I sometimes suggested to the Moors that they would improve their fare by sending their slaves to collect haze, and making it into sangleh, but this hurt their pride: “It is food for the common people,” said they, “and for slaves; we do not condescend to eat it.” Those who have a little millet left from their stock save it for the return of the dry season, when milk becomes scarce.
The Moors have large herds of oxen and camels; and they have also a number of fine horses, of which they take great care; giving them milk when it is plentiful, morning and night. When a horseman arrives at a camp, he goes about inquiring for milk and for water for his beast.
The care of the camels is committed to the Laratines[23] or the zenagues, and very seldom to negro slaves. As soon as a camel is foaled, its legs are tied under its body, to habituate it from the first to the posture in which it is to receive its burthen. When it is old enough to carry a load, a month is sufficient to teach it to rise with its burthen, and to balance itself. When it is to be weaned, they thrust a splinter through its nose, and fasten some thorns to the splinter, that it may prick its mother whenever it comes near her, and she may prevent it from sucking. They also tie a cloth round the teats of the mother, and fasten it over her back. The black slaves attend on the bullocks, driving them to pasture at seven o’clock in the morning, and bringing them back at sun-set. The cows are not milked till ten o’clock at night, after the last prayer; those who took care of them in the day time performing the office. The wooden vessel which they use to milk into is never cleaned except by holding it over the fire for about ten minutes; by this method of purification, it contracts a smoky taste, which it imparts to the milk, and this renders it very unpleasant. The Moors let the calves suck, because they fancy that the cow would cease to give milk if they did not. A boy is employed to lead them out one after another, as soon as they are milked. The calf runs to its mother, and is suffered to suck for a few minutes; they then tie it to one of its mother’s legs, and she permits herself to be milked without perceiving the change. The calves are left for a short time with their mothers, and are then shut up again in the thorn enclosure, where they remain the rest of the night and all day.
The favourite female slaves of the princes receive the milk in calabashes, and distribute it again to their masters. Beauty amongst the Moors consists in enormous embonpoint; and the young girls are therefore obliged to drink milk to excess; the elder ones take a great quantity of their own accord, but the younger children are compelled by their parents, or by a slave whose office it is, to swallow their allowance. This poor creature commonly takes advantage of the “brief authority” that is granted her, to revenge herself by her cruelty for the tyranny of her masters. I have seen poor little girls crying and rolling on the ground, and even throwing up the milk which they had just drank; neither their cries nor their sufferings making any impression upon the cruel slave, who beat them, pinched them till they bled, and tormented them in a thousand ways, to force them to take the quantity of milk which she thought proper. If their food were heavier, such a system would have fatal consequences; but it is so far from hurting their constitutions, that they grow visibly stronger and fatter. At twelve years old they are enormous, but at twenty or twenty-two they lose their embonpoint; I never saw a woman of that age who was remarkably corpulent.
The largest women are reckoned the handsomest. The Moors have no taste for beauty of form or mind; on the contrary, what we consider a capital defect is an attraction with them; they admire women who have the two front teeth of the upper jaw projecting from the mouth; and ambitious mothers employ all possible means, to make their daughters’ teeth grow in that direction.
The men, as I have said, feed also on milk; but they drink less than the women. The slaves live upon cows’ milk, and in the season when milk is scarce, they are allowed a small portion of grain, about three quarters of a pound, without milk; at that season they eat only at 11 o’clock at night, when their masters are in bed. Such of the Moors as have young slaves ten or twelve years old, send them to the enclosure where the calves are, at milking time; and from every cow they let them drink a mouthful of milk; which is all the food they receive, so that they suffer much from hunger.
When supper is over, the milk which is left is put in a leather bag, called soucou, to curdle. In the morning, after the cows are milked, they breakfast as they supped over-night, that is to say upon milk; the difference being that they have less of it, because the calves are allowed to suck in the morning.
At noon, a slave churns the milk to make butter; filling the soucou which holds it with wind, and then shaking it on her lap for a quarter of an hour. When the butter is made, they work it into little balls of the size of a walnut, and add three parts water to the milk, which is set by in calabashes to be distributed at dinner. The balls are put into the portion destined for the women, and they swallow them in drinking; this beverage of milk and water is called cheni.
The Moors are naturally filthy; and they seem to chuse the dirtiest slave on purpose, to make the butter and apportion the cheni. I have seen the women making the balls of butter with their hands wipe their fingers on their hair, and then plunge them again into the calabash containing the butter and milk. They disgusted me to such a degree by their uncleanly ways, that I have often suffered hunger, rather than accept a drink which they had prepared so filthily.
If the slaves are ill treated by the hassanes, those who belong to the marabouts fare still worse. I have mentioned that the hassanes allow them to gather haze for themselves, which tends much to alleviate their condition; the marabouts, on the other hand, make them collect it for them, and give them a very small quantity of it, and that without milk.