addison’s west barbary.

405

or hulks; for it doth excellently accord with their defcription fet down by that greatintelligence of divinity in his note. B. S. Luke xv.

In fome parts of this country there is great plenty of white mulberry trees, nourifhedon purpofe to feed the filk-worm, a creature that doth afford the curious many de-lightful fpeculations ; but the Moor regards it only for its emolument. The feafon ofthe worm being paffed, they feed their cattle with the refidue of the mulberry leaves.

The towns of commerce, and converfation, have pleafant orchards of orange,lemons, and limes, with gardens yielding plenty and variety of fallad. And thatwhich maketh their gardens both profitable and delightful is, that they are always fruit-ful and retain a refrefhing verdure. And this theyeffed- by keeping'the foil conftantlyin a temperate moifture : for the water-courfes are fo providently contrived that everygarden receives it in due proportion, and at a certain hour ; which running among, thelittle trenches, affords a very equal and fertile irrigation.

Befides the fallad ordinary in other countries, they have one fort rarely to be metwith in Europe , which they call by a word, founding Spanifh Tomatos. This growsin the common fields, and when ripe is plucked and eaten with oil: it is pleafant but aptto cloy. Barengenas, as in Spain , grow creeping like cucumbers upon the ground ;thefe are boiled with beef and mutton, and of no vulgar eftimation among the Moors. -

Some Cavilas (a divifion in the country that much refembles that of counties in Eng-land) have large and fruitful vineyards, and the blood of the grape, though it beutterly prohibited them by Mahumed their prophet, yet of late, through the licentiouf-aefs of the times, it is liberally quaffed by many of the Moors. But that they mightnot herein give offence to the weaker Muffulmen, nor betray any contempt of the law,they are generally cautious in this liberty, and ufe it, as we fay, under the rofe.

The plants of this country are very obfervable for their variety and ftrangenefs, formany are to be found in Barbary, which cannot be met with in colder climes. Andfome, which are ufual in other countries, are in this found to differ much from theirdefcriptions in common herbals. This I learned from a worthy friend (well read inthis part of nature) who had enterprized, and would doubtlefs have finifhed, a collec-tion of Barbary fimples, if his too early immortality and immature death had not de-prived the world of that profitable endeavour.

The grain in this differs not from that in other countries, excepting that here are twoforts of grain, fcarce well known in other parts of the world. The one they call Pha-rouk, which is of a leffer fize, hungry and eourfe, much refembling, if not altogetherthe fame, with the Spanifh Panizo, and it is only the more beggarly Moors that ufe thisfor bread. The other is known among them by the name of Tourkia , which is alarger body than the former, and yields good flour, whereof bread is made for thenobles of the land. As the barley and beans are reaped in April, the wheat in Maya nd June, fo is September the ufual feafon for gathering the other kinds of breadcorn.

The rains are to the Moors , what the Nilefcope is faid to be to the Egyptians, foraccording to their plenty or fcarcenefs, they are able to. foretell the dearth and plentyof the year. But there is a fort of religionifts among them, who meafure the productsof the earth by the fins of its inhabitants, and who divine of the fuccefs of their tillagefrom the obfervation of their Ramadan (or Lent ) and the due celebrating of theirfEafterJ Hid Seguer, or the little feafl: that concludes it.

If the clouds are fparing in fhowers at feed-time, and earing* the crop is little lean;and in their beft harvefts, they feldom reap more than will bring about the year, fothat the failure of one crop brings an inevitable dearth upon the land. The Moors

4 are