However extensive the culinary operations in the chieftain’s tent, they did not absorb the whole care of his household. Simultaneously were going on the plaiting of baskets, the weaving of stuffs, the churning of butter, the preparing of skins, and the casting of bullets. The mould is two pieces of slate for half-a-dozen bullets at a time. The bow and arrow of the Numidian hunter having given way to the musket, this might be considered, at least, a modern invention. But no, they were slingers as well as bowmen, and in the manufacture of leaden pellets, they were so expert, that, as Ælian tells us, Cæsar had supplies from hence. The dwarf palm presents them with materials for tents, ropes, baskets, dishes, &c. The plant is called _Doum_ or _Jumard_; the fan-like leaf, _Lyzaf_, serves for baskets, and their dishes are baskets. From the fibrous substance round the stalk or root, _Liff_, they spin thread, which they weave for the tent-covering, and spread out upon the ground, passing the thread with the hand. The haïks are, of course, home-made: those for the women and children have sprigs or lines of bright and lively colour. The weaving is more ancient[272] than the “flying shuttle” of Job, and is done by hand, as the Cashmere shawls, or Arras tapestry. The warp, which is very slender, is suspended; the woof, thick and slightly twisted, is passed by the hand; when there are colours, there is a ball for each; every colour in the pattern, is one thread. After the thread is passed, a flat heavy iron with short spikes, protruding like a comb, is used to beat it down, when it gains the character of felt. But this vestment is of too great importance in a domestic, manufacturing, political, hygeian, and picturesque point of view, to dispose of thus. We travel thousands of miles to see an old ruin. Adventurer after adventurer staked his life against a glimpse of the interior sands of Africa. Here is the swaddling bands of a race. Is it not worth turning over and handling, and seeing what it is made of, and how it fits? THE HAÏK. If Prometheus had set himself down to consider, not how many things he could invent for man, but what single invention would serve him most, he might have fixed on the haïk. It is not known in Arabia, Judæa, or any part of the East. It is mentioned by no ancient writer; yet on its intrinsic characters, I claim for it the rank of first parent of costume. It is found in Barbary. Who then shall assign to it a date? The region is a nook in the ocean of time, where the wrecks of all ages are cast up, and here, like the moon, these things are found, which are lost elsewhere.