cloth or silk garments, which are richly embroidered with gold;
when they go abroad, they cover this dress with an alhaik, differing
in quality according to the circumstances of the wearer; and which
they fold round them like a large blanket. They never move their
turbans, but pull off their slippers, when they attend religious
duties, or their Sovereign, or visit their relatives, friends,
priests, or civil and military officers.

The Moorish gentry are clean in their persons, in their manners
tolerably genteel and complaisant, far from being loquacious, though
not prone to reflection. They possess an unbounded degree of duplicity
and flattery; are perfectly strangers to the notions of truth and
honour, promising a thing one day which they utterly deny the
next. They are less irascible than many other nations; but when
grossly injured, seek revenge in assassination. They are more
vindictive than brave, more superstitious than devout, firmly attached
to their ancient customs, and wholly averse to every kind of
innovation.

The Moors, in general, are extremely fond of fruit and vegetables,
which contribute very much to their contentment. The peasants eat meat
only on certain great days. They are excessively dirty in their
cooking, and the style of their dishes is not at all adapted to the
taste of an Englishman. Their soups are made most intolerably hot with
spices; and their favourite dish is _cous-ca-sou_, which appears to me
to be prepared in the following manner: The meat and vegetables are
laid alternately in a large bowl, and seasoned; then the whole is
covered with fine wheaten flour, made into small grains, very like the
Italian pastes. It is raised into the form of a pyramid, and I should
imagine stewed, or rather steamed, as the outside remains perfectly
white, which it would not were it baked. The whole of the inside, when
brought to table, is mingled almost into one mass; the meat separating
from the bones, without the smallest difficulty: it does not contain
any gravy, and the Moors eat it by handsfull.

I generally live upon mutton and veal, both of which are very good:
the bread and butter are excellent, but the latter will not keep more
than twenty-four hours without becoming rancid. My greatest annoyance
here is the infinite number of bugs and fleas, which infest me by day
and night most intolerably.

LETTER XIV.

_Fez--Debility of the Moors--Mosques--Antiquities, Roman,
Carthaginian, and Sarac