Rev. H. B. Tristram's Notes from Eastern Al/jeria. 369 



concealed witli the horses. In half an hour he returned^ and 

 reported the Sheik " meleia bezzaf" (very good), as proved by 

 an invitation to breakfast. I trotted down, was met by two 

 Arabs, conducted into an irregular square of tents, and when I 

 had dismounted, was led under the Sheik's tent, where mat and 

 cushion were already spread for me. The horses were also 

 introduced under the same roof, and a large bundle of green 

 fodder laid before them. There was no partition within, con- 

 trary to the usual custom, so I could survey the domestic ar- 

 rangements at my leisure. The Sheik, a young man, seemed 

 to have three wives. The elder, and evidently the mistress, as 

 she made and served the coffee, might be about twenty-five, but 

 looked as all Arab women of that age do, withered and forty-five. 

 The two others were baking cakes and frying eggs in butter for 

 me, and seemed about fifteen or sixteen years old. They were 

 decidedly good-looking, and each with a baby tied in a bundle 

 on her back, so as not to impede work. The goats and cows 

 were brought in and milked by the two pretty wives at my feet. 

 After our simple feast, the Sheik produced pipes, over which we 

 carried on a broken conversation, the drift of which, on his part, 

 was that the Inglez were very good friends of the Sultan, and once 

 drove his enemies (here making a peculiar grimace) out of Egypt; 

 and on my part, that I wanted the eggs of Rachma and Nissr 

 (Egyptian and Griifon Vultures), and hoped he would have some 

 for me on my return in four days, when he should be richly re- 

 warded for his exertions. The pipe ended, we started again, and 

 after a few miles' ride, during which my horse cast a shoe and 

 became dead lame, we re-entered the forest. The cork-tree predo- 

 minates, and as we approach the coast, is used, though without 

 system, and as a common right, by various tribes. The trees are 

 peeled, i. ^.''the stem from the ground upwards, but seldom the 

 large limbs, once in about nine or ten years. The operation does 

 not improve the appearance of the forest for the first two or three 

 years. No continuous line of bark is left ; but the life of the tree 

 seems to be preserved by the thin membrane which is left inside 

 the bark. We passed an Arab camp employed in barking and 

 stacking the cork. All these forests arc claimed by the Empire 

 as ' domoins dU'tot,' and are let to French com|)anics, who have 



