. The
Malek, in whose house I lodged, a man about 60 years of age, was near
seven feet high, and very stout. His eldest son, a young man about
22 years of age, was about 6 feet 4 inches in stature, stout and well
proportioned. I imagine, that this superiority in size is owing to the
circumstance that they eat well and heartily, and have no work to
do beside seeing that others work for them. The family of this Malek
carried their hospitality towards me to a very extraordinary length for
people professing Islam. I was offered, by the mother and mistress of
the house, my choice of two of her daughters for a bedfellow. They were
both young, and the handsomest women I have seen in Berber, but married
to husbands whose houses were at the other end of the town. When
I understood this circumstance, I told the mother, that a genuine
Mussulman ought to regard lying with his neighbor's wife as a crime
almost as bad as murdering him in his bed.[36] I am sorry to be obliged
to say, that though the Berbers are a quiet and industrious people, very
civil and disposed to oblige all for whom they have any regard, yet,
with respect to their women, they appear to be unconscious that their
conduct is quite irreconcilable with the precepts of the Koran, and the
customs of their co-religionists. They suffer them to go about with the
face exposed--to converse with the other sex in the roads, the streets,
and the fields; and if the women are accustomed to grant their favors
to their countrymen, as liberally and as frequently as they did to our
soldiers, I should imagine that it must be more than commonly difficult,
in this country, for a man to know his own father.[37]

On my return to camp, I was amused on the way by a dispute in connection
with this subject, between the Malek I have mentioned and a soldier; it
happened in the boat that brought me back to camp. The boat was heavily
laden, and this gigantic Malek was stepping into it, when the soldier I
have mentioned intimated a determination to exclude him, calling him by
several opprobrious names, and among other terms, "a pimp." Upon this,
I checked the soldier, telling him that this man was a considerable
personage in his country, and extremely hospitable to the Osmanlis. This
mollified the soldier, and the Malek took a place as well as he could.
The Malek then addressed the soldier in a mild manner, and asked him why
he had bestowed such appellations upon one who was a Mussulman, as well