The Moors plunder all travellers except those who are protected by the sacred rites of hospitality. Even the law authorizes theft in the night time; and on this account the women are very careful to convey into the tents every article of property before dark.
One of the greatest pleasures of Moorish women consists in visiting each other. Politeness requires that the guest should dress the provisions, make the butter, and cook the dinner, while her hostess entertains her with details of family affairs, and all the scandal and gossip of the tribe. On these occasions an unusual quantity of food is provided, and the master invites his neighbors to the repast. The more cooking the visiter has to do, the more she feels honored.
At funerals, the women howl and lament; a practice they continue at intervals, from the moment of decease till they return from the grave where their relative or friend has been deposited.
The Moors continually go out on predatory excursions to seize the negroes for slaves, to supply the insatiable market produced by Christian pride and avarice. Sometimes they lie in ambush round a village for days together, and when the helpless women and children come to the springs to get water, they seize them and carry them off. They place their captives behind them on horseback, holding one of their fingers between their teeth, ready to bite it off, if they give the least alarm.
Sometimes they set fire to a village at midnight, and seize the poor wretches that try to escape from the flames. The negroes have strong local attachments, and on such occasions the most agonizing scenes frequently occur.
The wives of wealthy Moorish chiefs have black female slaves, to whom they transfer all the toil, while they loll upon mats, smoking their pipes all day long. The poor slaves, who are treated with the utmost haughtiness and rigor, try to anticipate the slightest wish of their indolent mistresses. Sometimes they carry their attention so far, as to pick up every stone or stick, that might annoy the feet of these walking flesh mountains.
If a Moor has a son by any of his black slaves, the girl is much better treated than before; her child shares equal privileges with the other children, and is acknowledged as a free fellow-citizen like themselves. In this respect Christian slave-owners might learn a useful lesson from the ignorant Moslem.
The dwellings of negroes are generally huts made of the branches of trees and thatched with palmetto. The king’s residence usually consists of a number of these huts surrounded by a clay wall. Each wife has a separate building, sometimes divided from the apartments of the men by a slight bamboo fence. Some of the African huts are very prettily painted, or stained, and the walls adorned with curious straw work. The Ashantees display a considerable degree of taste and even elegance in their architecture. Their houses and door-posts are elaborately carved with representations of warlike processions, and serpents seizing their prey.
The various African tribes differ as much in personal appearance as the inhabitants of the numerous Asiatic kingdoms. The Pulahs, or Fulahs, of Bondu, between the Senegal and Gambia, are copper-colored, and have long hair. Some of them are black, though less so than many tribes. Their women are slender and graceful, with languishing eyes, and soft voices. The Wolofs are tall and well-shaped, with prominent and rather aquiline noses, lips not very thick, black complexions, uncommonly sweet voices, and a very frank, mild expression of countenance. This tribe is considered the handsomest in Africa. A people called Laobehs, whose manners bear a great resemblance to those of the gypsies, are intermixed with the Wolofs, but have no fixed residence. They select some well-wooded spot, where they fell a few trees, form huts with the branches, and work up the trunks into mortars, and other wooden vessels. The women pretend to tell fortunes; and though short, ugly, and sluttish, they are much sought as wives, on account of a superstition that such connections bring good luck. The Laobehs possess no animals but asses, on which they travel during their frequent peregrinations. Groups of these men and women may often be seen squatting round a fire, smoking and talking.