Went to see the houses of the inhabitants: they were nearly all the same, the furniture consisting of a burnouse-loom, a couple of millstones, and a quantity of basins, plates, and dishes, hung upon the walls for effect, seldom being used; there were also some skins of grain. The beams across the rooms, which are very high, are hung with onions, dates, and pomegranates; the houses are nearly all of one story. Some of the women are pretty, with large long black eyes and lashes; they colour the lower lid black, which does not add to their beauty, though it shows the bewitching orb more fully and boldly. They were exceedingly dirty and ragged, wearing, nevertheless, a profusion of ear-rings, armlets, anclets, bracelets, and all sorts of lets, with a thousand talismanic charms hanging from their necks upon their ample bosoms, which latter, from the habit of not wearing stays, reach as low down as their waists. They wrap up the children in swaddling-clothes, and carry them behind their backs when they go out.
Two men were bastinadoed for stealing a horse, and not telling where they put him; every morning they were to be flogged until they divulged their hiding-place.
A man brought in about a foot of horse’s skin, on which was the Bey’s mark, for which he received another horse. This is always done when any animal dies belonging to the Beys, the man in whose hands the animal is, receiving a new one on producing the part of the skin marked. The Bey and his ministers and mamelukes amused themselves with shooting at a mark. The Bey made some good hits.
The Bey and his mamelukes also took diversion in spoiling the appearance of a very nice young horse; they daubed hieroglyphics upon his shoulders and loins, and dyed the back where the saddle is placed, and the three legs below the knee with henna, making the other leg look as white as possible. Another grey horse, a very fine one, was also cribbed. We may remark here, that there were very few fine horses to be met with, all the animals looking poor and miserable, whilst these few fine ones fell into the hands of the Bey. It is probable, however, that the Arabs kept their best and most beautiful horses out of the way, while the camp was moving among them.
The old Sheikh still continued in prison. The bastinadoes with which he had been treated were inflicted on his bare person, cold water being applied thereto, which made the punishment more severe. After receiving one hundred, he said he would shew his hiding-place; and some people being sent with him, dug a hole where he pointed out, but without coming to anything. This was done several times, but with the same effect. He was then locked up in chains till the following morning. Millions of dollars lie buried by the Arabs at this moment in different parts of Barbary, especially in Morocco, perhaps the half of which will never be found, the owners of them having died before they could point out their hoarded treasures to their


