ABSTRACT
Mooress, and makes lively and apposite remarks on other things, as well as religion. The Maraboutess may be twenty-five or thirty years of age, not good-looking, neither disagreeable. A dark complexion, a prominent aquiline nose, a fine gazelle-like eye, and hard-looking features are overshadowed with a triste and melancholy expression, from the circumstance of her being continually an invalid. I saw the poor thing was so weak that she could not stand upright. The saint said, with a heavy sigh, as she attempted to move about, " If I were to go to Tripoli, would you give me a ride on your camel?" I answered, "Every morning a couple of hours," during which time I always walk. She then complained of her poverty. She did not know how she should get money enough to go on her pilgrimage to Mecca. If God had given her the strength of others, she would have walked bare-foot over The Desert. I consoled her by saying, that, being a saint, all the pious Moslems would relieve her. She would get a ride from one and another, and God would soon help her over the dreary Desert. The Maraboutess was busy embroidering in coloured worsted, chiefly the bodies of frocks, which are worn by brides on their marriage-days, as well as by lady Mooresses on other festivals. In ten days she earns two shillings, the price of one embroidered frock. She has always more than she can do, for
the women of Sockna consider garments made by her, " holy robes," and keep them all their life-time. For the rest, she, poor thing, liyes on alms. She asked, of course, many questions about women in Christian lands, and was very much surprised to hear that the supreme ruler of England was a woman. The Maraboutess observed, however, in her character as such, " What a pity she (the Queen of England) was not the daughter of Mahomet, like Fatima!" The saintess then asked if Her Majesty had any children, and was glad to hear she had so many. Three or four children is a good number for women in these oases. She was puzzled to know why I was not married. I told her I could not carry about a wife in Sahara. Another woman, listening, observed, "Why, you foolish one, leave her at home till you return." These ladies then spoke of religious rites, and asked me if a Christian, when he was buried, was placed on his knees. This notion they have got from our habits of prayer. Moslems never kneel, properly speaking, at prayer. Their attitudes at prayer are in style and essence, prostration. The ladies, growing bolder, began to speak of the " Bad Place," the ultima thule of Moorish discussion with Christians, imitating the fire of perdition with their hands and mouth, wafting the air with those, and blowing and puffing with this, and then asked me how I should like "The Fire" But I returned, "Christians say all Mohammedans will go into that fire." This greatly shocked them, and they asked if I thought so likewise. I replied, " All who fear God, and are good to their neighbour, may expect to see Paradise, if there be one." "Ah, that's good!" these proselyting ladies exclaimed. The Maraboutess was, however, more thought-
ful. "Do you doubt there is a Paradise?" she asked, looking me full in the face.
