vulgar to bite the bread; therefore the piece broken off is
sufficient for a mouthful, so that there is nothing that should
offend a delicate appetite in this antique mode of eating. We
remained several hours with our hospitable Shelluh friend; and we
departed, after taking a little sleep, at four o'clock in the
afternoon. Travelling all night, we arrived, at the dawn of day, at
a large house in Idaugourd; the Shelluh to whom it belonged brought
us carpets, and we slept under the wall of his house till the sun
arose. The people of this country prefer sleeping in the open air
to a room, and they have an excellent mode of securing themselves
from the heavy dews of the night, by covering their heads and faces
with a thin woollen hayk or garment, which they throw over their
heads and faces. When I have had the Arabs of Sahara (who have
conducted the caffilahs from Timbuctoo) at my house at Santa Cruz,
155 I gave them a long narrow room, 48 feet long, which was called
(_beet assuda_) the apartment of Sudan, to sleep in; but they
invariably came out at night, and placed their carpets and mats, as
beds, outside of the room, and slept under the balustrade, in
preference to the confinement, as they called it, of a room.

We rose at sun-rise, passed through the picturesque district of
Idaugourd and the Woolja, and entered Mogodor at four o'clock, P.M.
156

AN ACCOUNT
OF THE
RISE, PROGRESS, AND DECREASE
OF
THE PLAGUE
_That ravaged Barbary in_ 1799;
FAITHFULLY EXTRACTED FROM
LETTERS WRITTEN BY THE HOUSE OF JAMES JACKSON
AND CO., OR BY JAMES G. JACKSON,
MERCHANTS AT MOGODOR,
TO THEIR CORRESPONDENTS IN EUROPE, DURING THE
EPIDEMY.

* * * * *

_Fragments respecting the Plague_.

When the Emperor's army proceeded from Fas to Marocco in the summer
of 1799, a detachment of which passed by Mogodor, consisting of
20,000 horse and 10,000 foot, it had the plague with it; so that,
wherever it passed, the plague uniformly appeared three days after
its arrival at the respective douars near which it encamped; those