arrives at Deena.--Ill treated by the Moors.--Proceeds to Sampaka.--Finds
a Negro who makes gunpowder.--Continues his journey to Samee, where he is
seized by some Moors, who are sent for that purpose by Ali.--Is conveyed
a prisoner to the Moorish camp at Benowm, on the borders of the Great
Desert._


The town of Jarra is of considerable extent; the houses are built of clay
and stone intermixed; the clay answering the purpose of mortar. It is
situated in the Moorish kingdom of Ludamar; but the major part of the
inhabitants are Negroes, from the borders of the southern states, who
prefer a precarious protection under the Moors--which they purchase by a
tribute--rather than continue exposed to their predatory hostilities. The
tribute they pay is considerable; and they manifest towards their Moorish
superiors the most unlimited obedience and submission, and are treated by
them with the utmost indignity and contempt. The Moors of this, and the
other states adjoining the country of the Negroes, resemble in their
persons the Mulattoes of the West Indies to so great a degree, as not
easily to be distinguished from them; and in truth, the present
generation seem to be a mixed race between the Moors (properly so called)
of the North, and the Negroes of the South, possessing many of the worst
qualities of both nations.

Of the origin of these Moorish tribes, as distinguished from the
inhabitants of Barbary, from whom they are divided by the Great Desert,
nothing farther seems to be known than what is related by John Leo, the
African; whose account may be abridged as follows.

Before the Arabian Conquest, about the middle of the seventh century, all
the inhabitants of Africa, whether they were descended from Numidians,