397 SECTION VI. Of the Habitations of the Bedoween Arabs HAVING thus described the several buildings peculiar to the cities and towns of this country, let us now take a view of the habitations of the Bedoweens and Kabyles. Now, the Bedoweens, as their great ancestors, the Arabians, did before them, Isa. xiii. 20. live in tents called hhymas *, from the shelter which they afford the inhabitants; and beet el shaar, i. e. houses of hair, from the materials or webs of goats hair, whereof they are made. They are the very same which the ancients called mapaliat; and being then, as they are to this day, secured from the weather by a covering only of such hair-cloth as our coal sacks are made of, might very justly be described by Virgil to have, rara tecta, thin roofs. The colour of them is beautifully alluded to, Cant. i. 5. "I am black, but comely like the tents of Ke"dar." VOL. I. 3 F *Sc. a Khama, he pitched a tent, operuit locum umbræ captandæ ergo, &c. Vid. Gol. in voce. + Qualia Maurus amat dispersa mapalia Pastor, Sil. Ital. lib. xvii. 90. Lucan. 1. iv. 684. Et solitus vacuis errare mapalibus Afer Venator. Familiæ aliquot (Numidarum) cum mapalibus pecoribusque suis (ea pecunia illis est) persecuti sunt regem. Liv. 1. xxix. § 31. Numidas positis mapalibus consedisse. Tac. Ann. 1. iv. § 25. "dar." For nothing certainly can afford a more delightful prospect, than a large extensive plain, whether in its verdure, or even scorched up by the sun-beams, than those moveable habitations pitched in circles upon them. When we find any number of these tents together, (and I have seen from three to three hundred), then, as it has been already taken notice of in the Preface, they are usually placed in a circle, and constitute a douwar. The fashion of each tent is of an oblong figure, not unlike the bottom of a ship turned upside down, as Sallust* has long ago described them. However, they differ in bigness, according to the number of people who live in them; and are accordingly supported, some with one pillar, others with two or three, whilst a curtain or carpet let down upon occasion from each of these divisions, turns the whole into so many separate apartments. These tents are kept firm and steady, by bracing, or stretching down their eves with cords, tied to hooked wooded pins, well pointed, which they drive into the ground with a mallet; one of these pins answering to the nail, as the mallet does to the hammer, which Jael used in fastening to the ground the temples of Sisera, Judg. iv. 21. The pillars which I have mentioned, are straight poles, eight or ten feet high, and three or four inches in thickness; serving not only to support the tent itself, but, be ing Edificia Numidarum, quæ mapalia illi vocant, oblonga, incurvis lateribus tecta, quasi navium carinæ essent. Sall. Bell. Jug. § 21. render it, ver. 9. ing full of hooks fixed there for the purpose, the Arabs hang upon them their clothes, baskets, saddles, and accoutrements of war. Holofernes, as we read in Judith, xiii. 16. made the like use of the pillar of his tent, by hanging his fauchion upon it; where it is called the pillar of the bed, from the custom perhaps that has always prevailed in these countries, of having the upper end of the carpet, mattress, or whatever else they lie upon, turned from the skirts of the tent towards the centre of it. But the [xwvwer] canopy, as we should, I presume, be rather called the gnat, or muskeeta net, which is a close curtain of gauze or fine linen, used all over the east, by people of better fashion, to keep out the flies. But the Arabs have nothing of this kind, who, in taking their rest, lie stretched out upon the ground, without bed, mattress or pillow, wrapping themselves up only in their hykes, and lying, as they find room, upon a mat or carpet, in the middle or in the corner of the tent. Those indeed who are married, have each of them a portion of the tent to themselves, cantoned off with a curtain; the rest accommodate themselves as conveniently as they can, in the manner I have described. The description which Mela and Virgil have left us of the manner of living, and of the decampments among the Libyan shepherds, even to the circumstance of carrying along with them their faithful domestic animals, are as justly * Vid. Excerpta ex P. Mela. ** justly drawn up, as if they had made their observations at this time. Quid tibi pastores Libyæ, quid pascua versu From the dou-wars of the Bedoweens, who live chiefly in the plains, we are to ascend to the mountainous dashkrahs of the Kabyles, which consist of a number of gurbies*, as the dou-wars do of hhymas. These gurbies are generally raised - either with hurdles, daubed over with mud, or else they are built out of the materials of some adjacent ruins, or else with square cakes of clay, baked in the sun. The roofs are covered with straw or turf, supported by reeds or branches of trees. There is rarely more than one chamber in the largest of them, which serves for a kitchen, dining-room, and bed-chamber; besides one corner of it that is reserved, as I should have mentioned also in the hhymas, for their foles, calves, and kids. As these hovels are always fixed and immoveable, they are undoubtedly what the ancients called magaliat; and therefore Carthage itself * Gellio Doxius cœli filius, lutei ædificii inventor, placet exemplo sumpto ab hirundinum nidis. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 56. Magalia dicta quasi magaria, quod magar Punici novam villam dicunt. Isidor. Orig. 1. xv. c. 12. Vid. Boch. Chan. 1. i. itself, before the time of Dido, was nothing more than one of these dashkras *. The Kabyles, from their situation † and language, (for all the rest of the country speak the Arabic tongue) seem to be the only people of these kingdoms who can bear the least relation to the ancient Africans. For, notwithstanding the great variety of conquests, to which the low and cultivated parts of this country have been so often subject, yet it is more than probable, that all, or the greater part of the mountainous districts were, from their rugged situation, in a great measure left free and unmolested. Whilst the Nomades therefore of the plains, and the inhabitants of such cities and villages as were of easy access, submitted by degrees to the loss of their old language, and to the introduction of such new laws and customs as were consequent upon these invasions; those who retired to the mountains, and there formed themselves into kabyleah, i. e. clans, may be supposed to have been the least acquainted with those novelties. It may be farther urged, that as they would be hereby obliged to converse chiefly among themselves, so, for the same reason, they would continue to be much the same people, and in all probability preserve their original c. 24. Magalia quæ a vallo castrorum Magar vel Magul instar villarum fixæ erant, &c. Vid. cl. Wassæi not. in Sall. Bell. Jug. P. 285. * Miratur molem Æneas, magalia quondam. Vid. p. 5.59. &c. En. i. 425. |