The dish was kuscoussoo, so I was not to lose such an opportunity. What had been despatched was for the supply of guests who had arrived before us: she now had to recommence for us. When I had succeeded in conveying to her my desire to be instructed in the process of its manufacture, she gazed at me, and asked what I had eaten all my life, and what the women in my country did? After briefly satisfying her curiosity, she made a place for me beside herself, and though her hands never ceased to flutter about and skim over the contents of her tray, like a bird’s wings, nor her tongue to run on; when any part of the operation required attention, she did not fail to awaken mine. FOOTNOTES: [246] These arms are represented by the verge of the papyri of the mummies. The bodies were buried with the face turned to the west. In sacrificing to the manes they turned to the west.--_Schol. Apoll. Rhod._ vol. i. p. 580. In sacrificing on Mount Moriah Abraham turned to the west. [247] The last bard of Clanronald, in making an affidavit before a magistrate, enumerated his ancestors to the ninth generation. [248] Fresnal, Hist. des Arabes avant l’Islomism--_Introduction_. [249] At Tangier the idea of an affinity between the Brebers and the Celts is commonly entertained. Mr. Hay and others mentioned to me, that Highland soldiers coming over from Gibraltar, could understand the natives. He points out in his work the coincidence of Breber and Gaelic words; but when these resemblances are found, they are of words borrowed, and not from any affinity between the languages. [250] _Scou_ in Arabic means _hot_, as they ought to be eaten, and the expression “hot scous” is a pleonasm. [251] Melcarth, from Mel and Cardt, Prince of the City (Carteia), was the title of Hercules. The Jewish word was Malik. The title proper of the Sultan of Morocco is Muley; thence Molla of the Turks. [252] One side is gored out like the mouth of a sack: by this you enter, dropping all clothes outside, and the sack’s mouth is then tied round with a cord. [253] A remarkable conversation is given in Wilson’s “Lands of the Bible,” vol. i. p. 330, with the sheik of a tribe which he found among the ruins of Petra, and who recounted the story of his lineage and the place. [254] Also “perfect” and “seven,” the perfect number completing the “planets” and the “week.” The nasal sound gave _zebon_, whence some derive our word _seven_, also the σέζας of the Greeks. [255] Hottinger, De Reb. Sab. l. i. c. 8. [256] Landseer, Sabæan Res. [257] “Perhaps the most perfect, and certainly the most widely extended religious system which was ever invented by the unassisted reason of man.”--DRUMMOND’S _Origines_, iii. 431. CHAPTER II. KUSCOUSSOO.