This morning there was a grand gormandizing of bazeen[48], in celebration of the nuptials of the two daughters of my taleb. The feast was given by the fathers of the young men. Nearly the whole of the male population of the _Ben Wezeet_, besides strangers and the Arab soldiers, went to dig, and dip, and dive into the huge bowl of bazeen, some three or four hundred adults, besides boys. The house was small, and parties entering together were limited to twenty. However, as the object is merely to compliment the new married people and their parents, after they had swallowed half a dozen mouthsful, they immediately retired and left the coast clear for the rest, and thus the ceremony was soon got through. There was an exception in the case of the soldiers, whose hungry stomachs found the bazeen so good that they stuck fast to the bowl, and were obliged to receive the Irish hint of being pulled away by main force before they would relinquish their tenacious grasp. My taleb, as a matter of course, called upon me to go to the festa. I found the festive hall to be a smallish oblong room, the walls of which were garnished with a number of little looking-glasses, polished brass basons, and various other small matters, including little baskets made of palm-branches. The floor was covered with matting and a few showy carpets, and one or two ottomans were arranged for seats. In the centre of the room was placed an enormous wooden dish, full of bazeen, or thick boiled pudding, made of barley-meal, with olive-oil, and sauce of pounded dates poured upon it. Every person ate with his hands, rolling the pudding into balls, and dipping the balls into oil and date-sauce. A great piece of carpetting was laid round the bowl, to be used as a napkin to wipe the hands and mouth. The wooden dish or bowl might have been three feet in diameter, and was replenished as fast as emptied with masses of boiled dough, oil, and date-sauce. There was suspended over it, two or three feet above, a wicker roof, to prevent the dirt from falling into it when the people stood up all around and wiped their hands. The visitors squatted down together, encircling the bowl, in numbers of about eight or ten. An Arab, who had a lump given him in a corner, like a dog, found fault with it and returned it, saying, "It is not enough." This, of course, was delicate, but another lump was given him, for which also he growled dissatisfaction. This _feeding_ of bazeen was the fullest extent of the good things of the feast. Some of the more respectable merchants went in and out without tasting the bazeen, merely paying the compliment to their friends. I asked an acquaintance how much he thought a feast of this sort cost. He replied, "About twenty dollars, but it is not the value of the materials of the feast, but the custom, which is esteemed." Not one of the Ben Weleed were present, but all the Wezeet deemed it their duty to attend the feast. The marriage feast is some eight days after the marriage.