Rev. II. B. Triatram^s Notes from Eastern Algeria. 367 



not the only instance in which a discoverer has been anticipated, 

 and lost his honours through his own delays. 



Salah had long been waiting with hard-boiled eggs and butter- 

 milk, when I obtained my prize, and we soon were in saddle 

 again for Bou lladjar, a SiJahi station some sixteen leagues 

 further on, where I had heard there was an officer, on whom of 

 course I proposed to quarter myself. Spahi stations here serve 

 the traveller's purpose (if he has letters) like monasteries in the 

 remoter parts of Italy ; but there is much greater difficulty in re- 

 imbursing the officer, as he keeps no poor's box in his doorway. 

 The remainder of our day's journey lay chiefly along the gorge 

 of two streams which flow to the Mediterranean, the Wed el 

 Kcbir and the LovJedjeah, and by a path on which no English 

 huntsman in cool blood would think of risking his neck. But 

 our trusty, sure-footed Arabs walk without slipping across a 

 long sloping rock. The scenery was rich and varied. Rocky 

 glens, open glades, here and there patches of wheat, smooth 

 valleys clad with luxuriant herbage, groves of wild olive and 

 cork, the whole backed by mountains, gently rising on each side, 

 which are covered with forests, not close like those of Sweden or 

 Canada, but open and loose, affording many breaks, and com- 

 posed of a great variety of trees, cork predominating, with its 

 gnarled limbs and dark foliage, but largely relieved by the paler 

 tints of magnificent ash-trees, all now (April 14) in full leaf. 

 The ash seems to be precisely the same as our English species. 

 There is, besides, a tree very closely allied to the English oak, 

 ilex, chestnut, and a vast undergrowth of richly coloured shrubs 

 — arbutus, myrtle, bay, jasmine, white and yellow broom of many 

 species in full blossom, and as brilliant as any furze. I found 

 one knoll covered with an exquisite orchis unlike any I ever 

 found elsewhere — of a very pale lemon-yellow, with a powerful 

 scent resembling that of jasmine. The flower was in shape like 

 the figure of Orchis longicoma in Desfontaines' book, but much 

 larger, and all of this sj)otlcss primrose colour, except three or four 

 very faint dots on the lip. Leaving the glen, about six o'clock we 

 came out upon a plain ready for the scythe, covered with scented 

 tulips (Tulipa cclsiana), paiisies, scarlet and blue anemones, &c. 

 In the midst of this plain stands a square redoubt, Bou lladjar, at 



