned.
Footnote 156:[ (return) ] The spirit of avarice does not sufficiently prevail to induce the manufacturer to make imperfect articles for the purpose of sale only. Moreover, they are restrained from deception by an officer, who inspects the quality of manufactures, and does not suffer an imperfect article to be sold.
Footnote 157:[ (return) ] This word is called by Europeans haram or seraglio; but haram thus applied, is a barbarism: it signifies vicious. Horam is the correct pronunciation: it signifies a place of safety, that admits of no intrusion.
Footnote 158:[ (return) ] Thales, the chief of the seven wise men of Greece, detected the existence of electricity in amber about 600 years before the Christian era. He was the first who observed attraction to be the distinguishing property of amber; and he was so forcibly struck with this singular discovery, that he was almost led to suppose that it possessed animation. The term electricity is derived from the Greek word [Greek: ηλεκτρον], amber. See Remarks on Electricity and Galvanism, by M. La Beaume, p. 29.