54 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



seen the Moslem devotees, and to have had a glance into 

 the interior of their Mosque. There are two towers, one 

 perfect, the other leaning ; the court alluded to is not 

 directly beneath either of them. 



We stayed until Friday for the weekly market, which is 

 one of the most important in southern Algeria, being far 

 larger than that at Berry an. It was formerly held outside 

 the walls, no doubt that tribes from a distance might trade 

 without seeing the internal arrangements of the city, but 

 now it is in the market place near the south gate. The 

 buyers sit, and the sellers walk about among them, calling 

 over the wares, which consist of woollen stuffs, burnouses, 

 butter, desert potatoes, and dates of all sorts, as well as live 

 stock — camels, goats, and sheep — which are brought up by 

 merchants to be conveyed into the Tell. Jews vend silver 

 bracelets, and cracked date stones are sold as food for 

 camels! It is a mart for everything .brought by the cara- 

 vans, which are constantly going and arriving. Yet it does 

 not last above three hours. The merchants began to come 

 about eight o'clock, mounted on Mahri or Mahai-a camels, 

 from Waregla, and by eleven it was all over. 



We were now nearly into May, and though my health 

 had been wonderfully preserved hitherto, I was anxious, with 

 the summer coming on, to get back to the coast. If before 

 I feared the rain and the cold nights, I now dreaded tenfold 

 more the unendurable mid-day sun. Accordingly on the 

 22nd we moved to Mellika, determined to make our visits 

 to the other towns as short as possible. The next day, 

 strolling out with my gun, I collected specimens of the Pied 

 Wheatear (Saxicola Icnconicla, Pall), a male in moult, with 

 the under tail-coverts as nearly white as possible, and a 

 good deal of grey on the crown, (the gizzard contained a 

 thick white grub about three quarters of an inch long), 

 Rock Pigeon, (generally observed in pairs on the rocks, 

 and not in the palms where the Doves were,) Egyptian 



