50 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



Norwich Naturalists' Society, I endeavoured to describe the 

 method of drawing water; but Canon Tristram's description 

 is so much better, that I will quote it. 



" But the machine for drawing water from the well is both 

 original and ingenious. There is a double pulley and a large 

 leathern bucket slung by pulleys across the beam. The water- 

 drawer holds two ropes, one of which draws up the bucket, which 

 has a leathern funnel at the end of it, to which the second rope 

 running on the other pulley is attached. This second rope, when 

 the bucket reaches the top, turns the tube into the cistern,-- on the 

 same principle which we see adopted in some English mines." 

 (1. c. 134.) 



The drawer is generally assisted by a camel, or sometimes 

 a brace of mules pull the cord. There is always an inclined 

 pathway for them to run down, which materially lessens the 

 labour. There is no garden without its well, and some of 

 them are very deep. The wheel reaches to at least ten feet 

 above the ground. Little trenches convey the water all 

 about the garden, as the sand would soon soak it up ; these 

 trenches, says Canon Tristram, are " beautifully formed of 

 hard lime, and branching in all directions from the well, so 

 that the precious fluid could be conveyed without the slightest 

 waste through the grounds." He considers the cultivation 

 in these gardens " far superior to that of Laghouat," but the 

 southern oasis is capable of greater things. The water is 

 limpid and tasteless. All day long the Mzab haul it up. 

 " The Mzab work always " has become a saying. Men, 

 women, and children toil in the gardens, even in the noon- 

 tide hours when no European could venture out of doors. 



There are two cemeteries, one with a row of common 

 earthenware urns on each grave, and the other without. 

 Canon Tristram gives a woodcut of the urns in his work. 

 A Marabout, or Sheik's tomb, was distinguished by some 



* Generally a stone tank, sometimes two. 



