IBN BATUTA IN MELLE 131 " solely to indicate his disdain for them." The experience stirred in Ibn Batuta such wrath that he regretted to have entered the country of black men who were thus illmannered, and who treated white men with so little respect. His disgust and indignation were for several days overpowering. He could hardly prevail with himself to continue his journey, and he had nearly resolved to return with the caravan with which he had come. However, a stay of seven weeks in Aiwalatin appears to have modified his views. Possibly what he observed there of the degeneracy of the Berbers led to more sympathetic reflections upon the attitude assumed towards them by the blacks, and he determined to carry out his intention of travelling at least as far as the court of Melle.

It is evident from what he says that the Berbers of Ghana, though Mussulmans, and observing all the religious customs of their faith, studying jurisprudence and theology, and devoting a considerable portion of their time to learning the Koran by heart, had to a very great extent assimilated themselves to the customs of the blacks. The domestic privacy of the Moslem was not observed, and they had adopted the native habit of tracing their genealogy in the female line through a maternal uncle. The inheritance, as with the native royal dynasties in pre-Mohammedan days, went to the son of a sister. This was a practice which, though it is known to be common in Negroland, Batuta says that he had never seen, except amongst pagan Indians in Malabar.

The climate of Aiwalatin, Ibn Batuta says, was exceedingly hot. Food was abundant there, and the inhabitants were very prettily dressed, in clothes imported for the most part from Egypt. The women were beautiful, and, in Ibn Batuta's opinion, very superior to the men. He found occasion for much criticism of their domestic conduct, but with regard to the strictures, of which he is not sparing, it is possible that there may be another side.

Mohammedan women, in the great days of the Ommeyades in Spain, were not confined to harems, but went unveiled,