now one of his chief officers. It is impossible to suppose that marriage possessed the talismanic power of rendering this man the equal of his princess; it only made him the father of the Bashaw's grandchildren, while the meanness of his own origin was well remembered.

The house was crowded with several hundred visitors, among whom were the mother and sisters of the princess; all were richly dressed, and all but Lilla Kebeera changed their clothes for others still richer. The infant was wrapped in a mantle of gold tissue lined with white satin, and was laid upon loose cotton, in a basket. It was carried round to be shewn to the company; but the countenance of the nurse expressed strong disapprobation on her being ordered to shew it to the Christian ladies; and she covered it as much as possible with the charms it wore; and, wetting her finger, passed it over the forehead of the infant, to preserve it from the evil influence of their eyes.

In the covered gallery before the apartment of the princess were placed long tables, a few inches high, containing thirty or forty dishes of meat and poultry, dressed in different ways. Lilla Kebeera and the princesses, with their attendants, walked round, as before, and waited on the company. To the meat succeeded fruit, confectionary, and sweetmeats. One of the latter was the date bread, which is made in perfection only in Fezzan. The stones are taken out of the fruit, when ripe, and it is pressed with great weights. A loaf weighs from twenty to thirty pounds. When the dessert was finished, the black women brought soap and water, and napkins with gold embroidered ends; a conclusion by no means unnecessary; for though

a few spoons of gold, silver, ivory, or coral, were laid on the tables, the Moorish ladies had fed themselves only with their fingers. The sherbets were in tall glass ewers, placed on the ground. The remains of the feast were gathered up, and given to the poor.

The ceremony of visiting a lying-in lady does not end with the dessert; for each visitor puts into the hands of the lady at least one piece, and sometimes many pieces, of gold. Lilla Kebeera and the princesses made the largest offerings.

The general sherbet is made of water in which raisins have been boiled; to this is added the juice of lemons, and, sometimes, sugar. It is not uncommon for a family of distinction to consume from two to three hundred pounds of raisins at one feast.

It is customary in great families to have the heart of the date-tree brought to table on particular occasions, such as a marriage, the birth of a son, or the first time a boy mounts a horse; but it is a costly dainty, as it ruins the tree. The heart lies at the top, between the branches of the fruit, and weighs from ten to twenty pounds. Its taste is delicious, and its colour is of every shade, from bright green and deep orange, to the purest white,

During the residence of the English ladies at Tripoli, the mother of Lilla Kebeera died in the castle, and they, with others, were admitted to see the body lie in state. Every place in the house of the deceased was filled with fresh flowers and burning perfumes. The apartment in which the body lay was darkened, and hung with rich drapery; and black women carried about burning amber and cloves in silver censers. The coffin

DEATH OF THE MOTHER OF LILLA KEBEERA. 487

was placed on a bier raised about three feet from the ground, and covered with different cloths of velvet and silk, some with sentences of the Koran sewed on them, others with gold and silver embroidery and fringe. The coffin was covered with a number of gold and silver habits, belonging to the deceased; and at the head was a large bunch of flowers, natural and artificial, to which fresh flowers were continually added. Mats and carpets were spread round the bier, and embroidered cushions at the head and feet. On one of these, at the head of the coffin, sat Lilla Kebeera, daughter of the deceased, richly dressed; but without jewels, or any new piece of apparel, which denoted her being in mourning.

When the coffin was carried out of the house, it was covered with a pall of black and coloured silk, ornamented with gold and silver, with a deep border of massive gold work, and a black silk fringe. The corpse was preceeded by the sons of the Bashaw, and by the Mufti, and followed by the chief officers of state, and the principal people in Tripoli. After these, followed a great number of black men and women, carrying wands, with labels fixed at the top, declaring them freed from slavery, either by their late mistress, or Lilla Kebeera. What an honour to the dead, what a gratification to the living, to set the captive free, instead of devoting him to perpetual servitude in another world, by shortening his existence in this!

The body was buried in a profusion of costly clothes and jewels. It is believed that the spirits of the dead meet in celestial assembly every Friday, which accounts for their being interred in a variety

of rich habits; as it would be disgraceful for them to appear dressed beneath their rank.

This event was succeeded by one far more melancholy. The Bey, a handsome man, and of an upright generous mind, was assassinated in his own apartment by his brother, who had an ambitious, uncontroulable spirit. The room in which the atrocious act was perpetrated was darkened and shut up; every thing being left in the same state as it was at the moment, even to the blood upon the floor. It was opened to be shewn to a few friends, and the English ladies were of the number; it was then, with all it contained, doomed to perish with the Bey, and, like him, "to moulder away in darkness." Against the walls, on the outside of the apartment, had been thrown jars of water, mixed with soot and ashes.

The women of the East have been represented as mere automatons; but the feelings of the Bey's wife and mother, on this melancholy occasion were not less strong than those of an English wife and mother would have been, on the loss of such a son and husband, in such a manner.

The widow of the Bey went to weep over the tomb of her late husband, who was interred in the mausoleum of the reigning family in the great mosque. The way from the castle to the mosque was lined with the Bashaw's guards; the disconsolate princess left the castle about sun-set, accompanied by her two eldest daughters. The grave had been previously strewed with fresh flowers, being the second time they had been changed that day; immense nosegays of the finest flowers were placed within the mausoleum; and a

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profusion of scented waters was sprinkled on the floor. Arabian jessamine, threaded on shreds of the palm leaf, was hung in festoons and large tassels over the tomb; and additional lights were placed round it

When the younger of the two daughters, a child of six years old, saw her mother weeping over her father's tomb, she clung to her mother's barracan, and refused to let it go, till she should open the tomb, for her father to come out. The shrill screams of the attendants, which, on such an occasion, are a compliment due to the mistress, completed this scene of woe. The wretched widow fainted, and was carried back to the castle, in the arms of her women, in a state of insensibility.

Velvet and embroidery are indeed worthless things, after the contemplation of such a scene of sorrow; yet I will not omit the description of an apartment belonging to the wife of a Moor of the first distinction, with whom the wife and sister of the British Consul lived on terms of great intimacy.

The hangings were of different coloured velvets, made into pannels, and thickly inlaid with flowers of silk damask; a yellow border, about a foot in depth, finished the hangings at top and bottom; the upper one embroidered with sentences from the Koran in lilac letters. Before the alcove which contained the bed, were three curtains, composed of narrow stripes of curious embroidery, sewed together; and at the bottom of each was an embroidery of gold and silver, full half a yard deep, with a gold and silver fringe. These were placed above each other so as to shew the borders of all; forming in the whole, embroidery and fringes, of gold