The Targui lady often sings in the evenings, improvising and accompanying herself on the rebâza. If she is married, says Duveyrier, she is honoured all the more in proportion to the number of her masculine friends, but she must not show preference to any one of them. The lady may embroider on the cloak, or write on the shield of her chevalier, verses in his praise and wishes for his good fortune. Her friend may, without being censured, cut the name of the lady on the rocks or chant her virtues. “Friends of different sexes,” say the Touaregs, “are for the eyes and the heart, and not for the bed only, as among the Arabs.”[528] Such customs as these indicate delicate instincts which are absolutely foreign to the Arabs and to the Kabyles. They strongly remind us of the times of our southern troubadours, and of the _cours d’amour_, which were the quintessence of chivalry. But it is important to notice that with the Touaregs, as with the Provençals and the Acquitainers of the twelfth century, who may well have had Berber ancestors, these diversions and gallantries were for aristocrats and princes, and in no way prevented the general slavery of women. These customs are curious; they show a degree of moral nobility, and are worthy of note, but at the same time we must guard against according them a general value which they do not possess. It is important, also, to remark that the independence of the Berber lady, who is saved the trouble of grinding the corn, of cooking, etc., rests on the magic power of money. “By means of accumulation,” says Duveyrier, “the greatest part of the fortune is in the hands of women”--(p. 339). In short, it is only by an extraordinary power of illusion that we can recognise in the relatively favourable situation of the Berber lady a case of Amazonian gynecocracy.