y letter; and the district is
immediately ordered to pay double the loss, one half to the person
robbed, and the other half to the Imperial treasury.
203
These robberies, however, rarely occur; for the bashaws of the
provinces and the alkaids of the douars feel it a duty incumbent on
them to protect all travellers and strangers; so that they would,
in the event of a robbery being committed, expose themselves to a
severe reprimand from the emperor, and an intimation that they
were, by suffering such irregularity, incompetent to their
situation, and would be liable to a heavy fine, or a discharge from
their office, for _neglect of vigilance_, which, in this country,
is considered _very reprehensible_.

Travelling through the province of Suse, I once witnessed the
emigration of an extensive douar of Arabs, amounting to about 200
families. They were just leaving their habitation, where they had
been encamped only a few months: it was a fine grazing country; the
camels, horses, mules, asses, oxen and cows, were all laden with
the tents and baggage of these wanderers. On enquiring the cause of
this emigration, I was told that the inhabitants were infested with
musquitoes and fleas to such a degree, that they had all
unanimously resolved to emigrate to another place, which they had
fixed upon, and that they would reach it by night. These wandering
Arabs, without any fixed habitation, are of a restless,
ungovernable spirit: they never cultivate the earth, as do the
Arabs of the plains of Marocco, but live, for the most part, on
camels' milk, occasionally killing a camel or a goat for food;
204 grazing their camels in the adjacent country: they live in the true
Patriarchal style, and seek the means of supplying all their wants
within themselves. To effect this purpose, they barter a few of
their camels for wool, and thus supply themselves with that article
for clothing, which is made in every (_keyma_) Arab tent, by the
women, at their own respective looms; each female being the
manufacturer for her own family. The cloth is wove in pieces of
seven cubits long and about two and a half broad, of the natural
colour of the wool: these pieces of cloth are afterwards converted
into cloaks, mantles, and tunics. Those who choose to indulge in
the luxury of dress,