Till the education of the children is supposed to be finished they go very ill clad, or even naked; the boys have only a coussabe made out of a pagne; the girls are usually naked till the age of puberty; some wearing a small guinea cloth when they have left school, or when they have made especial progress in their studies, by way of distinction. A father seldom instructs his own children, unless there is no school in the camp, in which case he teaches the girls, because it is not the custom to send them to school in another camp. The father does not complete the education of the boys; they commonly learn the first elements from him, and are then sent to some marabout who keeps school. The parents give each of them two cows, the milk of which supplies them with food; the master does not receive his salary till the education of the pupil is finished. The hassanes seldom learn to write, and their principal ambition is to ride a horse well and to fight. The Moors assemble to prayers five times a day, the king always attending. Amongst the Braknas the mosque is formed by an enclosure of thorns, sometimes under the shelter of a mimosa, if there happens to be one at hand. The Moors often meet here to discuss affairs of business or politics; they even pass the whole of the day in chatting on indifferent subjects; but this holy place the women are not permitted to enter; they perform the salam before their own tents. Even the men, when they enter the mosque, observe a peculiar ceremonial, which consists in putting the right foot first, and leaving it with the left foremost: on entering the mosque they perform an ablution. They have no public crier, as amongst the negroes, to call them to prayer; but, according to ancient custom, one of the oldest marabouts summons them together by calling _Allah akbar_; several of the other marabouts repeat this cry on entering the mosque; the practice is not obligatory, but they seem to consider it as a duty. The king’s tent differs in nothing from those of his subjects; it is twenty feet long and ten wide, and covered like all the others, with a stuff made of sheep’s hair;[22] at each end are eight leather straps, and as many stakes, upon which it is stretched. Two upright poles ten or twelve feet long, crossing at top and fitting into a cross-piece a foot long and six inches wide, are placed in the centre to raise it; this cross-piece rises above the uprights, and prevents their ends from piercing the awning. A carpet of sheep’s hair manufactured in the country surrounds the interior of the tent; four stakes are driven in at one end, supporting two cross-bars, over which a cord or string is passed in the form of a net, and upon this is placed their baggage. Their things are stowed in square leather sacks shaped like portmanteaus with an opening at the end; and these bags have a lid secured by a padlock.