On the 25th of the moon, I passed over to the eastern side of the river, to purchase camels; as there were many buyers at this time from our camp, I did not find any good enough for the exorbitant price demanded. I passed the greater part of the day, and the night following, at the town of Nousreddin, in the house of one of the principal chiefs of the Berbers. He bears the title of Malek, as do all the distinguished chiefs of Berber, Shageia, and Dongola. Their dignity is hereditary, generally passing from father to son. I have noticed that the families of the Maleks exceed the common people in respect of stature and stoutness. The Malek, in whose house I lodged, a man about 60 years of age, was near seven feet high, and very stout. His eldest son, a young man about 22 years of age, was about 6 feet 4 inches in stature, stout and well proportioned. I imagine, that this superiority in size is owing to the circumstance that they eat well and heartily, and have no work to do beside seeing that others work for them. The family of this Malek carried their hospitality towards me to a very extraordinary length for people professing Islam. I was offered, by the mother and mistress of the house, my choice of two of her daughters for a bedfellow. They were both young, and the handsomest women I have seen in Berber, but married to husbands whose houses were at the other end of the town. When I understood this circumstance, I told the mother, that a genuine Mussulman ought to regard lying with his neighbor's wife as a crime almost as bad as murdering him in his bed.[36] I am sorry to be obliged to say, that though the Berbers are a quiet and industrious people, very civil and disposed to oblige all for whom they have any regard, yet, with respect to their women, they appear to be unconscious that their conduct is quite irreconcilable with the precepts of the Koran, and the customs of their co-religionists. They suffer them to go about with the face exposed--to converse with the other sex in the roads, the streets, and the fields; and if the women are accustomed to grant their favors to their countrymen, as liberally and as frequently as they did to our soldiers, I should imagine that it must be more than commonly difficult, in this country, for a man to know his own father.[37]