A still more remarkable operation is that of eating it. The Moor gets his kuscoussoo into his mouth without the aid of a spoon; yet neither does he drop it, nor does he poke in the plate to catch greasy grains, nor smear one hair of his moustache. He beats the chopsticks with the knowing jerk of the South Sea islanders. A monkey only spills his kuscoussoo. With the points of the fingers of the right hand a portion of the grains is drawn towards the side of the dish. It is fingered as the keys of a pianoforte till it gathers together; it is then taken up into the hand, shaken, pressed till it adheres, moulded till it becomes a ball; tossed up and worked till it is perfect, and then shot by the thumb, like a marble, into the open mouth.[258] Eaten otherwise it is no longer kuscoussoo, and the spoon-feeding Frank may live upon it for twenty years, and never know what it is that he is eating.[259] Dr. Shaw, who lived so long at Algiers and travelled all over Barbary, has remarked--but not accurately--these peculiarities. He calls the ball _Hamsa_, mistaking cause for effect. The name of the ball is _cora_. Hamsa is a slang term for hand, corresponding with our word _fives_, and its dexterity being peculiarly exhibited in this operation, they may have jocularly answered his questions about it with that word. Marmol, a Christian captive, entertains great respect for kuscoussoo, but Leo Africanus, a Moor of Grenada, a Mussulman and Prince of the Land, thus reviles it. “In winter they have sodden flesh with a kind of meat called Cuscusu, which being made of a lump of dough, is set upon the fire in certain vessels full of holes, and afterwards is tempered with butter and pottage. The said cuscusu is set before them all in one platter only, whereon gentlemen as well as others take it not with spoons, but with their claws five (Hamsa.) The meat and pottage is put all in one dish, out of which every one raketh with his greasy fists what he thinks good. You shall never see knife upon the table, but they tear and greedily devour their meat like hungry dogs. Neither doth any of them desire to drink before he hath well stuffed his paunch: another will sup of a cup of cold water as big as a milk bowl.” M. Roche, who had the advantage of Leo by a double apostacy, used his proficiency in the opposite sense, and won the day in his late _coup de main_, by his dexterity in making and projecting coras. Kuscoussoo with other food was put upon a table for him; knives, forks, and spoons were laid out; but he seized the kuskas or kuscoussoo dish, squatted down with it on the floor, and turned up the sleeve of his uniform, observing, “This is the way we eat kuscoussoo.” That other extraordinary adventurer, Ali Bey, who was sent by the Prince of Peace with the scheme of revolutionizing Morocco, until the Spanish forces should be ready to land to take possession of it, was equally expert--in fact, it was a _sine quâ non_ of admission into society.