RECAPITULATION.
| Tent and furniture, etc | 741 douros. |
| Wearing apparel of both sexes | 815 |
| Arms | 219 |
| Harness and Accoutrements | 376 |
| Horses, cattle, etc. | 20,988 |
| Deposits | 1,100 |
| Loans, etc. | 2,200 |
| House | 60 |
| -------- | |
| Total | 26,499 douros.[[93]] |
| -------- |
An Arab who possesses such a fortune does no work. He attends the meetings and assemblies of the djemâa, hunts, rides about, looks at his flocks, and prays. His only occupations are political, warlike, and religious. A poor Arab equally disdains manual labour. He is not forced to it, for there is no other kind of cultivation than that of date-trees, which is left to the inhabitants of the kuesours. Negroes are numerous and cost very little, and, with the assistance of a few white servants, suffice for the services which the free men refuse to perform for themselves. Some of the latter, however, mend their sacks and harness, but they form the exception. There are likewise farriers, but these, in fact, are artists—the privileges that are accorded to them, of which I have already had occasion to speak, constituting them a sort of special corporation. The armourers are, in truth, mere workmen who repair, but cannot manufacture, arms. The Arabs of the desert are for the most part worse armed than those of the Tell, though their chiefs yield to none in pomp and luxury. This is easily accounted for. As they obtain their arms from Tunis by way of Tougourt, or from Morocco through the Gourara country, the great distance to be traversed prevents them from getting their arms repaired as soon as they need repairs, and the unskilfulness of those who undertake this business will not permit them to do their work very efficiently. Many of the Saharenes are still armed with lances, which they seldom use except when pursuing runaways. Their spears consist of a shaft of wood six feet long, with a flat double-edged head of iron, and are usually carried in a bandolier.
The Arab of the Sahara is very proud of his mode of life, which is not only exempt from the monotonous toil to which the inhabitant of the Tell is subject, but is full of action and excitement, of variety and incident. If beards grow white at an early age in the desert, it is not only because of heat, fatigue, journeys, and combats, but much more from care, anxiety, and grief. He alone does not turn gray who "has a large heart, is resigned, and can say: It is the will of Allah!" This pride in their country and in their peculiar mode of existence amounts to positive contempt for the Tell and its inhabitants. What the dweller in the desert chiefly plumes himself upon is his independence; for in his country the lands are wide and there is no Sultan. The chief of the tribe administers and renders justice, a task of no great difficulty where every delinquency has been provided for and its appropriate penalty fixed beforehand. Whoever steals a sheep, pays a fine of ten boudjous. Whoever enters a tent to see his neighbour's wife, forfeits ten ewes. Whoever takes life, must lose his own; or, if he makes his escape, all that belongs to him is confiscated, save only his tent, which is given up to his wife and children. The fines are set apart by the djemâa for defraying the expenses of travellers and marabouts, and of presents to strangers. Thefts within the tribe are severely punished. If committed on another tribe, they are looked over, and, if a hostile tribe be the sufferers, are even encouraged.
The women attend to the cooking, and weave various kinds of carpets, sacks, stuff for tents, horse-cloths, camel-packs, and nose-bags, while the negresses fetch wood and water. Burnouses, haïks, and kabaya are made in the kuesours. If rich, an Arab is always generous; and rich or poor, he is sure to be hospitable and charitable. He seldom lends his horse, but would regard it as an insult if the animal were sent back to him. For every present he receives he makes a return of greater value. Some men are quoted as never having refused anything. It is a common saying: "He who applies to a noble never comes back empty-handed." It is needless to speak of alms. Every one knows that next to a holy war, and on the same line with going on a pilgrimage, alms-giving is the act of all others the most pleasing to Allah. If an Arab is sitting down to a meal, and a mendicant, who happens to be passing, exclaims: Mtâ rebi ia el moumenin—"of what belongs to Allah, O Believer!"— he shares his repast with him if there be enough for two, or else abandons it to him entirely.
A stranger presenting himself before a douar, stands some little way off, and pronounces these words: Dif rebi—"a guest sent by Allah." The effect is magical. Whatever may be his condition of life, they throw themselves on him, tear him from one another, and hold his stirrup while he alights. The servants lead away his horse, about whom, if he be a man of good breeding, he will not give himself any further trouble. He himself is almost dragged into a tent, and whatever is ready to hand is set before him, until a banquet can be prepared. Nor is less attention shown to a traveller on foot. The master of the tent keeps his guest company throughout the whole of the day, and only leaves him to make way for sleep. No indiscreet questions are ever asked, such as: Whence comest thou? Who art thou? Whither goest thou? There is no instance of any evil having ever befallen a stranger thus received as a guest, even though he were a mortal enemy. At his departure, the master of the tent will say to him: "Follow thy good fortune;" and after the guest has fairly taken his departure, his entertainer is no longer answerable for anything. In retiring from the hospitable repast, if the stranger pass before a douar and be seen, he is obliged again to accept the invitations that are pressed upon him.
A certain class of men live entirely on alms and hospitality. These are the dervishes. Absorbed in prayer, these pious individuals are the object of universal veneration. "Beware of offering them an insult, for Allah will punish you." A request made by them is never refused. By the side of these mendicant monks, who so exactly reproduce a particular feature of the Middle Ages, it seems appropriate to place the tolbas, or learned men, and the "wise women," who fill in the Sahara the part that belonged in the olden times to the magicians, alchemists, and sorcerers, and those other impostors celebrated by Tasso and Ariosto, and ridiculed by Cervantes. It is to these tolbas and aged dames that both men and women apply for a philter, composed of various herbs prepared with solemn invocations and awesome or grotesque ceremonies, which is mixed with the food of the swain or damsel whose love is longed for. It is they, again, who write magic words and the name of the hated one on a piece of paper and a dead man's bone taken from a cemetery, and then bury together the paper and the bone, which will soon be joined by the enemy, "with his belly full of worms." They will teach you, too, the formula you must pronounce while closing your knife, in order to sever the life of an odious rival; and that which you must throw into the furnace over which is being cooked the food of the family you would poison; and that which you must write on a copper plate, or flattened ball, to be flung into the stream whither repairs to drink the woman on whom you would avenge yourself—seized with a dysentery as rapid as the river, she will die, if she do not yield herself up to you. To effect her cure, the first sorcery must be counteracted by a second.
After these come the long train of spectres, the phantoms of those who have died a violent death. If one of them pursue you, lose no time in exclaiming: "Return to thy hole. Thou canst not frighten me. I feared thee not when thou didst carry arms." It will follow you yet a little, but will soon desist. If you are seized with terror and attempt to flee, you will hear in the air the clashing of arms, and a horse in full pursuit behind, with yells and horrible uproar, until you drop exhausted by fatigue.
In Morocco, on the banks of the Ouad Noun, about twenty days march westward of Souss, the most famous sorcerers are found. There is there a whole school of alchemists and necromancers, and of occult sciences, besides a talking mountain, and many others marvels of the magical world. The common people alone are debased to these superstitions. The wealthy, the marabouts, the tolbas of the zaouïa; and the sheurfaa, scrupulously follow the precepts of religion and read the sacred books; but the vulgar herd are plunged in ignorance, and barely know two or three prayers and the confession of faith. They likewise pray very rarely, and only perform their ablutions when they find water. The chiefs do their utmost to dispel this ignorance. Even on a journey they take care that the moudden never fail to proclaim the hour of prayer, and they establish schools in their tents. But a life of fatigue, wandering, and migration, soon causes the Arabs to forget the lessons of their childhood. Men of all ranks, however, take pleasure in having them recalled to mind in the garb of poesy by the meddah, or religious bards, who go about at festivals singing the praises of Allah, and the saints, and the holy war, accompanying themselves the while with flute and tambourine. These bards are rewarded with numerous presents.