The written character is very large, perhaps half an inch long. The empire is divided into provinces; the provinces into districts. The king appoints the governors of both; but the son of the deceased governor is understood to have the preference.
They make their pottery by a wheel, but do not glaze it. The wheel turns upon a pivot placed in a hole in the ground: at top and bottom are two pieces of wood like a tea-table; the lower, which is largest, is turned by the foot, and the upper forms the vessel. When they make a large pot, they put on the top a larger piece: the pots are dried in the sun or burnt in the fire. The iron mines are in the desert; the iron is brought in small pieces by the Arabs, 54 who melt and purify it. They cannot cast iron. They use charcoal fire, and form guns and swords with the hammer and anvil. The points of their arrows are barbed with iron; the crossbows have a groove for the arrow. No man can draw the bow by his arm alone, they have a kind of lever; the bow part is of steel brought from Barbary, and is manufactured at Timbuctoo. They do not make steel themselves.
They inoculate for the small-pox; the pus is put into a dried raisin and eaten. "_Rooka Dindooka_" is a kind of oath, and means, by God. They believe only one God. After dinner they use the Arabic expression, El Hamd Ulillah; praise to be to God.[93]
They believe the immortality of the soul, and that both men and women go to paradise; that there is no future punishment; the wicked are punished in this world. Happiness, after death, consists in being in the presence of God. They are not circumcised. A divorce may take place while a woman is pregnant, but she cannot marry again till delivered. As soon as a woman is divorced, midwives, women brought up to that profession, examine her to see whether she is pregnant.
[Footnote 93: This is the Arabic, or Muhamedan grace after meat; the grace before meat is equally sententious, viz. Bismillah, i.e. in the name of God.]
LETTERS CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF JOURNIES THROUGH VARIOUS PARTS OF WEST AND SOUTH BARBARY, AT DIFFERENT PERIODS, PERFORMED PERSONALLY BY J.G.J.
_On the opening of the Port of Agadeer, or Santa Cruz in Suse, and of its Cession by the Emperor Muley Yezzid, to the Dutch._