Many negroes from Fouta-Toro come amongst the Moors to study the Koran; they often remain five or six months, and have no other means of subsistence but alms. Though Musulmans, they are in bad repute, and very generally despised amongst the Moors, who say they are fit for nothing but slaves. The negroes take nothing with them, because they would be sure to be stripped by the hassanes; they always travel on foot, and carry at their backs a small board, on which they write passages of the Koran. There are amongst the Moors a sort of vagabonds called _Wadats_; these are the very poorest hassanes, who have often neither tents to lodge in, nor cattle to feed them; and being too idle to work, which indeed they consider as a disgrace, they like better to run from tent to tent and beg for a living. The insolence of these troublesome parasites is without bounds; when they arrive at a camp they throw it into confusion: nothing is heard on all sides but the disputes which they cause by their importunities. Impudent as they are, they get whatever they ask for; because, if they were to complain to their tribes that they had been ill received in a camp, the hassanes would carry off the herds belonging to that camp while feeding in the woods, and the marabouts would be obliged to give many head of cattle to redeem them. The parties of Wadats are chiefly composed of women and children; there are seldom any men amongst them: they travel on foot or mounted on asses, and always apply to the chief of the camp, who is obliged to find them provisions. To get rid of them, it is common to give them food enough for three or four days, and send them off; they then go to another camp, where they beg again, and as they know that they shall always obtain as much as they want to eat, they sell what they can spare for Guinea cloths, often to the very people who afford them hospitality. If they have no beasts to carry what has been given to them, they borrow some to go as far as the next camp. They visit only the marabouts, for the hassanes and zenagues refuse to receive them. At the time when the gum is collected, these vagabonds beset the marabouts, and follow them into the woods, requiring to be fed, and worrying them till they can get a good share of gum, which they carry to the markets. The marabouts dare not refuse them, for the Wadats would join together if they did, beat them, and steal their gum. Such is the life of these people. It is worthy of remark, that when they are with the marabouts they are very exact in performing the salam; but they trouble themselves no further about it when they are out of their sight.