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 3d. 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 7th. 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.
The scorching heat of the sun, upon a dry and sandy country, makes the
air insufferably hot.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 159 of 546
Words from 42944 to 43208
of 148366
