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races; they do not hide themselves aftrology into repute, and this quickly from Europeans, but retire very quick- engendered the arts of magic and dily on the appearance of a Moor. Befides the imperial cities of Morocco and Miquenez, that of Fez is one of the chief, and fhould take place of the other two, not only on account of its antiquity, but becaufe it gave its, name to the firft monarchy of Africa after the Moors had embraced Mahometanifm. It is alfo the only city in the empire which was ever diftinguifhed by a tafte for the fciences, and for the industry of its inhabitants.

This city was built in the end of the eighth century, by Edris, a defcendant of Mahomet and of Ali, whofe father, in order to avoid the profcriptions of the Calif Abdallah, retired to the extremity of Africa, and was proclaimed Sovereign by the Moors. Sidy Edris, having fucceeded to the throne of his father, built the city of Fez in the year 793. He caufed a mofque to be erected, in which his body was interred, and the city ever afterwards became an afylum for the Moors, and a place of devotion. In the first moments of fervour, which a new worship infpires, another mofque was built called Carubin, which is perhaps one of the largest and most beautiful edifices in Africa. Several others were fuccef fively built, befides colleges and hof pitals; and the city was held in fuch veneration, that, when the pilgrimage to Mecca was interrupted in the fourth century of the Hegira, the western Mahometans fubftituted that of Fez in its ftead, while the eastern people went to Jerufalem.

When the Arabs had overfpread Afia, Africa, and Europe, they brought to Fez the little knowledge they had acquired in the sciences and arts; and that capital conjoined, with the schools of religion, academies where philofophy was taught, together with medicine and aftronomy. This laft gradually degenerated, ignorance brought

Fez foon became the common refort of all Africa; the Mahometans went thither for the purposes of devotion; the affluence of ftrangers introduced a tafte for pleasure; libertinifm quickly followed; and, as its progrefs is moft rapid in warm countries, Fez, which had been the nurse of sciences and arts, became a harbour for every kind of vice. The public baths, which health, cleanlinefs, and custom, had rendered neceflary, and which were every where refpected as facred places, became fcenes of debauchery; where men introduced themselves in the habit of women; youths, in the fame difguife, with a distaff in their hands, walked the streets at funfet in order to entice ftrangers to their inns, which were lefs a place of repofe than a convenience for prostitution.

The ufurpers who difputed the kingdom of Fez after the fixteenth century overlooked these abuses, and contented themfelves with fubjecting the mafters of the inns to furnish a certain number of cooks for the army. It is to this laxity of difcipline that Fez owed its firft fplendour. As the inhabitants are beautiful, the Africans flocked thither in crowds; the laws were overturned, morals despised, and vice itfelf turned into an engine of pclitical refource. The fame fpirit, the fame inclinations, the fame depravity ftill exist in the hearts of all the Moors; but libertinifm is not now encouraged; it wears there, as in other places, the mafk of hypocrify, and darcs not venture to fhew itself in the face of day.

The Mahometans of Andalufia, thofe of Granada and Cordoua, migrated to Fez during the different revolutions that agitated Spain, they carried with them new cuftoms and new arts, and perhaps fome flight degree of civilization. The Spanish Moors carried from Cordoua to Fez D 2

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the art of staining goat and sheep skins with a red colour, which were then called Cordoua leather, and now Morocco leather, from that city where the art is lefs perfect. They manufacture gauzes at Fez, filk ftuffs, and girdles elegantly embroidered with gold and filk, which fhew how far their ingenuity might be carried if induftry were more encouraged.

There is ftill fome tafte for ftudy preferved at Fez, and the Arabic language is fpoken there in greater purity than in any other part of the empire. The rich Moors fend their children to the schools at Fez, where they are better inftructed than they could be elsewhere.

Leo Africanus, in the fixteenth century, gave a magnificent defcription of this city, from which most of thofe that have been afterwards made are copied but its fituation, its fchools, and the industry and great urbanity of its inhabitants, are the only circumstances that give it any preference to the other cities of the empire. There are fome pretty convenient inns here confifting of two or three ftories. The houses have no elegance externally the streets are ill paved, and fo ftrait that two perfons riding abreaft can hardly pafs. The fhops are like ftalls, and have no more room in them than is fufficient to serve for the owner, who is always feated with his wares around him, which he fhews to the paffengers. But though the Moors of Fez are more civilized than the reft, they are vain, fuperftitious, and intolerant; and an order must be obtained from the Emperor

before a Chriftian, or a Jew, can be allowed to enter the city.

The fituation of Fez is exceedingly fingular: it lies in the bottom of a valley furrounded by little hills in the shape of a funnel; the declivities are divided into gardens planted with tall trees, orange fhrubs, and all forts of fruit trees; a river meanders along the declivity and turns a number of mills, which difperfe the water abundantly to all the gardens, and almost to every houfe. The defcent to the city, which ftands in the centre, is long, and the road lies through thefe gardens, which it traverses in a ferpentine direction.

The gardens, feen from the city, form a moft delightful amphitheatre. Formerly each garden had a house in which the inhabitants spent the Summer. Thefe houfes were deftroyed in the times of the civil wars, and in the revolutions to which Fez has been fubject, and few individuals have reftored them. The fituation of Fez, however, cannot be healthful; moist vapours fill the air in Sunimer, and fevers are exceedingly common.

On the heighth above Fez, in a plain fufceptible of rich cultivation, ftands New Fez, finely fituated, and enjoying excellent air, containing fome old palaces, in which the children of the Emperor live, and where he fometimes refides himself; but in general he prefers a house built by his father, Muley Abdallah, about half a league from this place. New Fez is inhabited by fome Moorish families; but by a greater number of Jews.

Of the Inhabitants of the Empire of Morocco, and their Manners and Cuftoms*.

TH

HE fubjects of the empire of Morocco may be divided into two principal claffes, the Brebes and the Moors.

The etymology of the name, and the origin of the people of the first clafs, are equally unknown. Like the Moors, at the time of the invafion by From the fame.

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the Arabs, they may have adopted the Mahometan religion, which is confonant to their manners and principal ufages, but they are an ignorant people, and obferve none of the precepts of that religion but the averfion it enjoins againit other modes of worship. Mahometanifm has not obliterated the cuftoms and ancient prejudices of thefe people, for the eat the wild boar, and in places where there are vineyards, they drink wine, provided, fay they, that it is of our own making. In or der to preferve it in the fouthern parts of Mount Atlas, they put it in earthen veffels, and in barrels made of the hollowed trunk of a tree, the upper end of which is done over with pitch; and these are depofited in cellars, or even in water. In the northern province of Rif they boil it a little, which renders it lefs apt to inebriate, and perhaps they think that in this ftate they may reconcile the ufc of it with the fpirit of their law.

The Brebes are confined to the mountains, and preferve great animofity against the Moors, whom they confound with the Arabs, and confider as ufurpers. They thus contract in their retreats a ferocity of mind, and a strength of body, which makes them more fit for war, and every kind of labour, than the Moors of the Plain in general are. The independence they boast of gives even a greater degree of expreflion to their countenance. The prejudices of their religion make them fubmit to the autho, rity of the Emperors of Morocco, but they throw off the yoke at their pleafure, and retire into the mountains, where it is difficult to attack or overcome them.

The Brebes have a language of their own; they form no alliances out of their own tribes, fome of which are very powerful, and the Emperor keeps the children of the chiefs as hoftages for their fidelity.

They have no diftinguishing drefs; they all, like the Moors, go cloathed

in woollen, and though they inhabit the mountains, they rarely wear any thing on their heads. The men, as well as the women, have very fine teeth, and are endowed with a degree of vigour which diftinguishes them from other tribes. The hunting of the lion and the tiger is their common employment, and the women make their children wear the claw of a tiger, or a piece of lions fkin, on their head, believing that by this they will acquire courage and strength; it is, no doubt, from the fame fuperiti tion that the young women make their hufbands wear the fame as a fort of amulets.

I fhall now describe the Moors, the greater part of whom are difperfed over the plains, the reft occupy the

towns.

The Moors of the Plain live in tents, and that they may allow their ground a year's reft, they annually change the place of their encampments, and go in fearch of fresh pafturage; but they cannot take this step without acquainting their governor. Like the ancient Arabs, they are entirely devoted to a paftoral life; their encampments, which they call Douhars, are composed of feveral tents, and form a crefcent; or they are ranged in two parallel lines, and their flocks, when they return from pafture, occupy the centre. The entrance of the doubar is fometimes fhut with faggots of thorns, and the only guard is a number of dogs, that bark inceffantly at the approach of a stranger. Each douhar has a chief, fubordinate to an officer of the highest rank, who has under his adminiftration a number of camps, and several of thefe fubordinate divifions are united under the government of a Bacha, who has often a thousand douhars in his department.

The tents of the Moors, viewed in front, are of a conical figure; they are from eight to ten feet high, and from twenty to twenty-five feet long: like

thofe

thofe of high antiquity, they refemble a boat reverfed. They are made of cloth compofed of goats and camels hair, and the leaves of the wild palm, by which they are rendered impervious to water; but at a distance, their black colour gives them a very difagreeable look.

The Moors when encamped, live in the greatest fimplicity, and exhibit a faithful picture of the inhabitants of the earth in the firft ages of the world. The nature of their education, the temperature of the climate, and the rigour of the government, diminish the wants of the people, who find in their plains, in the milk and wool of their flocks, every thing neceffary for food and cloathing. Polygamy is allowed among them; a luxury fo far from being injurious to a people who have few wants, that it is a great convenience in the economy of thofe focieties, because the women are intrufted with the whole care of the domeftic management. In their half-clofed tents, they are employed in milking the cows for daily ufe; and when the milk abounds, in making butter, in picking their corn, their barley, and pulfe, and grinding their meal, which they do daily in a mill compofed of two ftones about eighteen inches in diameter, the uppermost having a han dle, and turning on an axis fixed in the under one: they make bread like wife every day, which they bake between two earthen plates, and often upon the ground after it has been heated by fire. Their ordinary food is the coofcoofoo; this is a palte made with their meal in the form of small grains, like Italian pafte; this coofcoofoo is dreft in the vapour of boiling soup, in a hollow difh perforated with many fmall holes in the bottom, and the difh is inclofed in a kettle where meat is boiled; the coofcoofoo, which is in the hollow difh, grows gradually foft by the vapour of the broth, with which it is from time to time moiftened. This fimple food is

very nourishing, and even agreeable when one has got the better of the prejudices which every nation entertains for its own cuftoms. The common people eat it with milk or butter indifferently; but those of higher rank, fuch as the governors of provinces and lieutenants, who live in the centre of the encampments, add to it fome fucculent broth, made with a mixture of mutton, poultry, pigeons, or hedgehogs, and then pour on it a fufficient quantity of fresh butter. Thefe officers receive ftrangers in their tents with the fame cordiality that Jacob and La ban fhewed to their guests. Upon their arrival a fheep is killed and immediately dreffed; if they are not provided with a fpit, they instantly make one of wood, and this mutton roaited at a brifk fire, and ferved up in a wooden dish, has a very delicate colour and tafte. I have often been prefent at fuch feafts, and, while I refpected the fimplicity of them, I have fancied my. felt tranfported by enchantment into the tent of a patriarch.

The women in their tents likewife prepare the wool, fpin it, and weave it into cloth on looms fufpended the whole length of the tent. Each piece is about five ells long, and one and an half broad; it is neither dreffed nor dyed, and it has no feam; they wafh it when it is dirty, and as it is the only habit of the Moors, they wear it night and day. It is called Haique, and is the true model of the ancient draperies.

The Moors of the Plain wear nothing but their woollen stuffs; they have neither thirts nor drawers. Linen among thefe people is a luxury known only to thofe of the court or the city. The whole wardrobe of a Moor in eafy circumftances confists in a haique for Winter, another for Summer, a red cape, a hood, and a pair of flippers. The common people, both in the country and in towns, wear a kind of tunick of woollen cloth, white, grey, or ftriped, which reaches to the

middle of the leg, with great fleeves and a hood; it refembles the habit of the Carthufians.

The women's drefs in the country is likewife confined to a haique which covers the neck and the shoulders, and is faftened with a filver clafp. The ornaments they are fondest of are ear-rings, which are either in the form of rings, or crefcents, made of filver, bracelets and rings for the fmall of the leg; they wear thefe trinkets at their most ordinary occupations; lefs out of vanity than because they are unacquainted with the ufe of cafkets or cabinets for keeping them. They alfo wear necklaces made of coloured glafs beads, or cloves ftrung on a cord of filk.

Befides thefe ornaments, the women, to add to their beauty, imprint on their face, their neck, their breaft, and on almost every part of their body, reprefentations of flowers and other figures. The impreffions are made with a piece of wood ftuck full of needles, with the points of which they gently puncture the fkin, and then lay it over with a blue-coloured fubftance, or gun-powder pulverized, and the marks never wear out. This cuftom, which is very ancient, and which has been practifed by a variety of nations, in Turkey, over all Afia, in the fouthern parts of Europe, and perhaps over the whole globe, is, however, not general among the Moorish tribes.

The Moors confider their wives lefs in the light of companions than in that of flaves deftined to labour. Except in the bufinefs of tillage, they are employed in every fervite operation hay, to the shame of humanity, it must be owned, that in fome of the poorer quarters a woman is often feen yoked in a plough along with a mule, an afs, or fome other animal. When the Moors remove their douhars, all the men feat themselves in a circle on the ground, and, with their elbows refting on their knees, pafs the time in converfation, while the women ftrike the

tents, fold them up into bundles, and place them on the backs of their camels or oxen. The old women are then each loaded with a parcel, and the young carry the children on their fhoulders fufpended in a cloth girt round their bodies. In the more fouthern parts, the women are likewife employed in the care of the horses, in faddling and bridling them; the husband, who in these climates is always a defpot, iffues his orders, and feems only made to be obeyed.

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The women travel without being veiled; they are accordingly fun-burnt, and have no pretenfions to beauty. There are, however, fome quarters where they put on a little rouge: they every where ftain their hair, their feet, and the ends of their fingers, wish an herb called henna, which gives them a deep fafron colour, a cuftom that must be very ancient among the peaple of Afia. Abu Becre dyed his eye-brows and beard with the fame colour, and many of his fuccessors imitated him. The custom may have originally been a religious ceremony, which the women have turned into an ornament; but it is more probable that the custom of painting the beard and hair, and that of fhaving the head and ufing depilatories in other parts of the body, has been at firft employed from motives of cleanlinefs in warm countries.

The marriage-ceremonies of the Moors that live in tents pretty much refemble thofe of the fame people that live in the citics. In the douhars they are generally most brilliant and gay; the ftrangers that pafs along are invited, and made to contribute to the feaft; but this is done more from politencfs, than from any mercenary mu tive.

The tribes of the Plain generally avoid mixing by marriage with one another; the prejudices that divide thefe people are commonly perpetuated; or, if they are partially healed, they never fail to revive, upon trif

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