The Moorish women, like the men, are exceedingly ignorant, covetous, and gluttonous; but they are not, like them, universally licentious; for they are taught that virtuous wives will become celestial beauties in another world, while all who fail in this duty will be forever annihilated. An unfaithful wife is punished with immediate death. A man has as many wives and female slaves as he can maintain. Although the inhabitants of Fezzan are Mohammedans, their women are seen a great deal in public, and are remarkable for wanton manners. Some of the customs of the Moors seem at variance with their habitual contempt of women. The wives of chiefs are always appointed to conduct negotiations for peace; and a feminine voice of entreaty will arrest the uplifted scimetar just ready to fall on the head of an enemy. In common with the Bedouins, they consider the female apartments as a sanctuary, which protects even the murderer. In some tribes, where the women never appear before the men, the criminal, if he gets within hearing of their dwellings, calls out, “I am under the protection of the harem!” The inmates, without showing themselves, cry aloud, “Fly from him! Fly from him!” and even if the man were condemned to death by the prince himself, he is from that moment free to go where he pleases. It would be considered a great breach of politeness for a Moor to enter his neighbor’s tent. If he wishes to see him, he calls him out; and the wife, hearing his voice, immediately veils herself. It would likewise be improper for a husband, when he entered the female apartments, to recline upon the mat which his wife was accustomed to use. The Mongearts are an agricultural tribe, less intelligent, and more mild, than their neighbors. Their wives perform the greater part of the labor, but are not treated with so much harshness as among the other tribes. They have a simple method of preventing disputes when they divide the spoils taken in war or hunting. They separate the booty into as many lots as there are men; then each one puts some article into a bag, which is well shaken up, and the first woman or child they see, is called upon to take an article out of the bag, and lay it upon one of the lots. Each one recognizes what he put into the bag, and is obliged to rest satisfied with the lot on which it happens to be placed. The Monselemines are said to be even more avaricious than other Moors. Every thing with them is settled by money. Among the other tribes, if a Mohammedan woman were known to have a Christian lover, she would be killed, and the man must change his religion to avoid death; but the Monselemines throw the woman into the sea, and allow the Christian to atone for his crime with money. The _talbes_, or Moorish priests, take as many wives as they can support. The women, as in other Mohammedan countries, do not go to the mosques, but perform their devotions at home, with their faces turned toward the east.