Queen Fatima passed her time
in conversing with visitors, performing devotions, or admiring her
charms in a looking-glass. Other ladies of rank amuse themselves
in similar idleness. The lower females attend to domestic duties.
They are very vain and talkative, very capricious in their temper,
and when angry vent their passion upon the female slaves, over
whom they rule despotically.
The men's dress differs but little from that of the negroes, except
that they all wear the turban, universally made of white cotton
cloth. Those who have long beards display them with pride and
satisfaction, as denoting an Arab ancestry. "If any one
circumstance," says Mr. Park, "excited amongst the Moors favourable
thoughts towards my own person, it was my beard, which was now grown
to an enormous length, and was always beheld with approbation or
envy. I believe, in my conscience, they thought it too good a beard
for a Christian."
The great desert of Jarra bounds Ludamar on the north. This vast
ocean of sand is almost destitute of inhabitants. A few miserable
Arabs wander from one well to another, their flocks subsisting upon a
scanty vegetation in a few insulated spots. In other places, where
the supply of water and pasturage is more abundant, small parties of
Moors have taken up their residence, where they live in independent
poverty, secure from the government of Barbary.
