About four o’clock, Ali, with six of his courtiers, came riding to my hut, and told me to follow them.  I readily complied.  But here a new difficulty occurred.  The Moors, accustomed to a loose and easy dress, could not reconcile themselves to the appearance of my nankeen breeches, which they said were not only inelegant, but, on account of their tightness, very indecent; and as this was a visit to ladies, Ali ordered my boy to bring out the loose cloak which I had always worn since my arrival at Benowm, and told me to wrap it close round me.  We visited the tents of four different ladies, at every one of which I was presented with a bowl of milk and water.  All these ladies were remarkably corpulent, which is considered here as the highest mark of beauty.  They were very inquisitive, and examined my hair and skin with great attention, but affected to consider me as a sort of inferior being to themselves, and would knit their brows, and seem to shudder when they looked at the whiteness of my skin.

The Moors are certainly very good horsemen.  They ride without fear--their saddles being high before and behind, afford them a very secure seat; and if they chance to fall, the whole country is so soft and sandy that they are very seldom hurt.  Their greatest pride, and one of their principal amusements, is to put the horse to its full speed, and then stop him with a sudden jerk, so as frequently to bring him down upon his haunches.  Ali always rode upon a milk-white horse, with its tail dyed red.  He never walked, unless when he went to say his prayers; and even in the night two or three horses were always kept ready saddled at a little distance from his own tent.  The Moors set a very high value upon their horses; for it is by their superior fleetness that they are enabled to make so many predatory excursions into the negro countries.  They feed them three or four times a day, and generally give them a large quantity of sweet milk in the evening, which the horses appear to relish very much.

April 3.—­This forenoon, a child, which had been some time sickly, died in the next tent; and the mother and relations immediately began the death-howl.  They were joined by a number of female visitors, who came on purpose to assist at this melancholy concert.  I had no opportunity of seeing the burial, which is generally performed secretly, in the dusk of the evening, and frequently at only a few yards’ distance from the tent.  Over the grave they plant one particular shrub, and no stranger is allowed to pluck a leaf, or even to touch it—­so great a veneration have they for the dead.

April 7.—­About four o’clock in the afternoon a whirlwind passed through the camp with such violence that it overturned three tents, and blew down one side of my hut.  These whirlwinds come from the Great Desert, and at this season of the year are so common that I have seen five or six of them at one time.  They carry up quantities of sand to an amazing height, which resemble, at a distance, so many moving pillars of smoke.