c a ll E l K a lia ; it is prepared without s a l t ; the meat is cut in long slips, about an inch wide, and hung in the air for a few days, when it is put into jars, w hich are filled with clarified butter (Smin): this preparation will keep several y e a r s ; it is used b y the rich and affluent when crossing the Desert to Tim- buctoo, or when on a jou rn e y to Mecca, and indeed whenever they travel through a country where food is not readily procurable. Bread is seldom used in the traverse o f the Desert, but certain flat cakes, similar to crumpets, b u t without leaven, are kneaded, and put on embers, where the y are half baked, and eaten with honey and butter b y the merchants and traders w ho accompany the caravans. T h e women are not less cleanly than the men ; for besides performing the usual ablutions before and after meals, they wash their face, hands, arms, legs, and feet, two or three times a day, which contributes greatly to their beauty. T h e poorer classes, however, look deplorable, and excite disgust. T he faces o f the old women appear shrivelled, from the immoderate use o f cosmetics and paint during their youth. T h e chie f delight o f the women is to attend diligently to their children, and a numerous posterity is fervently desired. In obedience to the injunction o f Mohammed, mothers suckle their children two years.* W h en circumstances oblige them to take a nurse, she is not treated as a servant, but becomes one o f the family, and passes her days among the children she has suckled, b y whom she is ever afterwards cherished and p rotected; the children are taught to consider he r as their own relation, and * “ Let the mother suckle her child full two years, if the child does not q u it. “ the breast; but she shall be permitted to wean it with the consent of the “ husband.” Vide Koran. ‘Treatment of. Children. 173 she is called (Emuh d 'd Mellib) the milk mothe r: in case o i future adversity, sfie never applies ineffectually for succour to these children, who consider it a d u ty incumbent.on them to assist h e r to the utmost extent o f their power. These milk- mothers are chosen from well formed, young, and healthy womeni T h e new born infant is not swaddled up in a profus i o n o f clothes, but is laid naked on a carpet, and exposed in a lofty and spacious apartment, where, breathing fre e ly , >it grad ually acquires strength, while d a ily ablution renders it vigorous and healthy. The females are not taught to read or write, but learn e arly, and from experience, the domestic offices o f the h ou seh o ld ; their body and limbs are never confined b y tight dresses, their garments are loose and easy, suffering the limbs to have free action, and the body to take its natural fo rm ; they are occupied in grinding the corn, baking the bread, and preparing the food for their husbands and family . Ancient custom, and a predilection for the manners o f their primogenitors, rendering these necessary occupations pleasant and agreeable. T h e male children, whose mode o f education is equal throughout the empire, on attaining the eighth year (not eighth day, as some have asserted,) are circumcised, and then begin to study the Koran. He is taught to fear and adore God, to respect old age and his parents ; he is initiated in the principles o f hospitality, which virtues being inculcated at school, and being afterwards seen constantly practised in his father’ s fam ily , then cannot fail to be, at the age o f puberty, in d e lib ly engraven on his heart. His inclination directs him to learn the useful arts, the care o f the flocks, the tillage o f the soil, or the exercise o f arms; those engaged in the latter are particularly noticed by
27f 39
To see the actual publication please follow the link above