United States or Saint Kitts and Nevis ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She was not ashamed to show her admiration of man and horse, and Maïeddine did not know that her thoughts were more of El Biod the white, "drinker of air," the saddle of crimson velvet and tafilet leather embroidered in gold, and the bridle from Figuig, encrusted with silver, than of the rider.
There is no government, and strictly speaking no central authority; each town and village has its own chief. The mode of life is patriarchal. A great many Moorish merchants are settled in the town, and rapidly make fortunes there. They receive consignments of merchandise from Adrar, Tafilet, Ghât, Ghâdames, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli.
Water in leather bottles was carried about for sale to all who cared to drink in the exhausting heat, by men who announced their approach by ringing a small hand-bell. Moorish and Spanish coins alone passed current. The province of Tafilet contains several large villages and small towns.
Among the sources of wealth in Tafilet we may name very fine sheep, whose beautifully white wool makes very pretty coverlets, oxen, first-rate horses, donkeys, and mules. As at El-Drah, a good many Jews live in the villages together with Mohammedans. They lead a miserable life, go about half naked, and are constantly struck and insulted.
His Excellency observed, "I am ordered by my Sultan to defend this city against all assailants, and I shall do so till I am buried beneath its ruins. Though all the coast-cities were captured, Mogador should never be surrendered." Some of the credulous Moors said, "The Shereefs will come from Tafilet, led on by our Lord Mahomet, and destroy all the cursed Nazarenes.
Starting on the 4th of May, 1828, he arrived, after terrible sufferings from the heat, and a sand-storm in which he was caught, at El Arawan, a town of no private resources, but important as the emporium for the Toudeyni salt, exported at Sansanding, on the banks of the Niger, and also as the halting-place of caravans from Tafilet, Mogadore, Ghât, Drat, and Tripoli, the merchants here exchanging European wares for ivory, gold, slaves, wax, honey, and Soudan stuffs.
The slaves were all girls, and all black, and of varying ages, ranging from ten years to about thirty. They had lately arrived in caravans from the Soudan, by way of Tafilet and the Wargha, and some of them looked worn from the desert passage.
Timbuctoo was known at last, as well as the new caravan route across the Sahara by way of the oases of Tafilet and El Harib. Was Caillié compensated for his physical and mental sufferings by the aid which the Geographical Society sent to him at once, by the prize of 10,000 francs adjudged to him, by the Cross of the Legion of Honour and the fame and glory attached to his name? We suppose he was.
Word Of The Day