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Population and Condition of the Jews in Misratah and Tripoli. Regini sighs for the honour of hoisting the Union Jack. Village of Zeiten. Leghma; and the tapping of the Date-Palm. Corn Fields and Grain Culture in North Africa. Manipulation. Sahel or Salhin; its splendid Gardens. The Eastern Terminus groups of Mount Atlas. Ruins of Lebida; and other Ancient Ruins. Monosyllabic Old Moor.
In the season the Arabs drink their leghma, and the Mahometan Negroes their bouza, the Soudanic merchants chew their ghour, nuts, and kouda, as our jolly tars their tobacco, and others munch the trona. My taleb came to me to see if I were dead. He had heard such a horrible report in the town.
I learnt from him, the Vice-Consul had been sick lately, but was now better. In The Wady there is fever during summer, but not much now. The Kaed, I saw in conversing with him, had been drinking leghma, and was "elevated," which sufficiently accounted for his interrupting our march, and the violence of his conduct. Our people say, he wished us to encamp in his district, to amuse himself with us.
In fact, the Arabs of Tripoli are nearly all located and confined to The Mountains. 14th. Afternoon, arrived at Zeitin, a small village. The palm is abundant as usual, and the gardens are full of olive and other Barbary fruit-trees. On encamping, I purchased some Leghma لقمة according to some philologists, "tears" of the palms, and others "foam," from the fermenting quality of the sap.
The chaouch gets drunk in the evening on leghma, furnished by the Nather, who wants to worm out all the news; and there is little doubt that he has learned the whole truth, and a good deal more. El-Maskouas, the Turkish officer employed in collecting contributions for Mourzuk, arrived at the camp and brought letters from M. Gagliuffi.
The dead saints are, however, here, and perhaps everywhere else in Tunis, more decently lodged, and their marabets are real "whitewashed sepulchres." They make many burnouses at Toser, and every house presents the industrious sight of the needle or shuttle quickly moving. We tasted the leghma, or "tears of the date," for the first time, and rather liked it.
Essnousee tells me, Abd-El-Geleel destroyed the palms of Sockna by simply cutting off the tops or heads of the palms, in the same way as people do when they tap palms for leghma. Some of them grow again, others do not, it being all a matter of chance. The date-palm is most abundantly cultivated on the Tripoline Coast, supplying the people with a full third of their food. 13th.
The sap, or honey of the palm is a delicious and wholesome beverage when drunk quite fresh; but if allowed to remain for some hours, it acquires a sharp taste, something like cider, and becomes very intoxicating. It is called poetically leghma, "tears" of the dates.
When a tree is tapped, a small hut of palm-branches, cut from off the tapped palm, is set up close to it, which is turned into a sort of tap-room, or boozing-place, for drinking the leghma, and half a dozen Moorish louting fellows are always seen idling and skulking about the hut, or sweltering with intoxication inside, as long as the tree yields the spirituous juice.
Received a present of leghma from the Sheikh, very acrid and intoxicating. The women admire much my straw hat, made of fine Leghorn plat, and wonder how it is done. None of the inhabitants but our Marabout read and write. Portions of the Koran, however, are committed to memory; and one day an old blind man repeated several chapters of the Koran for my especial edification.
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