caused the kinsmen of Edris to be put to death. Edris first settled in a mountain, between Fez and Mequinez, called Zaaron, where he soon gained the confidence of the Moors.  He preached the doctrine of Mahomet, and, by degrees, succeeded in establishing it throughout the country.  These people, fond of novelty, and extremely susceptible of fanaticism, readily embraced a faith so well suited to their manners and inclinations.  They elected him their chief, and invested him with supreme power; which he employed in reducing the Arab generals.  From that time, the characters of the Moors and Arabs gradually blended, so that in after-ages, among the generality of them, scarcely any distinction can be traced.

As it is foreign to my present purpose to carry you farther into the ancient history of this country, I shall proceed to give you tho particulars of my journey to this town.  I left Tangiers, escorted by a guard, consisting of a serjeant and six horsemen, accompanied by an interpreter, and my few servants.  We rode for several hours, alternately through gardens and woods:  the former full of fruit-trees; such as orange, lemon, fig, pomegranate, apple, pear, and cherry trees.  The scene became every moment more interesting.  As we advanced, the country assumed a variety almost indescribable.  The contrast was every where infinitely striking.  At one instant the eye was presented with fine corn-fields, meadows, and high hills; nay, mountains, cultivated to the very summits, are covered with immense flocks of sheep, and herds of cattle; while the vallies conveyed to the imagination an idea of the fertile plains of Arcadia; the simple manners of the Moors, who tend these flocks and herds, still further inducing one to believe them the happy, peaceful people, the poets feign the Arcadian swains to have been.  On the other hand are huge mountains, bleak and barren, inaccessible to man, and scarcely affording food to the straggling wild goats that venture to browse on them.

There is a degree of simplicity in the behaviour of the peasants, so widely different from these who inhabit the towns, that it is impossible to suppose them the same race of men.  From the great affinity between the manners and customs of these country Moors, and the Scenite Arabs, the inhabitants of Arabia Deserta, we may naturally infer that they must have derived those habits from the latter.

They reside in villages composed of tents to the number of forty or fifty, which they remove at pleasure; when the pasture fails in one valley, they strike their tents, and seek another, where they remain till the same necessity impels them to quit that in its turn.  This was precisely the custom of the Arabes Scenitae.  The vast plains of sand with which Arabia Deserta abounds, were occasionally interspersed with fertile spots, which appeared like little islands.  These we’re rendered extremely delightful by fountains, rivulets, palm-trees, and most excellent fruit.  The Arabs, with their flocks, encamped on some of them, and when they had consumed every thing there, they retired to others.  Their descendants, the present Bedoweens, continue the practice to this day.  The name given to this kind of village is the same as that of the Arabs just mentioned, which is Dow-war, or Hbyma.